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Clark514
| | Posted on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 9:03 pm: | 
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i just bought a D201 and i have a question...i pluged it in and it has no recieve...i tested all the tubes they are all good...i dont have a mic for it yet..does the mic need to be pluged into the radio to recieve like other radios i have had before...and does anyone know were to turn up the recieve inside the radio |
2600
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 12:24 am: |
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No, the mike is not needed to receive on this radio. I DO hope that it's a 23-channel D201 and not the 40-channel D201A. The channel switch used in all but a few 201A radios is a complete disaster, and wears out in a very decisive way after very little use. Most of the "mint" 40-channel Tram radios you see were put up on the shelf before a full year of wear-and-tear could occur. The channel selector would fail, the factory closed, warranties expired and the radios went onto a shelf with little use on them. The average price to fix the 40-channel switch was $175 twenty years ago, and has only gotten more expensive since then.
You did not mention if the S-meter shows any activity when you change channels. If the S-meter is laying dead, and doesn't flick around from channel chatter, you will probably find more than just one problem with the receiver section. It's a little like finding a 1974 Olds 442 under a tarp with 5000 original miles, but with NO service done to it since 1974. You can't just jump into it and drive to California. There WILL be maintenance issues, plenty of them. It's not JUST the miles, it's the years, too. There won't be JUST an adjustment screw or two that will get that Olds to California.
Any serious effort to put a D201 on the air for regular use will call for a "100,000-mile tuneup" even if it has very few actual 'miles' on it. Since all the two dozen or so electrolytic capacitors are on borrowed time after 25 years, a "scorched earth" procedure to replace every one of them is just ths start. The D201 radios have some heat issues with the wattage rating on about a dozen power resistors inside. Makes the color bands fade and bubbles to form on the surface. When that happens, the electrical quality of that part fades with the color bands. Most of those dozen resistors get replaced with larger ones that will run cooler, and longer. Leaving the old ones in can wear out tubes prematurely, or just prevent it from performing.
The relay is rare and expensive. It can make any part of the radio drop out when it goes bad. Crystals can fail from age alone after 25 years. Tube sockets (in the circuit-board versions) get loose with heat exposure. The rotary switches use silver-plated contacts. A long period of storage can allow black tarnish to build up on switch contacts and make any part of the receiver (or several parts) roll over and play dead.
On a more positive note, the original owner's manual had a section on troubleshooting that wasn't half bad. It did assume that a WORKING radio had just started to act wrong, and would suggest what to try first. A radio that may have six or ten separate problems is a whole different kind of troubleshooting.
As far as the idea of 'turning up' the receiver? There are about twenty adjustments in the radio that affect the receiver. Some of those also affect the transmitter performance. This doesn't include the trimmer caps that set the channel crystals on frequency. Turning up the receiver means getting all of those adjustments peaked correctly.
BTW, the preferred mike to use on this radio is a STRAIGHT unamplified D-104. The amplified D104 will do okay, but has to be turned 'wayyyy down, and won't sound as good when you talk up close to it. That's what the factory packed in the shipping carton with a new radio: a straight D-104. Just make sure the pickup element (cartridge) in the mike head is not old and weak. They tend to get that way around 20 years, even if stored in a cool, dry place, sooner in humid surroundings.
And then again, maybe a good, hard whack to the right side of the cabinet ?........
73 |
Tech808
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 10:12 am: |
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Clark514,
As 2600 said it can be a major time consuming effort, to figure everything out on a Tram, but when working right, they are a fair to good radio.
If you have a D201A you might check to see if it has the Stock BA Board in it, if not then you want to get one of the New BA Boards. Also if you look inside and do not see a bunch of NEW resistors (Not the old brown ones) raised up farther off the board than others, then this also MUST be done.
"HEAT" inside is the MAJOR problem with the Tram's
DO NOT ADD A FAN INSIDE or you will find your frequencies will drift everywhere. They need to run hot.
If you were lucky to get the Owners manual with it that is a big help.
Without a TRAM BOARD TESTER or access to one, you can go on forever trying to figure it out.
Should you want the mods/upgrades & repair info send me an e-mail with your mailing address.
In the central US, Maycom still has a board tester and on the west cost there is Gary who was one of the original Tram Techs and now has all the publishing rights to the Tram & Browning Books / Manuals & Material. He is is CA.
To get one put in Very good Running Condition is Expensive.
I just spent three months on one a friend in GA bought from eBay, It appeared to be like NEW Condition.
With tubes, upgrades, replacement parts, resistors, replacing dried out cans, New BA board, Fixing Main Board, Channel Mod, High Power mod (15 watts), switches, time invested, and adding Digital Freq Counter to read the channels, run him well over $600.00. Not counting the $400.00 plus he paid for it.
But, he always wanted one so he was happy.
The Tram's 201 & 201A was my favorite's back in the 70's and I sold probably 100 or more of them.
If you hear one on Skip you can tell, as it will be the loudest thing out there, but now you can buy a 2995DX cheaper than the repairs on one to get it running right.
And Tubes! Yes you can still order New tubes but! Remember they are NOS (New Old Stock)
The Trams & Brownings were good radios in their time, but now you better have a Big/Deep wallet for labor / testing and repairs. And hopefully someone who knows what they are doing when working on one.
The sad thing is if you put major bucks into it to get it right you may never re-coup your investment, if you ever decide sell it. It has to be something you want to keep and use.
Just my thought's
Lon
Tech808
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CM 3885
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 12:17 pm: |
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Its kinda like buying an old 1957 Chevy. Cool old car but man, hold onto your wallet for parts!!! :-( |
Clark514
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 6:28 pm: |
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thanks to all you guys for all the sugestions. And yes it is a D201 not a D201A. i got it cheap. So i am willing to put money into it because i plan on keeping it a long time because i have always wanted one. I had a browning years ago and i am sorry i ever got rid of it. It was a Mint Mark 2, boy did that radio scream.....Talked to Alaska and Japan on that radio. So since i posted this problem i have opened the radio and.......it looks to me the BA board needs replacing...so i have ordered one should be here in a week. also i found some cold soder joints.....boy are you guys right the circut board has gotten brown in some areas...radio has had some work done to it over the years i can see some resistors have been changed and sone caps too. |
2600
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 12:09 am: |
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Good. It's a 23 channel. A low-miles 23-channel is much harder to come by. They just didn't "die young" like the 40's did. Wear and tear take their toll. If the thing looks at all cruddy, removing the tubes and washing them in ammonia-base window cleaner, or such will remove whatever "insulation" is stuck to the outside of the glass, AND will shine up the metal surfaces of the pins. Rinse them in water. Be sure to dry them thoroughly before powering up. This is better done one at at a time. There are five 6GH8A tubes and three 6BA6 tubes in the radio. If you don't return the same tube to the same socket it came from, that could affect the alignment. That's one of the main reasons those "peaking" adjustments are there. The manufacturing tolerances from one tube manufacturer to the next will affect just where the "peak" will occur on those tuneable slugs. Scrambling the tubes around can change the calibration of the Manual tuning dial, the S-meter zero setting, and receiver sensitivity.
Tubes that make scratchy noises when tapped may have tarnished or loose pins in the tube socket. A NON-RESIDUE contact cleaner is worth trying, if the socket still grips the tube pins. If the socket feels loose, squeezing them back together with a pointy tool to tighten them is only a temporary fix. After thousands of heat/cool cycles, the metal in those socket pins loses its spring temper. When that happens, the socket just has to go. A radio that was run 24/7 will get hot enough to make the black plastic tube socket insulator crumble and crack.
Note that there is only ONE version of the BA board to match a 23-channel radio. The 40-channel was made with TWO different, non-compatible versions. A mismatch of the wrong BA board/radio can either cripple the audio power, or cherry the audio tube the moment it warms up, popping a variety of parts before it cracks the glass and kills the main AC fuse. If you are offered a 23-channel Tram D201, and the BA board has jumper wires where the left-side resistors fuse/capacitor belong, DO NOT power it up. A 40-channel D201A MIGHT well be built to take that board, and will have an unmarked trimpot on the SOLDER side of the main AUDIO board if it was. The BA board with the jumper wires will SMOKE a stock, unmodified 23-channel D201. Guaranteed.
The soldering on both sets of "auxiliary" board pins, under each main board bears checking closely. For whatever reason, the factory soldering would go bad on both sets of these pins, underneath each main circuit board. Resoldering with a good-quality rosin-core solder will usually do the trick, unless heat has begun to lift the foil traces.
One last thought. Does the guy with the new BA board (uh, TramDoctor?) also supply new PINS to go on the main board, and plug onto? If not, they are worth getting. The round pins that Tram used for the BA board have a wear problem. The plating on the round pins will just scratch off, eventually. Square pins can be had that will hold up better. Besides, they have bright, new shiny plating on them. If a NEW BA board has 'scratchy' noise problems when jostled, those old, round pins may be worn. If someone tried to SCRAPE those pins clean with a knife blade or abrasive, the solid-pin metal exposed by removing the electroplate will get tarnished and noisy only a few days after cleaning with solvent.
Have fun. Sounds like it will be a LOT of fun.
73 |
frasiercrane
| | Posted on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 1:28 am: |
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ah.. if I had $75 for every Tram I refurbed.. oh wait.. I did have $75 for ever Tram I refurbed...
Anyway.. been a long time.. but what I do remember is I used to replace some of those resistors on that little plug in board with those 4 watt rectangular ceramic deals... worked rather well.. make a little 'u' bend in the lead about a quarter inch from the resistor so that they sit up off the board a bit.
Also, I can't say I ever saw one where I could adjust all of the crystals on freq... a few years in that heat would do them in pretty good.. I toyed with the idea of making a PLL board to go in them.. easiest solution was to just use the VFO and forget the channel selector. |
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