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Vintage Motorola HT220's
- Thread starter PACNWDude
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K9RPL
Member
Hm, knobs look familiar and the font as well.
petnrdx
Member
Agree.
WPXS472
Member
As someone who has worked on numerous HT220s, I can say that they worked very well, but were a royal pain to repair. I suspect many a tech was driven to drink by working on HT220s. I once came into a VHF model that was, as far as I could tell, brand new. Kind of wanted to keep it, but sold it in a lot with about a dozen others at a hamfest. If I remember correctly, the standby receive battery drain was only around 14 mA. You won't find that today. Does anyone remember the HT100? It was a sawed off HT220, and only put out about 100 mW as I recall. I only ever laid eyes on 2, and never owned one. I did see some supposedly Secret Service HT220s at Dayton once. Strange looking things, as I remember.
RFI-EMI-GUY
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- Dec 22, 2013
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Yes the Knobs. and good catch on the font. I guess Motorola could not help but give it away. Their cover is blown.
RFI-EMI-GUY
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I had a UHF HT100 2 freq, PL model. Sold it to buy my Kenwood R1000 SW receiver.
K9RPL
Member
Back in the day a friend of mine had an H100 that was converted for 2M use. Every time I went to a hamfest with him, he had it in his pocket. It was 100mw because it didn't have the final PA that was in the HT220.
K9RPL
Member
Anyone know if The Portable Clinic is still around? The website is still up and I notice Bob Hicks appears to still be with us. I might be looking for some common VHF/UHF crystals like 146.52 and 446.00.
RFI-EMI-GUY
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I think he is located in Ocala FL. His website has been up for many years.
petnrdx
Member
I sent him messages in the last month, but got no answer.
That ECG HT220 is the cleanest one I have seen in a long while.
Loved those back in the day, but a REAL pain to work on.
I am working on PT300's and PT 500's right now and looking for crystals for any common simplexs.
But, got nothing back from Portable Clinic.
I heard from someone that had "Boca Bob" do some work, but that was a while back, and the indications were that
he was pretty much done doing that kinda work.
Which is sad.
That ECG HT220 is the cleanest one I have seen in a long while.
Loved those back in the day, but a REAL pain to work on.
I am working on PT300's and PT 500's right now and looking for crystals for any common simplexs.
But, got nothing back from Portable Clinic.
I heard from someone that had "Boca Bob" do some work, but that was a while back, and the indications were that
he was pretty much done doing that kinda work.
Which is sad.
RFI-EMI-GUY
Member
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- Dec 22, 2013
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- 7,503
We are all aging out of this biz...
You might check the threads on repeater-builder Groups.io for topics regarding crystals. There are some new sources, the old crystal companies closing up shop etc.
Crystals? So 1969 Nixon. Get with the decade 1976..
K9RPL
Member
I found a VHF 5W 4-channel Convert-A-Com Omni w/PL and charger which looks very clean and from the pictures, especially inside, "un-molested". If it's functional I may look to rebanding it. I've been going over the HT220 Page and other links with a fine toothed comb. But so far I haven't been able to find a copy of the Service Manual. I was hoping there would be an electroninc copy out the somewhere. Anyone have any leads by chance?
RFI-EMI-GUY
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I am surprised not to find one just click bait for "down loads'.
Well, Bob Hicks might be able to help you. Also in reading some of these old newsletters Ed Fong is mentioned. I think that may be same Ed Fong who sells antennas on the west coast.
K9RPL
Member
I emailed Bob Hicks a week ago with no reply yet. I have a feeling he's not doing the Portable Clinic stuff anymore. I saw the references to Ed Fong in the 220 Newsletters, They make good reading, I guess it won't hurt to try emailing him.
There were a couple of links to downloads but they look pretty hinky so I avoided them. It's surprising not to find anything. The HT220 site has great info on tuning which if the unit I bought is functional. It's due in today along with a UHF MT500. Both look to been in the right splits for conversion to 2m and 70cm Ham bands.
I emailed Bowmar about a week ago and they responded this morning saying they can make the crystals. I gave them a few frequencies so we'll see what their pricing is. I'm going to contact QuartsLab as well in the UK and see what they have for pricing.
Of course it'll all be moot anyway if both units are stone cold dead...
There were a couple of links to downloads but they look pretty hinky so I avoided them. It's surprising not to find anything. The HT220 site has great info on tuning which if the unit I bought is functional. It's due in today along with a UHF MT500. Both look to been in the right splits for conversion to 2m and 70cm Ham bands.
I emailed Bowmar about a week ago and they responded this morning saying they can make the crystals. I gave them a few frequencies so we'll see what their pricing is. I'm going to contact QuartsLab as well in the UK and see what they have for pricing.
Of course it'll all be moot anyway if both units are stone cold dead...
They made good hand bricks also
K9RPL
Member
K9RPL
Member
I have a couple of HT200 knobs I bought eons ago for a project and never finished it. My best friend had a two channel HT200 on 2m. What a beast that radio is. The batteries were huge... I was still jealous though.
Greetings,
It's quite pleasant to re-visit your radio memories. . Getting a chuckle this evening reading the various posts regarding the Motorola HT-220. . Here's my contribution to the string. I purchased my first HT-220 back in 1973 which was a VHF single channel, PL, omni "A" series model. That radio was used non-stop and served me well. A few years later around 1978 another VHF HT-220 was purchased (brand new) and added to the radio equipment inventory. . I needed more channels so it was quite the luxury back then to move up to a 4-channel handie-talkie. This portable remains in full working condition to this very day and I recently purchased 2 brand new ni-cad batteries from the good folks at Power Products in Georgia to keep it running.
In order to preserve and ocassionally show-off a working HT-220 to others I decided to setup a VHF 6-channel HT-220 with the NOAA Weather Radio freqs. . . Not interested in a Radio Shack "Weather Cube"... As noted earlier, "It's quite pleasant to re-visit your memories" just now days it comes with a price that this youngster is fortunate and willing to pay
Some additional news to share regarding crystal availability as of September-2020.
Bomar Crystal Company remains in business and still makes custom crystals on any frequency desired but they have a minimum order of $100.
Bomar Crystal Company
Attn: Minnie Lirio (Sales Manager)
200 Wood Avenue
Middlesex, NJ 08846
(732) 356-7787
Edison Fong is still out there residing in the San Francisco Bay Area and is extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of the legendary Motorola HT-220.
Within recent months I tried reaching out to Bob Hicks (The Portable Clinic) but never received any reply back. . . Bob provided some slick custom mods for the HT-220 back in the day. . . One of the most useful to me was multiple PL encode / decode (2x TLN-6709) reeds sandwiched inside an omni HT-220 with PL-1 / PL-2 switch.
Now it's back to monitoring KWO-35 on the old but still working H33FFN.
KP
It's quite pleasant to re-visit your radio memories. . Getting a chuckle this evening reading the various posts regarding the Motorola HT-220. . Here's my contribution to the string. I purchased my first HT-220 back in 1973 which was a VHF single channel, PL, omni "A" series model. That radio was used non-stop and served me well. A few years later around 1978 another VHF HT-220 was purchased (brand new) and added to the radio equipment inventory. . I needed more channels so it was quite the luxury back then to move up to a 4-channel handie-talkie. This portable remains in full working condition to this very day and I recently purchased 2 brand new ni-cad batteries from the good folks at Power Products in Georgia to keep it running.
In order to preserve and ocassionally show-off a working HT-220 to others I decided to setup a VHF 6-channel HT-220 with the NOAA Weather Radio freqs. . . Not interested in a Radio Shack "Weather Cube"... As noted earlier, "It's quite pleasant to re-visit your memories" just now days it comes with a price that this youngster is fortunate and willing to pay
Some additional news to share regarding crystal availability as of September-2020.
Bomar Crystal Company remains in business and still makes custom crystals on any frequency desired but they have a minimum order of $100.
Bomar Crystal Company
Attn: Minnie Lirio (Sales Manager)
200 Wood Avenue
Middlesex, NJ 08846
(732) 356-7787
Edison Fong is still out there residing in the San Francisco Bay Area and is extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of the legendary Motorola HT-220.
Within recent months I tried reaching out to Bob Hicks (The Portable Clinic) but never received any reply back. . . Bob provided some slick custom mods for the HT-220 back in the day. . . One of the most useful to me was multiple PL encode / decode (2x TLN-6709) reeds sandwiched inside an omni HT-220 with PL-1 / PL-2 switch.
Now it's back to monitoring KWO-35 on the old but still working H33FFN.
KP
K9RPL
Member
Thanks for the memories! I did some cleanup on the HT-220 today and did an internal inspection and was very pleased to find the inside is pristine and from what I can tell untouched. The cover seals were intact and no signs of any water intrusion at all. Clean as a whistle. I did see a broken ground off the main board final amp that can be very easily resoldered. Other than that it's in excellent shape. The plan is to get rebanded down to 2M. It's in the right band split. Whoever had this radio took very good care of it. The channels were labeled PD, PW and FD so maybe a village manager or something. All simplex so possibly a small town perhaps.
The case is perfect. No scratches, scuffs or cracks. Some Simple Green with a toothbrush to remove the grime and some denatured alcohol to remove some old dymo label goo finished off with Armor All and the case looks almost new.
I did get a quote back from Bomar. $40 a crystal and a $100 minimum. I'm going to try Quartzlab as well. I've heard some good things about them and their pricing is half of Bomar. They just have a 30 day lead time.
What I can't find is the crystal specs from Motorola or the frequency formula.
I did send an email to Edison Fong this afternoon asking if he still has any access to any service manuals. I'm coming up dry on that effort so far.
I worked for Motorola in Schaumburg in the late 70's into the early 80's right out of college. Good times. Saw lots of neat stuff being developed there.
The case is perfect. No scratches, scuffs or cracks. Some Simple Green with a toothbrush to remove the grime and some denatured alcohol to remove some old dymo label goo finished off with Armor All and the case looks almost new.
I did get a quote back from Bomar. $40 a crystal and a $100 minimum. I'm going to try Quartzlab as well. I've heard some good things about them and their pricing is half of Bomar. They just have a 30 day lead time.
What I can't find is the crystal specs from Motorola or the frequency formula.
I did send an email to Edison Fong this afternoon asking if he still has any access to any service manuals. I'm coming up dry on that effort so far.
I worked for Motorola in Schaumburg in the late 70's into the early 80's right out of college. Good times. Saw lots of neat stuff being developed there.
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