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President McKinley for William in Texas

OldTech03

Sr. Member
Dec 15, 2017
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This is for William from Tyler TX.

The Mckinley is done! Ok, William, this was an adventure in reverse engineering kinda-sorta I had to undo some things that must have been done by someone dwelling into the deep dark areas of internet shade tree technology. That being said the radio worked but much of what was done had negative effects rather than positive.

1) Removed the resistor on the board used to modify the AGC circuit essentially it stopped the AGC from functioning at all and when heavy SSB signals were encountered it just went into audio distortion mode. That resistor was removed and the AGC no works as designed

2) Along with the AGC mod, they installed a cap value at the input of the audio amp that mad more noise I think they did it through seat-of-the-pants troubleshooting and found it increased the volume. Anyway, I removed this cap and the audio fell a bit so I checked the cap that was factory and it was bad so after repacing that it fixed the low audio issue and testing the cap showed a very high ESR number which would make sense.

3) Moving right along I found numerous issues with bad connections as such that contributed to a poor result after all those were fixed things the radio started looking like it might be able to be aligned.

4) But first I had to re-do the variable Power circuit that was again red-necked and mounted with one leg of the transistor holding upright. So I mounted that to the side of chassis and redone the wiring, cleaned the control it know works a bit smoother.

5) There was a jumper going from the base lead of the driver to the board it didn't seem to have any need for it so I removed that and put it back to original factory condition.

6) Both the audio amp chip and the regulator chip were replaced at some point "not unusual for a radio of this vintage" but they to were done slopppppppppy so I remounted both and cleaned up the mess.

7) Cleaned all the controls and switches as well as cleaned the entire board and returned it as close as possible to its former glory.

8) There were some electrolytics that I replaced and some switching diodes here and there. Also did some re-routing of wires and such.


Ok know for the images:

The image below shows that when they replaced or resoldered the connections they inadvertently soldered two leads that should not be soldered.
AUDIO CHIP 1.jpg


This cap was paralleled across a bad cap simply removed and replaced the bad one
BAD CAP NOT NEEDED.jpg

The image below is of the jumper on the Driver ?? removed it and did it right.

JUMPER WIRE.jpg

The next 2 images are just some before and after you get the idea the entire board looked like the before image it now all looks like the after image.
SOLDERING ISSUE 1.jpg REG CLEANED UP.jpg

Ok, that is enough of the images I did include one of the 4 videos but I know need to get on to the next unit I have about 16 more and about 32 more that want to send as soon as I give them the go-ahead. So it's back to the grind.

The 2 radios you hear in the video I restored and/or repaired for them. first was an FT101EE and of course the Galaxy 959 they are both about 8 miles away.


 
Last edited:

This is for William from Tyler TX.

The Mckinley is done! Ok, William, this was an adventure in reverse engineering kinda-sorta I had to undo some things that must have been done by someone dwelling into the deep dark areas of internet shade tree technology. That being said the radio worked but much of what was done had negative effects rather than positive.

1) Removed the resistor on the board used to modify the AGC circuit essentially it stopped the AGC from functioning at all and when heavy SSB signals were encountered it just went into audio distortion mode. That resistor was removed and the AGC no works as designed

2) Along with the AGC mod, they installed a cap value at the input of the audio amp that mad more noise I think they did it through seat-of-the-pants troubleshooting and found it increased the volume. Anyway, I removed this cap and the audio fell a bit so I checked the cap that was factory and it was bad so after repacing that it fixed the low audio issue and testing the cap showed a very high ESR number which would make sense.

3) Moving right along I found numerous issues with bad connections as such that contributed to a poor result after all those were fixed things the radio started looking like it might be able to be aligned.

4) But first I had to re-do the variable Power circuit that was again red-necked and mounted with one leg of the transistor holding upright. So I mounted that to the side of chassis and redone the wiring, cleaned the control it know works a bit smoother.

5) There was a jumper going from the base lead of the driver to the board it didn't seem to have any need for it so I removed that and put it back to original factory condition.

6) Both the audio amp chip and the regulator chip were replaced at some point "not unusual for a radio of this vintage" but they to were done slopppppppppy so I remounted both and cleaned up the mess.

7) Cleaned all the controls and switches as well as cleaned the entire board and returned it as close as possible to its former glory.

8) There were some electrolytics that I replaced and some switching diodes here and there. Also did some re-routing of wires and such.


Ok know for the images:

The image below shows that when they replaced or resoldered the connections they inadvertently soldered two leads that should not be soldered.
View attachment 31671


This cap was paralleled across a bad cap simply removed and replaced the bad one
View attachment 31672

The image below is of the jumper on the Driver ?? removed it and did it right.

View attachment 31673

The next 2 images are just some before and after you get the idea the entire board looked like the before image it now all looks like the after image.
View attachment 31674 View attachment 31675

Ok, that is enough of the images I did include one of the 4 videos but I know need to get on to the next unit I have about 16 more and about 32 more that want to send as soon as I give them the go-ahead. So it's back to the grind.

The 2 radios you hear in the video I restored and/or repaired for them. first was an FT101EE and of course the Galaxy 959 they are both about 8 miles away.


I am curious as to how much weight the extra solder from the first "field technician" added to the original weight of the radio...lol...lol!
 
Nice work! Until I saw that board I was thinking you were repairing the newer President McKinley. I was going to say there’s really no need to be modifying these radios beyond opening the clarifier, especially on the new SMD model that's totally different.
 
I received the radio in the mail on Saturday, I have now been able to use it a bit. I can say I am happy with the work Denny/oldtech03 did on the radio. I have spoke on the phone with him, he is friendly and knowledgeable. I would not hesitate to send him another radio, that needs reapair work or an alignment done.

Thanks again, the radio is in much better shape now!
 

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