Would You Try To Fix This Classic Ham Radio? Ten-Tec 1230 220MHz Transceiver Flea Market Find

I have the 2m

Funny that you put this video up today. My old Kenwood TM-261 internal speaker stopped working. So I took the cover off & attempted to remove the speaker to check what happened. Well? The speaker plastic support became plastic dust once I took the speaker out. I did the quickest repair known. I re-installed the cover and decided I will use an external speaker from now on..Joe from Windham.

Nice repair. Now you have a working 220 radio and by looking at the circuit board, it is reasonably fixable. Hope there are a few 220 machines in your area otherwise park in on the National calling frequency and catch some skip. That is what a did here in the wilderness and I'd catch hams calling from hundreds of miles away and when the propagation was good but you have to be patient.

i ventured to fix a scanner i have .. it works on the one channel i need as rest of county is p25 ... the screen was not showing numbers or only half a number ... took apart separated front had to pull the flat cable to do that ... saw nothing plugged back in put together .. all works was just a loosen ribbon cable

Thank for sharing Rob! You have more patience than I do. Good job. I was able to test my soldering skills on a scissor lift this past spring. My contractor couldn’t get it started on found that an electrical connector for the control head to the main controller had failed. I was able to solder the broken wire back to the connector pin that was in very bad shape. I taped the male female connectors back together so he could continue working on my house. I’m not sure he ever bought a new wiring harness for his scissor lift. I was surprised to see that there were only five wires to control up down forward backward engine speed and on off. It had to have some sort of micro-processor involved in that circuit.

Well done.

Geez..... You read my mind on this one. Those cheep rotary encoders can be problematic. I've done this dance on multiple occasions. Looks like you got a good set! Just hope you have some 220 repeaters in your area. Pretty thin here in Joisey! Take care and 73's de KC2RDU!

220 runs on 20khz spacing. so the repeaters will end in example 800/820/840/860/880/900 with a 1.6MHz offset. likely all the repeaters will run tone so you will have to figure out how to set the tone on that radio if it has tone.

You did all of this the same way I would have. Good job on getting it going.

Nice little unit. Great repair job! i also like the Kenwood TH F6 HT. I have one and use it all the time. 220 is not used in many locations. There are a few 220 repeaters in my area. I have tribander in the vehicle. Thanks for the video. 73

At an estate sale I snagged a partially assembled 1230 kit. TenTec had abandoned this radio, but a few years ago (while TenTec was still around) I managed to get a replacement for a busted pot that I noticed was used on a still-in-production radio. Waiting for free time and interest in building it, but since I'm 99.9% CW it has a very low priority. TNX ES VY 72/73 DE N6MGN

Another great video Rob, don't worry about making mistakes and getting things wrong, you sorted it out at the end of the day and just remember, the guy who never makes a mistake has never made anything ! atb from England

Gess you must not be in uk has hams in uk can't use 220 mhz

Wow! It works alright , but this is a straight butchery done. If you really insisted on reusing that encoder, actually it was a right occassion to split it open, give it a bit of a clean and lube and then glue it together. Unless I would not really care about the rig, I woud not let it go this way. The encoder and squelch potentiometer woud be on the order.

I own this radio, bought last year at a Hamfest, it too is in "repair" state, although it does work, I also have the OEM mic, but I will need to replace the cable. If I remember correctly (its been a year since I played with mine) you can change the last digit plus this radio has full PL Tone, thus the verbiage on the radio "Tone", you need to go into its little menu to change both which I believe is thru the 'Shift" key...I think hold it down then hit your "Tone" control then rotate your channel knob or something like that...I may have the manual on this and will need to look to confirm.

You will also note there is no "S" meter, just an idiot light. I do believe as an option you could buy an external speaker which in return had the "S" meter in it, one probably can make there own up...I believe it utilizes the "Accessory" port on the back of the radio. I've been wanting to get to mine but "other" stuff has been priority...but hopefully soon! If I may give advice and positive criticism please look into the camera and "not" the monitor, it will be more engaging to your viewers...its OK to spot check yourself in the monitor from time to time. 73's and looking forward to part 2. ~Jack, VEG

Strong work Rob!

SHAMNNN KG^MN

I built a similar TenTec 6 meter radio from a kit around 1997. I was so excited when I got it. I rarely regret buying radio equipment, but that was one that was so poor. It worked as designed, but the 10 watts from it wasn't quite able to carry on a local QSO, even with a ball-and-spring antenna on the car. The display was odd, and it just felt "cheap." It might have been better at about 50 or 100 Watts. For 10 W, it was just disappointing.