Dual band mod for Kenwood 281A

[CaptainBeefheart]

I read a post recently that asked questions about removing certain 0 ohm resistors resulting in making a 2M radio a 20cm radio in a Kenwood 281A. My question is can a switch be put across that path to make a 281A a dual band traciever? Has anyone tried this mod, and how does it work?

 

[robertmac]

Maybe knowledgeable ham operators might know how to do this. But even if I did, I would think it illegal to mod a ham radio. But I have no idea what frequencies are in the 20 cm band.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9900; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.746 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

no. It will not become a dual band radio. The tuned circuts will not function outside of the VHF band. Removing a 0ohm resistor will allow it to transmit 138-174MHz. Out of the box the north american version of the radio will only Transmit 144-148MHz.

 

[WB4CS]

20cm band would be around +/- 2GHz (2000 MHz). So, no, the VHF Kenwood TM-281 cannot be used on 2 GHz.

As kayn1n mentioned, the radio is only capable of 138-174 MHz. It's physically impossible for the radio to be a dual band, short of replacing all of the circuits inside the radio.

If you're looking for a good dual band radio from Kenwood, I would suggest the TM-V71A. It covers 2m and 70cm.

Not sure what you would find for 20cm, as it's not an amateur band. 23 cm (1240-1300 MHz) is an amateur band, there are a few radios on the market that cover that band. Here's a few off the top of my head:

• Kenwood TS-2000 with 23cm module installed
• Alinco DJ-G7T handheld
• Icom ID-1 D-Star mobile radio