Yaesu: Yaesu FT227R questions

[Rooster88]

Hi everyone names Rick new here and to ham stuff. Been doing a lot of research about getting into ham and I came across this Yaesu FT 227 r for 10 bucks on Craigslist couldn’t pass it up. people say it’s a work horse. I bought it. Got it home started looking over it it had a weird yellow wire hanging out of it so I opened it up and took a peak. Some one has been into this and I am thinking they opened it up for more frequency’s.all the wires had tape on them tucked into the empty space on the top except the yellow wire running out sandwich between the cases. The wiring on top seems to go the button under the mr light.i opened up the bottom and it looks like some one has extra wiring going to the acc port on the back. I unhooked the plug plugged into with no wiring and took it apart and it has some solder connector two pins. Any one have any ideas. What this is or what they are trying to do. Thank you

 

[spongella]

Hiya Rooster88. Had one of these many years ago, Yaesu's "Memorizer model. Your are dealing with a radio decades old. My experience with old radio restoration is that in most cases they've had multiple owners, some who were smokers, some who have modified the radio. All this makes restoration much more difficult. My suggestion is to get a service manual and work from there. Having the schematics will definitely help.

Note that this radio had no CTCSS. Wasn't needed that much back then. Nowadays CTCSS/DCS is definitely a must if you want to use repeaters. Hope you have success in getting it up and running.

 

[K4EET]

Rooster88, firstly, welcome to Radio Reference (RR)!

I did a quick Google search for a service manual and modification instructions for your transceiver and came up with several good hits. If you could do the same and tell us where that yellow wire is connected, I or somebody else here at RR may be able to identify the mod for you. As far as that goes, you may even figure it out before we do!

Sooooooo... Let us know something like "the yellow wire is connected to the base lead of transistor Q123."

Again, welcome to RR! I'll be looking forward to hearing back from you. Also, let us know if you need any help on getting your Amateur Radio license.

73 (best wishes in ham lingo), Dave K4EET

 

[K4EET]

<snip> Note that this radio had no CTCSS. Wasn't needed that much back then. Nowadays CTCSS/DCS is definitely a must if you want to use repeaters. </snip>

Thanks for that info. In other words, this transceiver is going to be for the most part a decent receiver of ham repeaters. There are not too many repeaters left that do not use a sub-audible tone on the transmit signal for access.

73, Dave K4EET

 

[spongella]

Dave there used to be a company that sold CTCSS tone boards that came in two versions. One was a circuit board small enough to fit inside most radios but the drawback was you had to use dip switches to set a particular tone. The more expensive model was the outboard one which allowed tone selections via a rotary switch. Had both and they worked well but again that was 30+ years ago. Not sure if anyone manufactures these tone encoders these days. Maybe EBay would be a source.

 

[techman210]

The bridged pins on the DIN connector is "looped audio". With that plug out, you won't hear anything. This is so you can remove that bridge and route it through a DTMF or other audible decoder and that will switch audio. I remember there was also a mod that you could install a 9V battery and a diode so it will retain settings the next time it was powered-up.

While it does not have CTCSS, there is a provision to turn on/off CTCSS decode. Many people used comm-spec decoders and wired an auxillary 5-position dip switch outside of the radio and epoxy it down to change tones. The nice thing about that vintage of radios is the user manual is also a service manual.

Hard to tell from the picture, but that wire is probably landing somewhere near the deviaton pot. The wiper of the pot (or area around it) would where someone would inject CTCSS.

 

[N8IAA]

Hi everyone names Rick new here and to ham stuff. Been doing a lot of research about getting into ham and I came across this Yaesu FT 227 r for 10 bucks on Craigslist couldn’t pass it up. people say it’s a work horse. I bought it. Got it home started looking over it it had a weird yellow wire hanging out of it so I opened it up and took a peak. Some one has been into this and I am thinking they opened it up for more frequency’s.all the wires had tape on them tucked into the empty space on the top except the yellow wire running out sandwich between the cases. The wiring on top seems to go the button under the mr light.i opened up the bottom and it looks like some one has extra wiring going to the acc port on the back. I unhooked the plug plugged into with no wiring and took it apart and it has some solder connector two pins. Any one have any ideas. What this is or what they are trying to do. Thank youView attachment 78838View attachment 78839View attachment 78840View attachment 78841View attachment 78842

Did/does the radio power up?? Can you receive anything on it?? Just remember this radio was last produced 41 years ago. But, if it works, great buy!

 

[Rooster88]

I tape ed everything that was bare up and tried to power it on . It is dead in the water. I just got home from work after I feed the baby I am going to over the diagram and see what the heck that yellow wire is running . I want to get it going . I will keep everyone posted between working 11 hour days and 6 month old kid it might be a little bit of drag on how long it is going to take. I appreciate the the feed back.

 

[Rooster88]

Update found out my power supply went out. Went and hooked it up to a battery in the car and boom turned on. I can change the frequency up but won’t go back down.

 

[Rooster88]

The bridged pins on the DIN connector is "looped audio". With that plug out, you won't hear anything. This is so you can remove that bridge and route it through a DTMF or other audible decoder and that will switch audio. I remember there was also a mod that you could install a 9V battery and a diode so it will retain settings the next time it was powered-up.

While it does not have CTCSS, there is a provision to turn on/off CTCSS decode. Many people used comm-spec decoders and wired an auxillary 5-position dip switch outside of the radio and epoxy it down to change tones. The nice thing about that vintage of radios is the user manual is also a service manual.

Hard to tell from the picture, but that wire is probably landing somewhere near the deviaton pot. The wiper of the pot (or area around it) would where someone would inject CTCSS.

I am going to look that up thanks for the info everyone

 

[spongella]

Rooster there are a number of YouTube videos on this rig, it was a popular one at the time. While they may not be of help in your particular case at least you'll see some typical units by their owners. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[techman210]

If you can change frequencies in one direction only, then there is an optical coupler attached to the backside VFO wheel. That is either bad or just dirty. You may be lucky and there could be a dust bunny inside the coupler and it just needs to be blown out with some compressed air or a soft brush. You'll have to open up the radio and look where the shaft of the VFO/frequency select knob is.

 

[fineshot1]

I had this radio back in the late 70's and it was a great radio back then and even had the original ctcss tone unit installed but later removed it in favor of a com-spec tone unit with a dip switch to change tone freq. The original tone unit freq was changed with a pot that had to be changed with test gear that could display the tone freq. I also added a jumper inside on the din connector jack for the looped audio so the plug was no longer necessary to have receive audio.