Drake TR7…brought back from the dead.

I actually spotted this looking very dusty and forlorn in another radio amateur’s garage…I was there to buy an old transmitter, not a TR7.

It had been dropped…on the top left corner of the front panel.  The result was that the aluminium extrusion was broken and the internal chassis was bent by about 12mm.  The price was right so it came home with me.

I managed to get a replacement extrusion and end cheeks from a ham on eBay in the states.  The front panel was then dismantled and the internal metalwork bent back into shape.  Having done a comprehensive set of ‘pre-flight checks’ the radio was powered up…there were lights but not much else.

If you’ve ever worked on one of these you’ll know how wonderful the extender card kit is 🙂

It appeared that the radio had been powered up before I got it and various things had been shorted out.  Several PIN diodes, a voltage regulator, display driver transistors and display, plus a regulator and we had life.  Receive audio was very quiet and traced back to the first mixer board.  I never did find the fault…but removing and replacing the board fixed it; and no amount of prodding and poking would provoke it.  The whole Drake set up procedure was then performed.

There’s a vast amount of information available on the web regarding the Drake TR7, but I would recommend the WB4HFN Drake Pages…and if you don’t mind ‘improving’ your TR7 then take a look at Marc van Stralen’s article on updates you can do.

This TR7 is quite an early one…and a joy to use.