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Circuit board old school for an old radio

Radio Tech

Radio Operator
Sep 9, 2008
858
309
173
62
North Carolina
www.gokarters.com
I bought this radio many years before I even had my ham ticket. Spent a lot of time with a friend Doug Beckwith. He is the one that got me started in ham radio. I spent every field day with him doing satellite communications. At the time he ran a KLM Multi 2700 rig for the Russian birds. He also used a Kenwood TS-520 as an oscillator using a Ten Tec 2510 transverter for other Oscar stuff.
This is the origianl KLM I bought from Doug. This rig has ben packed away for a long time. And somewhere amoung all this stuff here is the original blown board...but where?
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This is the donor I bought out of Texas.
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This was a fun little rig to use on the old sputnik birds. We had a blast. Later own Doug bought a Yaesu FT-726 and sold me the KLM. I spent many evenings catching the birds going over and wanting my ham ticket even more. One August day in the late 80’s I had left to go eat and a storm came up. Lightning hit the tower and took out about everything in the old airstream camper I had my shop and radios set up in.
The power supply board had a hole blown in it about the size of a 50 cent piece. I was very sad.
Forward 6 years later I talked with a tech in Texas that sold me another non-working KLM 2700 rig for 75 bucks. He even had all the manuals with it. I bought the unit and used the rig as a donor to repair mine. Later the phase lock loop circuit went out and just never got around to fixing it.
Now today with a bit more time on my hands I find myself repairing old rigs. But now I want to restore both of the KLM units. The original one has a weighted knob that was custom made by Doug. He also added a preamp circuit to the back of the unit. The donor rig came with the optional built in preamp but is now missing the power supply board.
Only thing to do now is go old school and make one from scratch….

First thing was to remove power supply board from the rig. Then make a copy of it. Dang, scanner is down. No problem.
What I would normally do is scan the back side of the board and save image, open in paint and make necessary adjustments to the image, then print it out on the laser jet.
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Really going old school. Took a clear piece of transparency, tape to back of board. Spent the next few hours tracing out the circuit onto the clear transfer with a fine permanent sharpie.
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Took it to work the next day and put the transfer in the copier upside down and ran several copies while making adjustments. Took copies home and ironed them onto a blank circuit board. The first couple of tries fail.
Why? I was thinking. The copy machine at work is a very expensive piece of equipment. And the thermal bonding of toner to paper is quite good. So good it does not want to come off when ironed onto the board. Next day at work I reprinted the image, loaded that back in the copier and reprint over top of it. This was dome 5 times. Now I was able to transfer the image to the board. After the board cooled I ran it under cool water until all paper was removed. Using a marker I touched up any trace that did not look right.
The paper transfer.
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Transfer ironed on
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Next into the soak bath to remove paper, touch up
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Doing this the old school way brought back many memories. Some I rather had forgetting about.
But the reward is well worth it.
Turned out pretty good for old school.

Board is now etched, covered in flux and dipped in molten solder.
This will give it more of that old 70's look.

Will clean the board up next then drill all the holes and start mounting components.
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So, here is the board all cleaned and flux removed. The top is the original donor radio board.
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Hope a can find some bits tomorrow. Have a few more places to check then I can get this thing populated with parts and reinstalled.
Component side of old and new.
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Now to get all the holes drilled out, components installed, Then test board and look for ripple issues ect.
 

Really nice piece of work RT. I was wondering what kind of paper you used in the copier. I always use a piece of slick paper (like an old magazine cover). The toner doesn't bond well with this, and makes the transfer process with an iron much easier. Good luck with the project, and post the results when the supply board is finished. 73s.

- 399
 
Really nice piece of work RT. I was wondering what kind of paper you used in the copier. I always use a piece of slick paper (like an old magazine cover). The toner doesn't bond well with this, and makes the transfer process with an iron much easier. Good luck with the project, and post the results when the supply board is finished. 73s.

- 399

Thanks 399.
The paper was 3M. All they used at work.
I think I am going to go ahead and buy me a new printer. This time a proper laser jet that uses a toner cartridge. A bit more expensive but look at what you pay for inkjet cartridges.

Planning on getting the board done over thanksgiving holiday. Should go pretty well.
 
Thanks bro. I may have to find me one. Would make doing this easier.

Sure not many here interested in this type of stuff. One reason why I very seldom post much here. Guess my topics are boring lol. Or maybe in todays times folks just buy new stuff and throw the old out.
 
Sure not many here interested in this type of stuff. One reason why I very seldom post much here. Guess my topics are boring lol. Or maybe in todays times folks just buy new stuff and throw the old out.
Not many really technically-minded people post here anymore. Used to be a great tech forum, but most of the techies have been chased out or have moved on.
- 399
 
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Repairing and even operating the old tubers and hybrids is becoming a thing of the past per say.

Having to make a new circuit board or repairable sub assembly is even becoming more scarce.

I can remember the days when Radio shack had a kit to build circuit boards.

The technical side of the hobby used to be repair and aligning your own equipment, any operator worth his salt would be able to at least align his own gear.

Now a days it is what cable to use to upgrade the firmware to the latest and greatest.

Technology will never stop advancing.

Sure is nice to see some of the old timers still trying to keep the vintage gear up and running.
 
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Repairing and even operating the old tubers and hybrids is becoming a thing of the past per say.

Having to make a new circuit board or repairable sub assembly is even becoming more scarce.

I can remember the days when Radio shack had a kit to build circuit boards.

I have to agree and disagree a little here. :D
As far as radio (ham cb) you are correct. No one wnats to repair their own stuff anymore. They junk in the ditch so to speak. Then run out and buy the latest thing out there. We are a dieing breed.

Now if you run over to say the EEVblog it is a different story. These young guys are building their own boards, circuits and buying old test equipment and restoring them. I seen some get old HP and tektronix scope with parts that are no longer available, build up a small circuit and install it to replace a bad component. These guys are our future electronic designers.

The technical side of the hobby used to be repair and aligning your own equipment, any operator worth his salt would be able to at least align his own gear.

Now a days it is what cable to use to upgrade the firmware to the latest and greatest.

Technology will never stop advancing.

100% agree. That is basicly what keeps me in business here. I get hams from all over bringing me their stuff to fix. I guess the hobby went the right way for me lol. Will be interesting to see what the next 10 years will bring.

Sure is nice to see some of the old timers still trying to keep the vintage gear up and running.
Thanks. Not sure if I qualify for the "old timers" though. I am in my early 50's :)
And will most likely be doing this till the day I cant lift a soldering iron

One reasong I post stuff like this is to try and get folks interested. Does it work? No idea.
 
I am also on the other side of 50, and YES it seems someone is always bringing some type of vintage something or another here to get repaired or aligned.

I do it as a hobby and for love of the hobby. Retired over a decade ago from military service as an aviation electronic technician.

Young guys on the EE forums repairing vintage test equipment, that is great.

Old timer is probably a safe assumption to be labeled if you understand tube theory.
 
It does work for some of us younger folk (39 I am), great post and very nice work there sir. There are not many that do this for sure. And most of the ones that are doing it are the old timers, no offense. We have 1 young man in our group that talks on 38lsb that is a true enthusiast about repairing old gear and he really enjoys it! It takes patience that's for sure. Yes things are changing at such a rapid pace that it is just mind blowing. I am a cell site tech and will say that in the past 5 years the Jump has been a huge one!! It's getting to be like computers so to speak, no sooner do we get new equipment installed and working properly, they are already ripping it out to put new stuff in. And man is it getting smaller and smaller. But anyway, great project and looks like it is coming along good. All the best and have a great time! God Bless.
 
I am also on the other side of 50, and YES it seems someone is always bringing some type of vintage something or another here to get repaired or aligned.

I do it as a hobby and for love of the hobby. Retired over a decade ago from military service as an aviation electronic technician.

Young guys on the EE forums repairing vintage test equipment, that is great.

Old timer is probably a safe assumption to be labeled if you understand tube theory.

First thank you for your service.
I worked on toob stuff for years and still do. Not many around here do that anymore. Just finished up a Ameritron 811H for a fellow that lives 150 miles away.
A guy brought in a Wizzard built GS-31b yesterday. Lets just say I see why he is the wizzard. Man what a piece of ^@&^%$

Yes it is good to see these young guys do the things they are doing. They use all these fancy programs to make their boards and the stuff looks like high production runs. Amazing.

It does work for some of us younger folk (39 I am), great post and very nice work there sir. There are not many that do this for sure. And most of the ones that are doing it are the old timers, no offense. We have 1 young man in our group that talks on 38lsb that is a true enthusiast about repairing old gear and he really enjoys it! It takes patience that's for sure. Yes things are changing at such a rapid pace that it is just mind blowing. I am a cell site tech and will say that in the past 5 years the Jump has been a huge one!! It's getting to be like computers so to speak, no sooner do we get new equipment installed and working properly, they are already ripping it out to put new stuff in. And man is it getting smaller and smaller. But anyway, great project and looks like it is coming along good. All the best and have a great time! God Bless.

Thats good to hear. keep at it.
I worked for GE mobile radio division for a while then left and went to EF Johnson. We started out with the LTR 800MHz trunking. By the time I left there we had replaced everything with small computer stuff that did away with LTR. Man how things changed.

For the past couple of years I have got into repairing test equipment. Scopes, signal generators and stuff on that line.
Restoring a Sencore CB42 as I type. That has been a rocky road lol. Next I have a B&K 1472B scope to repair. Old and outdated like myself hehe.

Thanks
 

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