Monday, June 24, 2013

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