IIIQUAZIII
Member
Hi fellas. My name is Matt. I have played around with a few different CBs and have a Cobra and an Antron A99 I been playing with the last year or so. My grandpa is getting up there in years (90) and recently decided to give me his old Ham setup since he doesn't use it anymore. Its a Drake TR7 with a Drake MN2700 antenna tuner. I remember being like 5 years old sitting in his lap talking to his friends in Australia and New Zealand with this thing, so it's pretty cool he decided to give it to me now that I'm old enough to appreciate it. I took my license test years ago when I was in Technical school but failed due to the Morse code requirement. I've heard they removed that though, so I'd like to try to take it again, now that I have a radio. Even though I went to school for electronics/engineering like 15 years ago, I don't really remember much about electronics and radios in general. Like I said, my experience is pretty much limited to jerking around on the CB radio.
Anyways, I was playing around with this Drake last nite with my buddy on 10 meters just to test it out. I didn't want to stay on too long and get in trouble (no license yet) but wanted to test it out since grandpa hasn't used it in years. I cleaned out all the knobs with contact spray, and replaced a couple light bulbs but I seem to have some issues. The output power is low, around 20-30 watts and from what I'm reading it should be close to 100w. Also, I have an issue where if I hold the transmit down for a while, it will all the sudden start breaking up and sounding like a crappy staticy mess to my friend on the other end. Then if I let off and re-transmit it will sound fine again.
So, being as I don't really know what I'm doing, I'd like to find someone who can service this radio properly and bring it back up to like new specs. My buddy suggested I sell the whole setup and buy something new, but this sort of has sentimental value because I remember spending time with my grandpa on it when I was a kid, and he won't be around much longer. Plus vintage is cool.
My question is: Where can I go (or send this to) to have it fixed right? And what can I expect to spend?
Anyways, I was playing around with this Drake last nite with my buddy on 10 meters just to test it out. I didn't want to stay on too long and get in trouble (no license yet) but wanted to test it out since grandpa hasn't used it in years. I cleaned out all the knobs with contact spray, and replaced a couple light bulbs but I seem to have some issues. The output power is low, around 20-30 watts and from what I'm reading it should be close to 100w. Also, I have an issue where if I hold the transmit down for a while, it will all the sudden start breaking up and sounding like a crappy staticy mess to my friend on the other end. Then if I let off and re-transmit it will sound fine again.
So, being as I don't really know what I'm doing, I'd like to find someone who can service this radio properly and bring it back up to like new specs. My buddy suggested I sell the whole setup and buy something new, but this sort of has sentimental value because I remember spending time with my grandpa on it when I was a kid, and he won't be around much longer. Plus vintage is cool.
My question is: Where can I go (or send this to) to have it fixed right? And what can I expect to spend?