At a hamfest last weekend I picked up a PRO2004 that looked almost brand new for $5.00. The guy said it worked fine but I was suspicious anyway. For the price it was worth a shot.
I get it home and plugged it in. The display was pretty bright, so that's a plus right there. The volume control is a little staticy when moved but that was pretty common even on new radios much less a 30 year old one.
I start playing with it and look at what is programmed in it. I see a half dozen channels have different weather channels programmed into them so I figure it has been schlepped around to a few hamfests and people popped them in to see if it worked. I was able to pick up my local weather channel (already programmed into Channel 1) on a telescoping whip so the receiver seems to work.
I then do a little more checking. I program in freqs in the 870-895 range and they are accepted and the radio shows 30 KHz. steps so it appears that mod had been done, even though it is useless now.
I then notice that the 3, 6, 9 and Clear buttons don't work. Now I see why it was so cheap! I open the radio and reseat the cable bundle coming from the front panel and the buttons start working again.
I then inspect the internals of the radio. There is no visible dust, evidence of mods or other issues inside the radio. The shield box around the main processor section has not been welded shut. All feature diodes are as original and on the D-513 spot there is no visible solder jobs so it looks like whomever did that mod did it very carefully.
The radio did not have the extra channels mod done. It appears to be a second generation version as the 30 KHz spacing range goes from 868.9875 thru 895.something (first generation ones went from 870-890 only).
Later this week when I have time I will try it out on Mil-Air, which is what the 2004 excelled at in its day and why I wanted it in the first place.
For $5 it was absolutely worth it!
I get it home and plugged it in. The display was pretty bright, so that's a plus right there. The volume control is a little staticy when moved but that was pretty common even on new radios much less a 30 year old one.
I start playing with it and look at what is programmed in it. I see a half dozen channels have different weather channels programmed into them so I figure it has been schlepped around to a few hamfests and people popped them in to see if it worked. I was able to pick up my local weather channel (already programmed into Channel 1) on a telescoping whip so the receiver seems to work.
I then do a little more checking. I program in freqs in the 870-895 range and they are accepted and the radio shows 30 KHz. steps so it appears that mod had been done, even though it is useless now.
I then notice that the 3, 6, 9 and Clear buttons don't work. Now I see why it was so cheap! I open the radio and reseat the cable bundle coming from the front panel and the buttons start working again.
I then inspect the internals of the radio. There is no visible dust, evidence of mods or other issues inside the radio. The shield box around the main processor section has not been welded shut. All feature diodes are as original and on the D-513 spot there is no visible solder jobs so it looks like whomever did that mod did it very carefully.
The radio did not have the extra channels mod done. It appears to be a second generation version as the 30 KHz spacing range goes from 868.9875 thru 895.something (first generation ones went from 870-890 only).
Later this week when I have time I will try it out on Mil-Air, which is what the 2004 excelled at in its day and why I wanted it in the first place.
For $5 it was absolutely worth it!