Yaesu FRG-7000 Wadley Loop System Receiver comments

[RidingDownUnder]

Hi gang,
I have the opportunity to purchase a FRG-7000 for about USD$240. This particular receiver which receives about.5-30MHz uses the Wadley Loop system.
Has anybody owne/used 1 of these radios. On eHam there are only a few reviews with ratings of 4.
If you know what are your thoughts on the WLS. I don’t really need another receiver but sometimes as we all kno, the pressure is too much. And having something different in design is cool, at least in my opinion. It’s hasn’t been modified and it look clean. The knobs can do with aclean with dishwashing detergent and a toothbrush and maybe a alignment and general cleaning.


Thanks gang.

 

[majoco]

IMHO it's probably not that much different to the FRG7 with the addition of a clock/timer. If it goes reasonably well it may be worth the sale price, it looks reasonably clean and undamaged. I'm not so sure about needing an alignment - it's quite a complicated thing and without the proper test equipment it's a daunting task and quite easy to make it into a brick - especially playing around with the 1MHz wide filter which has to be dead flat. Some time ago I bought one of the originals - a Barlow-Wadley XCR-30 made in South Africa - and if I didn't have access to a spectrum analyser, a tracking generator and a good signal generator it would have turned into a "shelf queen". If you can get the manufacturer's service manual and some other reference material you should have a good start.

 

[ratboy]

A friend and I both had one. They both had issues that turned out to be a simple fix, replugging in every connector and using DeOxit. They had different issues, with the same fix. Mine worked fine for a couple of years before I sold it to a guy who had one for his first radio back when it was first introed. The friend passed away a couple of years ago and I don't know what happened to his collection. All in all, it wasn't a bad radio and seemed to be about equal to my FRG-7 in performance. Both of ours were almost dead on frequency, with USB being perfect, and USB about 50Hz off, not bad for an older radio. I thought about trying to get them dead on, but I've had that end in disaster before when old ferrite slugs in transformers fell apart. It wasn't worth it. I had other radios that were totally on freq. Mine and the friend's both were like they just came out of the box when we got them. I bought mine at a hamfest, he got his on Ebay. Somehow it survived the trip from TX intact even though it was terribly packed.

 

[VK3RX]

Both of ours were almost dead on frequency, with USB being perfect, and USB about 50Hz off, not bad for an older radio.

I've had two FRG-7000 units, one when new in the early 1980's (it matched the Yaesu FT-301 line up I had) and the other bought a couple of years ago for a bit of nostalgia. I can't recall the original unit's frequency display being out but the second is, about 1.5kHz low on LSB and 3kHz high on USB.

Because of the frequency counter sampling I expected the display to read 1kHz low and high for LSB & USB respectively, something common with some other receivers of the same vintage and cost. I left the unit with an RF tech buddy with all the test gear, and after an alignment and much fiddling around, he says it needs a new crystal. Last I checked new crystals out of the EU with postage was going to cost around $A80 so repair has been put off. We should pursue it, as the unit is in great condition, unmarked internally and externally.

Overall they are a good receiver, great audio and quite good performance.

One niggle is that when connected to an active mains supply, the power supply runs all the time to power the clock circuitry. The clock being accurate didn't bother me, so I used to power the mains off when not in use. If a previous owner didn't do the same, its likely the PSU and clock circuitry have been running continuously for many years

 

[Boombox]

If you take the top / back off, use some canned air on the variable capacitors that control the main tuner, MHz tuner and preselector.

Maybe a bit of deoxit on some of the other controls where needed. My FRG-7 needed that after maybe 8 years of disuse. My FRG-7 is a 1979 model and never needed alignment.

My FRG-7 is excellent on MW and SWBC. OK on SSB and CW, although I prefer my DX-390 and DX-398 for tuning in the HF ham bands.

If the FRG-7000 is like the FRG-7 and has terminals on the back, you can easily rig a back-to-back diode protection for an external wire by just slipping the two diodes in between the antenna terminal (reversed polarity on the diodes) and ground. I'm not certain these radios came diode protected, and I know the FRG-7 has a MOSFET RF amp transistor that I understand has become unobtainium, and my FRG-7 isn't diode protected. So perhaps check the schematic on the FRG-7000 and if there are no protection diodes, be careful, or slip a couple in between the two terminals until you rig up a better protection system (if you don't have one already).