Kenwood TS820S cathode resistor repair

Some time ago after pushing the rig too far with an antenna that was out of tune i killed both original cathode resistors in the final unit of my Kenwood.As you can see in the picture they both are cracked and when squeezing them the resistance changes significantly. I had no other option than to replace them. I used two 1 watt 10 ohm resistors from my local shop.



But after what i would call a normal operation these both resistors bursted in fire. Maybe i didint check the SWR of the antenna at that point or maybe these Chinese resistors are bad quality.I will try to put the same type new ones and try to work come contacts and see if they will do that again, because putting in a bigger, higher wattage resistors would mean that the rig would lose some of its protection in the final amp section that these resistors originaly provided.

Images from the space : ISS SSTV

Today i stumbled upon some SSTV signals on the ISS frequency 145.800. I couldn't record the other one i heard because i couldn't find my phone in time. I just managed to catch this. Sorry for the bad image quality, the only antenna i had up is a 6 el yagi for vhf, i needed to track the satellite manually in order to not loose the signal completely. 

This was heard on July 2 , around 11.11 UTC in Lithuania.

Fixing a Kenwood TK-709 VHF mobile radio

I got this transceiver from a local ham radio operator LY3PEJ as a gift. It took me a couple of days to fully understand it and make it work as everything should. It came with only a few frequency presets that i did not really need. I borrowed the programming cable but for some reason it didint work. Now i know that there were a couple of problems both on the computer the programing software was and the transceiver.

After alot of investigating and trying to find info i found that on the face panel by the microphone jack (you need to disasemble the radio for that) there is a small SMD fuse marked 20 . I tested that with the multimeter and it was shot, thus not delivering 12v into the programing cable. Besides that, for some reason the microphone ground connection was a little burned too, so i just connected that with a wire to the main ground.  In order to fix the fuse, i took a very fine copper wire and soldered it on the fuse contacts.

If you are making the cable, this one works just fine http://highfields-arc.co.uk/constructors/other/kpg4.htm . In order to program the radio i had to use an old pc which has a RS232 port. It can be done using a USB to RS232, for the information how to run the KPG-20D software  in DOSBOX read this page http://www.george-smart.co.uk/wiki/Kenwood_PMRs