**********************************************************On this section I wish to show my passion concerning the vintage RTXs recondition above all to come back at reuse these fantastic old timer.

Take a look for yourself, below, good read and vision.

 

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You can see an FT-277 that I inherited from a friend of mine (SK), transceiver that has been forgotten in the attic for about twenty years.....

The first one activity is the boards unmounting and FT-277 (in the photo there is FT-101 but they are same) has each boards into a dedicated bay and with sled that help us to insert/remove completly the board, in fact we need to verify if some component is blackened or bulge, anyway each board must be extract and all contacts must be clean to ensure a perfect contact and this is the starting base for each next activity.

  • This is the second one step, in fact we need act inside of the apparate and to do that we must open by removing both covers remove, hips and finally protection grid on the chassis.
  • The clean of each switch, band switch and relative wafers are important to obtain the good contact otherwise each next adjustments will not produce good effect. You can use a deoxit spary but the quality must be hight, like Caig production.
  • Others particurars.
  • The relays contacts must be clean well with a dry spray, otherwise the switching is not perfect and then the RTX functionality will be compromised.
  • This is the relay (RX-TX) on PA area.
  • Here the board where we have the distribution of tensions, by the way is better to substitute all diodes, for example with 1N4007 (1A-1000V) , above all the four on HV part.
  • Here is VR3 trimmer on Power Regulation unit to calibrate the VFO voltage, but beware to rotare te trimmer, because must be a very little rotation and try some times back and forth close as possible to 6.00 V.
  • The calibration of the VFO voltage (the test point on blue cable connection) is the base to start next steps, in fact we need to adjust VR3 trimmer on Power Regulation unit like 6V.
  • This is CLARIFIER voltage, anyway the goal is not the absolute value, but is very important that two values are equal, in ON position (with sign to "0" on knob) and OFF. To do that you must adjust the trimmer inside on chassis, of low right corner.
  • This is the trimmer to adjust the CLARIFIER voltage on both positions, like indicated.
  • Trimmer "zero" to align the TX frequency with RX frequency.
  • The capacitors area. We need to adjust the crystals frequecy, eqaul to or near to the resonance frequency with relative 0.3V output on the test point. In RX with the max peak of Signal. In TX with max drive output and max PA output for each band.
  • Download the Service Manual for example on FoxTango web site.
  • Follow the Service Manual like steps by step.
  • =-> Sorry but the steps descriptions are not completed yet, will be put in place ASAP <-=
  • Low power out in TUNE/CW/AM mode.
  • "S9" with a signal of -73 dBm.
  • This is the procedure to align TX frequency with RX frequency, is very simple but highly effective.
  • The original FET is 3SK40, but to improve the performance with better noise figure, it's possible to substitute with 3N201 or 3N211.
  • Anyway the FET replacement is fast, because we can extract simply the old and insert correctly the new one into relative socket!
  • To reduce the hum, like indicatet to the manual you can add (if not already present) an electrolytic 1000 to 2200 microF 25V.
  • The trimmer (with a multiturns, not original and probably replaced by previous owner) to adjust the "S-meter" indication that should be "S9" with a signal of -73 dBm.
  • With efficient final tubes, we have more or less >120W P.e.P. on all bands above 160m, where on 160m, we have more or less 90-100W P.e.P.
  • Like in the photo you can see FT-277 and Ft-101E!