Yaesu FT290r - and repair of

Hi all,

I hope everyone is well and most of all enjoying your radio.  


I was kindly donated another radio to me by my very good friend and fellow Ham Koenraad recently. (He also donated the Kenwood Trio TR-2500 2m HT to me a while back which I enjoyed restoring!)

As the title says a Yaesu FT-290r......Yes, a multimode 2m radio! Ideal opportunity for me to experience VHF SSB.

It didn't work, or sort of did but had a known fault with the VFO dial not working. My dear friend handed it to me along with a spare VFO encoder, a power adapter plug, the original hold all soft case with strap and a slightly 'dodgy' but working Yaesu microphone. Absolutely and splendidly generous of him. (Still can't thank him enough.)

Now, some people might be disappointed being handed a broken radio but as I love delving into them and as a former electronics engineer it wasn't junk but pure gold.


Sure enough on power up the LCD displayed the frequency but the VFO control didn't do a thing. Powering down and back up the frequency would jump up by the amount the mode and 'step' button dictated, from that it seems the microprocessor is working which is good.

So onto opening her up and seeing what's what......




AAARRRGGGHHH!

Or maybe the insides would put that fear into most, but for me it's all pure electronics and radio pornography!

A quick look around showed signs of once upon a time being stored with depleted batteries left in it. Corrosion was visible around the battery bay contacts and one of the battery holders didn't match obviously being replaced at some time. This radio is 1980's vintage and I know my friend didn't have it from new so this could have happened at any time. I've seen similar corrosion in other images of this model of radio.....

Switch cleaner and methylated spirits works well on such corrosion the addition of a brush and fibreglass pencil soon cleaned her up. The past battery depletion/storage event had also caused light corrosion on some of the components but was more visually superficial than anything and also easily cleaned up.


These radios are a P.I.T.A to work on! The hoo-hah involved with taking the front panel off is well documented and well founded!

But we got there.........





A quick power up showed that the encoder did have power going to it as well as sending pulses verified with my ancient oscilloscope. Hmmmm, the spare encoder I was given had a much better indent 'click' so I may as well change it while I'm there before digging further.

The only other thing that could have been wrong was the next component(s) in line with the encoder and a check of the schematic showed as such........



Between the VFO encoder 'S02' on the left and the microprocessor 'Q01' on the right is 'Q04' a 4069 CMOS Hex Inverter. It provides the connection between the VFO encoder and clock pulses to the microprocessor so had to be at fault.

Further disassembly of the pain in the ass front panel and associated PCB panels gained me access to this chip. A royal pain to desolder even utilising desoldering wick and a known issue with these 1980's designed PCB's!

Whilst I was there I noticed some damage to C03 a 10uF electrolytic capacitor........one of those infamous 'leaking caps' everyone harps on about? Nope, damaged from someone 'inspecting' it probably with the use of a screwdriver ruining the can and seal. Pulled that bugger out and plopped in a new one.

Well out came the chip and lo and behold...........I didn't have one in my component stocks. Bugger!

Ordered some, put the radio away until the snail mail delivered the spares.


A few days later the spares arrived, got the radio out, replaced said chip and Hurrah! all working! Tuned up and down sweet as a nut and then noticed another problem.......

The audio would slowly break up regardless of mode and after a few minutes disappear altogether! Damn!
A quick spray of air across the audio chip would cool it enough to bring the audio back for a little while. Thermal runaway at it's very best example.

Did I have one of them in stock? Did I buggers like, so back to ordering one online and waiting for the snail mail once again.
(This particular chip is 'obsolete' and so vendors try to charge a fortune for them! A search around found a reasonable price from a vendor not trying to rip you off.)


A few days later, (again!), the audio chip turns up and I duly replace it.......



That was real test of my ageing bear paw hands and failing eyesight. Less of a pain than the 4069 on the front panel though!

Powered the radio and up she fired. Very happy bunny!   


Tuned around for a while picking up many stations, (seems there was a VHF SSB contest going on and a check revealed it was the first Tuesday of the month when these occur). Works fine, tunes fine and the audio was great with no further problems. Awesome.

So impressed with it that I sent a video of it working to my dear friend who donated it to me. (Along with my other dear friend Gary, another Ham that played a big part into me getting my Amateur licence.)

Texts came flying back about jumping to a certain frequency on SSB and before you knew it we were holding a test and a little net.

Without help from a repeater we have difficulty usually reaching each other on 2m FM.....not so on SSB! Despite the lowly 2.5 watts on this Yaesu and my wire dipole in the loft vertically configured for the usual repeater work we happily chatted to each other. I must admit I giggled like a girly overly excited about my shenanigans and this opportunity to chat to my friends. My very first VHF SSB transmission too!


There's a few more things that need sorting....it doesn't have a CTCSS for repeater access but as many of you may have witnessed, I built my own for the 1970's vintage Yeasu FT227r I bought a short while ago. I may well have to build another.

I have plans for some other modifications - none of them involving 're-capping' or digging around with a 'golden screwdriver'.
(Some of the documented details online for this radio and it's repair really leave a lot to be desired.....)


So, after a rather long winded posting, (unlike me), I'll leave you with one further image.

I'm now the proud owner of a working Yeasu FT290r, a classic in it's own right.




Someone will probably point out what a great mobile/SOTA/HOTA/Out-door'sy type of radio this is. Much appreciated but I'm disabled and been housebound for seven long years....but she may venture out in the garden on a summer's evening for maybe a chat with my friends.




Hope I didn't bore any of you too much, (you could have stopped reading).

Just sharing one of my life's little pleasures and my own personal take on enjoyment of radio.


All my very best,
Victor

Fantastic work on a very nice radio, Victor. pleased you are having some good contacts on it.

Best 73s John.

Cheers John, much appreciated mate.

Feels more 'mine' now due to having worked on it.

Still smitten with VHF and nice to get on some SSB but really great that I can chat with old friends direct.  


All the best,
Victor

Great work Vic, I loved reading this post Buddy!

Well done Victor, once again im very impressed. You obviously know your stuff.
I haven't heard the term golden screwdriver for years, I only have a licence for a rusty screwdriver but I'm looking to upgrade to chrome plated soon.

Great job
73's

Cheers Gary.  

Much appreciated and glad you enjoyed the read despite my meandering waffle.

I had hoped it would explain the simple logical path that you can follow to repair such items as well as the joy experienced when you're successful. 

I am happy with the radio beyond belief especially after being able to talk to both of my friends at once directly via Ham radio use. With a little more work on my antennas and choosing the right frequency/mode I may just be able to even speak to you directly! I look forward to that day my friend.


All the best to you,
Victor

Hi Andrew,

Cheers mate, much appreciated.  

It's as I said to Gary previously it's more to do with logical deduction than anything and that's a skill most of us have. The rest is knowing how to handle a soldering iron and being able to take a radio apart..... as well as putting it back together properly without any 'spare parts' left over!

Unfortunately I've seen many examples of this particular radio stripped for 'spares' as they were unable to repair them, (as well as many other models), and usually in a barbaric way too. I do not want to buy a 'spare front' from anyone where the control wiring is hanging off after being hacked through to separate it from the main board!!!


Most of all it's confidence in what you do and you Andrew have shown that in your very own homebrew projects. It's a small step from a power distribution block to simple repairs and with a little leap of faith repairing something more challenging.

Just don't go 'twiddling' RF transformers/coils......it's rarely required, (factory set), does nothing to improve perceived performance and if anything ruins many a good radio. (Cracked ferrite core anyone? )


'Golden Screwdriver' is one end of the spectrum, 'All the gear & no idea' is the other.
(All that test gear but you still couldn't fix it?!?!!)


All the best to you mate,
Victor

One of a classic series of quality designs, better known to many in later incarnations such as the FT-81x units - these true transportable and shoulder wearable and easily manpack ready sets weren't a big line of many variants (much like the commercial grade pro rugged counterparts), but proof that a few good takes can set standards few ever better. I mean, short of a portable Elecraft they are as close to ideal as it gets - I don't count the compact Chinese takes as they are a mixed bag at best and no substitute for an Elecraft.

Good to see this older gear being appreciated for what was outstanding back in the day, and yes Yaseu were past masters when it came to PITA design for compact radio repairs, but hopefully you never get to that point on one you shelled out new beer tokens for.

Hi 'A5H5ATAN1C', (Sorry, no personal in your profile - you may want to sort that if you have requested a callsign).


I'm still very pleased with this radio and it was worth the time required to successfully repair it.

VHF SSB has sparked my interest and I was surprised at the distances of transmissions I receive on her even with a less than adequate antenna, (basic vertical dipole for FM repeater work). So much so that I've just completed a homebrew horizontal Halo antenna this weekend ready for installation.  

Very much looking forward to using her in earnest and extremely lucky to have had the radio donated to me as well as the ability to repair it. I know my friend Koenraad is very happy that I've kept a classic radio alive and kicking.


All the best,
Victor

Very interesting reading thank you.

Hi Geoff,

I'm renowned for being a bit of a waffler with some long posts on the forum so really appreciate that.  


All the very best,
Victor

Hi Victor, well even if you'd just set out to refurbish and make good that old FT as a restoration project alone, and for the challenge, it's commendable and nice to see.

But the fact it's destined to be back in service is great, as good ones are rare now just as they were pretty much hen's teeth gear back in the day anyway. They seem to have either become collector's dust collectors, or been butchered or dead and given their scarcity, none of those other endings are good news.

But just as my aged friend Stan had set his quad band later FT as concretely part of his kit until he goes silent key, my late FT is a permanent fixture of my gear.

Potentially, the only downside to any of the portable/transportable FT's of any gen is their sheer sensitivity which is great on limited antennas when manpack or shoulder worn on battery, but hell on the radio on good fixed antenna setups. But if you think about it, that's the price you pay for an effective portable/transportable that's not a suitcase to wield. But there's enough front panel adjust to tamed the worst of front end overload and worst case, a collection of a handful of rf attenuators is handy.

It's the price you pay unfortunately, notably for as with the later wider span gear, that you're balancing super sensitivity on each sub receiver section that's fairly evenly match across each.

But I'm never going to complain about what is, by my experience, pretty much the nearest thing you'll get to an RR in mass produced radio chassis terms. Elecraft and suchlike are a different league as low-volume 'radiophile' gear where like with audiophile market, it's more ego driven need to be extreme purity that drives the design rather than what Yaesu did, build a high performance relatively accessible high grade unit which could exploit limited antenna setups as true portable ops usually requires.

Just look at their classic thumbwheel VFO pro gear portables, and you can see the lineage of where the design DNA of the FT's come from - and those megabucks virtually and near literally bombproof pro sets were easily worth a huge premium if you needed the portable/manpack 'full rig' expedition and harsh environment operations ready gear. If I didn't already have a decent PRC equiv to a pro- Yaseu manpack, I'd be pursuing obtaining one of those ultra rare pro Yaseu items or the ICOM equivalent.

But in the world where sanity and reality bites, the FT of any gen is a worthy item by any measure hence I bought one as my go-to grab and go to just have to fire up anywhere without needing a suitcase of gear.

About the closest you'll get to yours, in theme and capability, is to portable adapt a usually much bulkier VHF or VHF/UHF MM or a transverter equipped QRP level HF dual banded MM. Beyond that, you'll be talking an 'export' MM (and a seriously nodded and critically aligned at that) and transverter pairing and similarly a battery pack for portable scope and a suitable heavy chassis frame and sling back for it and that's getting into obsessive territory.

For AM/FM only, you could have gone with the easy TYT quadbander mobile option (if we weren't talking repurposed or refurbished project) or one of those HYS fake manpacks that use a generic brand dual band rig at the heart of (which are only worth getting as the conversion kit and adapting to use a decent rig in my book) - but that's not even remotely close to why you took on that FT challenge.

So for what you attempted and why, it's as they say today, a win win situation getting it back to full working order and the educational value of doing, priceless.

Hi Victor,

The first radio I ever had apart from my first CB back in 1980, just got my ticket at the time so could have antennas around without to much notice being taken, however it soon changed to lets actually try using the ticket, so I bought a new FT290R. Yes, I'd never seen or tried a ham radio before taking the ticket, a few readings of the booklet that you could get then and jumped in and took the exam, a City and Guilds back then, a credit and distinction, not bad for a CB'r but I had just finished a RF and Electronics engineering HND /C which probably helped a bit.

Great radio bought from a place in London new,  only had it two weeks when I had the back off, in the radio magazine around at the time (cant recall what it was called) there was always a mod you could do, so we had a roger bleep, daaa de daaa, modified front end filter, and a couple of others which I cant remember, no internet in those days to help sort things, and like you say, all very snail mail to get the bits... then a better antenna, from a slim Jim to a 14 element H/V yagi with rotator, built a phase converter so I could have both H and V operating at the same time giving sort of circular polarisation. Then a 100W amp, etc. etc.... half wished I'd kept just to CB..  ha-ha.   I sold it and most of the CB stuff a few years later when I got married, wish I'd kept the radio stuff and ditched the wife eventually..

It wasn't until a few years ago I resurrected my ticket with OFCOM, now its almost ham all the way... there have been a few changes since then, I'm now DMR, C4FM, FT8 etc. mind it has been almost 40 years I guess...  and occasionally 2m SSB, but still haven't sorted out a decent antenna for me FT991A and 7300 for 2m, on the list... my 2m yagi at the moment is pointing up at the sky looking for satellites, if someone had said that to me 40 years ago I would have laughed at them... 

Enjoy the radio,

Malc

Ah, so we've now had the sentiment of someone who sold their soul for a new one at the time, and yeah I can see why there's more than a hint of regret about selling it along with the old setup.

But hey, we all recover from our necessary evil errors of 'selling up' misadventures eventually - even if it's in our creaky years

Thankfully I'm single being kinda cursed to never be settled (any YL would end up begging to be locked in an asylum or purgatory of a few months of my obsessive shack project lockdown tendency), so never ended up with having her indoors spoil the fun. My dogs were my young family and they were all I needed beyond my interests/hobbies. As much as I'd get very demonic on anyone trying to deprive my of my radio gear, it's a mere tsunami vs any attempt to rob me of my irreplaceable test gear set and tools (and that's a collection of the weird, wonderful and obscure, the tool set). There's a lot to be said to have had good friends over a lifetime of an older gen or two - bar three, all long departed their mortal perches sadly. But it's all part of the vastly diverse and yet strangely parallel common path all radio nuts share

Hi Malc, (G6CTX),

Great callsign BTW.


Good to hear about your forays into radio and being amongst those not scared to crack open a radio but also being  qualified to do as such. (My qualifications were microelectronics & microprocessing based - always loved the analogue and RF side though!)

I've still got some exploring to do but that's the thing about Amateur Radio I'm enjoying, there's so many paths of interest.  

Really appreciate the sentiment and yes, I am really enjoying this radio.


All the best to you,
Victor

Hi Christopher, (A5H5ATAN1C),

Really nice to have a first name to call you and glad you got a CT number issued.  


Yes, I was excited to be donated such an item, really enjoyed repairing/restoring her, but best of all loving utilising her in the manner she was designed for. i.e. a transceiver and not a shelf ornament dust collector.

I'm finding out that she is indeed very sensitive and was pleasantly surprised that I picked up the GB3VHF beacon so strongly with the simple Halo antenna I built. I'm even picking up faint FT8 transmissions so working on hooking her up to a PC for decoding and eventual transmission. Loads of avenues to explore!

I put it all down to that good old fashioned dual gate MOSFET front end, the same is true for my even older FT227ra. It might 'swamp' a bit with a close by transmissions but I'm not planning on sitting on a hill with a dozen other 'activators'.
(This is where I never understood the RF preamp mods and people scrabbling around for mutek front ends.)

It's very definitely a keeper and as the old saying goes, I wouldn't part with her for all the tea in China!


All the best to you,
Victor

Hi Victor,

"Great callsign BTW. "   well done, first one to comment and actually pickup on it... 


OFCOM gave me the choice of keeping my original or choose another one... Charlie Tango (D) X seemed appropriate at the time...  


Happy listening.

Ha!


Normally everything flies straight past by me Malc!

Well done.  



My original Ofcom choice was 'Victor-Charlie-Tango' but unfortunately it had already gone. 'VIC' was the next choice seemingly apt and although probably pretentious it's grown on me and had some great comments.


All the very best to you mate,
Victor

Well, Victor, even when the SIG's are strong, just back off the RF Gain a bit and worst case an inline attenuator will help, but usually the RF gain trick works. Indeed it's very much a double edged sword, because many rigs ended up with Mustek (I think it was) Dual FET daughter boards fitted (one of the many well applied and aligned to death pre-mods my IC211 came with) as most sets still had lesser Rx front ends as standard. But the double edge bit came from the fact that the small shoulder slung orientated units of the series (notably identified by a battery compartment and front BNC connector) were very optimised to be signal magnets on often very limited front mounted antennas. You know the joke about how factory whips and helicals are only fit for the bin - well it's ironic that whilst factory dual band helicals etc Yaesu included weren't fireballs, they were all fit for purpose enough to get you going and let you have a shot at portable ops easily.

Even though I don't use the dual tip dual banded that came with the 818 any more (so mix and match gave you 2m/6m or 2m/70cms combos out of the box), I've still retained them as they are way less intrusive and 'sore thumb' than my sleeve dipoles etc.

I'm not surprised you get roaring SIG's - between that front end's SIG magnet tendency and that characteristic SIG magnet that's a loop of most kinds, you'd need a pretty deaf set to not hear plenty of distant TG and a few beacons and repeaters.

From my depths of a valley QTH, I could hear at least three repeaters, and lots of beacons and distant TG on the factory helical, when I plugged in a mag loop the front end went bananas until I tweaked the front panel controls. So your finding it's very sensitive isn't surprising and even then the FT's can still be souped up receiver front end wise with close matching of FETs etc (as dear Gordon would have done religiously by default) but I'm happy to leave well alone and apply such mods to radios that can greatly benefit from a better Rx front end and close matched parts.

I'm sure you'll be appreciating why people hung onto them now, aside from the fact they only made good value sense owned long term - you grew to appreciate the overkill Rx even if now and then you have to grab it by the scruff of the neck.

Even if you only put it on battery and go out back with a moderate hand held grade BNC antenna, it's an experience to see how much more you hear outside on limited antennas and notably on FT's. Even with my using a more moderate 42inch tactical, I was doing great on a 2M fm local net on low output with good SNR on the distant stations out in the back yard where even my best Chinese items struggled on some heard members present using SMA terminated equiv antennas.

Get a collinear in place and you'll be ready for anything when it's practical to get sorted. First item we put up when we moved, the CL carried over from the old place.

As I hinted at, on a lot of older kit, the improved Rx front end daughter boards like the Mutek item were very worth doing, but some sets were ruined by them.

As for RF receive preamps, spawn of the devil for the most part and even if you had a good one to complement a moderate to good receiver, you often found even good preamps benefited from turning the wick down to maybe giving an S point at best difference enough to bring better 'in the noise' FM stuff above threshold, but you also brought everything else up (noise floor too) similarly, hence I've learnt to hate preamps in RF terms.

Even with an ancient Lafayette Rx I used as an SWL, a long wire was all it took to bring that beastie to life and swamp it - and that was after I removed the aftermarket junk preamp someone saw fit to add internally.

Like I say, Rx preamps are products of Hell Inc literally as they cause more receiver issues than they offset used blindly.

Nice work on the repair.
"I giggled like a girly" well, what can I say about that! 
Good to see an older machine brought back to life and in good working order again.

Love these radios! And the 690 and 790, too. I used to have a 290 that I bought new back in the '90s.

Hi Bob,

Good to see you still about, haven't seen you on the forum for a little while. Hope all's well your way.

Thanks, very much appreciated. You know things are going well when an old man starts 'giggling like a girly', just an overwhelming feeling of excitement!

Nice to have the old girl in use.  


All the best,
Victor

Hi Tracy,

Hope you're keeping well Stateside.  

Oh wouldn't it be great to have the 6m and 70cm sets too!

I agree wholeheartedly, great little sets and truly loving my very own now.


All the best to you,
Victor