1st vs. 2nd Generation D201 Question

[wd8nia]

By now lots of people know I'm looking for a reasonably priced (affordable for me) 1st Generation (HW) D201. In watching for one on all the auction/for sale sites, I've been identifying the HW version by looking at the Tram emblem on the speaker; and, I assumed all the 1st generation models were VOX-capable. Take a look at this and tell me where I've gone wrong.

cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300000441311&indexURL=1&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting

Thanks and 73,

[2600]

The "diamond" emblem on the speaker does NOT indicate the original open-chassis (HW) radio. It only indicates the radio was built in New Hampshire. The very first circuit-board D201 was built there, and the production later moved to the 'maquiladora' factory south of the Rio Grande.

The "VOX" control ALWAYS indicates a HW D201. Always figured they ran out of circuit-board space when it was redesigned. One tube section used for VOX in the HW radio is just not connected on the audio circuit board. At all.

If it has VOX, it's the original. If it doesn't, there are big, ugly printed-circuit boards hiding under that cover.

Had one customer get fooled this way. Paid a HW price for a circuit-board D201. Shoulda lifted the lid and looked. He assumed that the "diamond" logo on the speaker sticker was all he needed to see. Only indicates the country of origin, NOT what's really inside.

73

[bill]

Hi ,
Everytime I hear Tram , my ears perk up ..... Read your post , some more Tram knowledge . I own a Tram D201A , that's not working . So I am on here posting like crazy to try to learn all I can .... On ebay today , I viewed 4 Tram D201 models for auction . One of the ads stated the radio had the vox in it . I do not know enough about any of these radios nor do I claim to . I am just alerting you to what I have seen ........ Bill

[bill]

There's presently one of the original hand wired radios on ebay ...... this time it at least doesn't say it is a doorstop ......

[dishwolf359]

That is indeed one strange D201. There are 5 pictures. If you look at picture 3 (of 5), the lid is up. This Tram has a 40-channel crystal board...!!! If you look at the channel selector indicator through the plexiglas you'll notice that the channels go HIGHER when the dial is rotated clockwise. This is unique only to the "A". The 23-channel models were the opposite. The channel numbers are also closer together to facilitate 40 of them on the dial.

Everything else implies that it's a 23 channel model. As 2600 stated, the label on the speaker, in combination with the ANL instead of the VOX control, would indicate that it's one of the "very first" circuit board models made in Winnisquam before production went south to Mexico....

The manual is also for a 23 channel circuit board model. The original manual has a yellow cover.

I love D201's. I have 2 hardwired "original" ones, both are in great shape. I also have 2 of the second versions with PCB's . One came out of a CB shop and was never sold. It's in near-mint condition. The other is still in the factory carton and has never been used...AT ALL...The cardboard that covers the 4 #47 lamps is still perfectly green 'cause the lamps have never been on. After a while, with continued use, the cardboard fades to a brownish-green color. I still have the original foam packing inserts which slide over the ends, and the D-104 is still in it's box. The whole thing looks like it just left the factory. The darn thing even SMELLS new. I don't have the heart to use it. It is FLAWLESS, not even a hairline scratch. It's going to stay that way. No worries on firing it up should I decide to, I have a variac. I have 3 others in so-so condition for parts, all with PCB's. I also have one "A" that needs work.

I also have a Titan II that I bought from a collector. It too is flawless. Original black Turner microphone and all. No holes or mods...perfect. It's the last version that came with the nice fat 6GM5 audio tube...I JUST bought a Titan IIA from a ham, he was the original owner of that one. It's also in mint condition, not a scratch. Came with the original owners manual and schematic, unamplified G stand D-104...and a Diamond 10 Tuner, also in mint condition with the original owners manual and schematic. This ham really takes good care of his stuff !

One day I plan to have them all rebuilt. I've emailed 2600 about it, and he's game. Not recently, this was a while ago. A year or longer. I like his philosophy regarding the D201's and the replacement of the factory resistors with higher-wattage ones, and not peaking it so high that it wears itself out. Other things too. And upgrading the AC line cord to an IEC type. Like he says, we all want a race car, but his analogy of a "daily-driver" impresses me. He's the man, far as I'm concerned. I'm posting the picture (3 of 5) of the inside of that D201 on eBay 'cause it won't be there for much longer. Definitely an odd ball. And of 2600's IEC mod that he does to the D201's AC line cord. Nice work there sir!

Oh yeah, I have some Brownings too !! And I have one of 2600's digital VFO's for the G.E. Mark III. Awesome piece of equipment. In fact, his avatar here is the one I have now (I think)!! Hmmm, shouldn't I be getting royalties for that !!

Post Script...Thanks to Grumpy for getting these pictures posted...I'm going to work on my hosting skills !!

[2600]

Hi DW,
This board won't host an image, it wants a link to an external host, like www.imageshack.com or www.flickr.com . Those are the only two I have used.

Gotta sign up on the hosting site, upload the pic, copy the URL from their page after it's hosted there, and then paste the image's URL from the host server into the "Insert Image" dialog box for the forum post you're editing.

Sound tiresome, but once you get used to opening one browser session for the image host, and another for the forum, it's no big deal, with a little practice.

Glad to hear you like the Digital Slider. Looks like I may discontinue that one forever, if I can't latch onto another batch of 100 discontinued RF coils used in it. Still considering a substitute for the part, but no results to report on that, yet. Making a sub work would probably require changing a handful of capacitor values in the VCO section. Bummer.

What I'd really like to do is replace that design with a "Digital" replacement for the Glenn. But without the FM noise and frequency drift. Found a DDS board kit for thirty bucks. Takes a thirty-buck DDS chip to make it work, but that's still cheap. Gotta lash up a computer and display to try out my idea, so no forecasts or target dates yet. Just a cool idea I'm impatient to try. In theory, it should tune in steps of one Hz or less. Nor sure I want to fool with that many digits on a display. At least it would work on a SSB radio, without sounding like Darth Vader gargling Listerine. It would also work to replace a "backwards" crystal, one where the crystal frequencies go up as your channel frequency goes down. Even the Glenn can't do that trick.

Soon as I post a pic of a prototype with a LCD display (far easier to wire up and program) I expect a chorus of "I LIKE LEDs BETTER!"

Trouble is, it's a surface-mount board (and chip). Wish me luck.

73

[**GRUMPY**]

dishwolf359 said:

...can't get pics to upload....click browse, select pic in "my pictures", click host...nothing...?...weird.

...not good with hosting...still learning...!

E-mail the pictures to me and I will get them to work!

[dishwolf359]

The pic below, hosted and posted by Grumpy (thanks Scott !), shows the earliest version of a 23 channel D201 with PCB's that has been retrofitted with a 40-channel crystal board. Notice the aluminum RF shield on the back (foil side) of the board. This D201 was made in Winnisquam. Subsequent versions were made in Mexico.

The other pic was sent to me by 2600 some time ago in an email. This is how he upgrades the 2-conductor AC line cord plug of the earlier D201's to an IEC type to facilitate safe grounding. Definitely a good idea.

[**GRUMPY**]

There you go

[wd8nia]

And there's another thing....the inside of the top cover. I watched D201s on eBay for three or four months before I selected the one I purchased. Due to posts from 2600 and others about heat, I immediately culled out all the units that had tube/meter bulb burns on the top cover....what I assume to be run time/excessive RF ouput power indicators.

I have no idea if it's significant or not, but the one I bought shows no signs of heat anywhere in it, and after three months of running it daily; sometimes four or five hours at a time, it still doesn't.

If and when it does crap out, I'll be happy because I've already gotten my money's worth in pleasure out of it. In the wee hours Monday morning, I QSO-ed with stations in GA, NJ, CO, Canadia, etc. while the band did marvelous shifts.....4-1/2 swinging 19w and sometimes 60w the few times I switched in the JB12.

I've had so much fun with this rig I've scrapped the plan to pick up another one. In fact, I'm getting bored and thinking about selling the Tram and moving on to something else....I'm anxious to start tinkering with the Messenger 223s. ;D

BTW....Thanks, Scott, for the image hosting. I've only got 30MB available on my personal ftp sites, I keep them full, and your hosting through imageshack saves me a lot of shuffling images around to post here.

[dishwolf359]

Funny you mention the burns on the inside of the top cover. I had 2 with that problem. I put them in the automatic dishwasher and ran it on the "Pots and Pans" cycle...no more burn marks, and the lids look beautiful...!!! ;D

[Sandbagger]

2600 said:

The "diamond" emblem on the speaker does NOT indicate the original open-chassis (HW) radio. It only indicates the radio was built in New Hampshire. The very first circuit-board D201 was built there, and the production later moved to the 'maquiladora' factory south of the Rio Grande.

The "VOX" control ALWAYS indicates a HW D201. Always figured they ran out of circuit-board space when it was redesigned. One tube section used for VOX in the HW radio is just not connected on the audio circuit board. At all.

If it has VOX, it's the original. If it doesn't, there are big, ugly printed-circuit boards hiding under that cover.

Had one customer get fooled this way. Paid a HW price for a circuit-board D201. Shoulda lifted the lid and looked. He assumed that the "diamond" logo on the speaker sticker was all he needed to see. Only indicates the country of origin, NOT what's really inside.

73

Hello, I am a relative newcomer to working on D201's, as they were always to rich for my blood. Anyway, now that I am the proud owner of 2 of them (Both needing extensive renovation), I did a little digging around, and it would seem, and correct me if I'm wrong, that there were 4 distinct versions. The first being the hard wired version. Then there was the "early" PC version with the 2 prong AC plug. Then the "later" PC version with the 3 pin AC plug. Then finally the 201A 40 channel version.

The other problem I found was in the schematics. I could only find one schematic for the D201 which, even though the service manual clearly shows the PC boards, the schematic appears to be for the HW version as it shows the VOX circuit and no noise blanker. The 201A schematic is helpful as it shows the individual boards, and includes the updated RF gain design and the noise blanker. But it differs from the later 201, in that the meter circuit is still the differential tube in the 201 versus the op amp in the 201A.

I managed to use the appropriate schematic to match which circuits I was working on, an managed to get one of my radios back to workable condition. Is there a schematic available specific to the later PC D201's? Are there any updates/hints/tricks to minimize the meter zero drift? I'm thinking about breadboarding the 201A's op amp desgn and subbing it in. Purists would probably poo-poo that idea as it's no longer "original". But I'm more concerned with performance. Also, along those lines, are there any performance/reliability updates that could be made to the 201 to improve it?

Thanks,

'Bagger

[2600]

Hmmmm. "Versions", eh?

Not sure I ever tried to count, but here's what I've seen:

Earliest D201, "Hand Wire" (I hate that term), made in NH, USA, has NO noise blanker. Four pc boards: SWR/Tx meter/ALC board, 455 kHz AM IF/filter board, Crystal Selector (syn) board, and the balanced modulator board, made with big, fat round pins that won't match the later PC board radios. 2-pin power cord/socket.

Later "HW", has a fifth PC board with the noise blanker circuit on it. Mounted on spacers above the chassis deck. No separate switch, or hint on the front panel that it's there. or not there. The right-hand "Limiter" switch turns on BOTH the AM-only ANL, and the Blanker, both at the same time.

First pc-board D201 from NH. Diamond logo, NO VOX, improves the SSB receiver-audio level by feeding the volume control from the output of a transistor in the SSB AGC circuit. Earlier models fed it directly from the product detector. Made the SSB receiver audio wimpy in comparison. VOX control is now Mike Gain and Tone. The AM-only ANL is on its own single knob. The blanker now has its own separate pull switch above the ANL knob. Now uses a 3-wire Belden "17280" business-machine style power cord that mates with three round pins on the radio's chassis.

First PC-board 23-channel D201 from Mexico. Logo now says "TRAM" on the speaker. Not sure how many "engineering changes" can be singled out on this one, Maybe a few. Before this version was redesigned as a 40, the original four 2-legged round beige 455 kHz resonators gave way to square, black Murata 3-legged 'ceramic filters'. At first, they used one Murata and two of the old round resonators. Later radios used two of the 3-legged black CFU-455 filters. Lots of empty holes in the receiver "A" circuit board when those are used. The older 2-legged round resonators required matching capacitors. The black, square Murata filters didn't.

First 40-channel Mexico-made D201A. NO HINGE ON THE TOP COVER. On most of them, at least. Two screws hold down the front edge of the top cover. Seems to me some of the first ones still had a hinge, but were screwed down. They lost the hinge entirely pretty fast. Power interlock switch is now beneath the right-hand top-cover screw. Rear panel Tune and Load controls are recessed on a bracket behind the rear-panel holes. A metal cover over them made it 40-channel legal, since you must remove screws to reach them this way. The triode half of two tubes (V602, V401) are now idle, nothing connected to them. Those two separate triodes were used to drive the 23-channel radio's meter. That's what made the zero setting critical. If one or the other of those tubes was old, and the other one new, they wouldn't balance, and the meter wouldn't zero. This version uses a 8-pin opamp IC for this task. More stable, but if the 14-Volt supply is interrupted, the 741 opamp chip will blow. NEVER power up a D201A with the BA board unplugged, OR with the 14-Volt fuse pulled (or blown). Has a slug-tuned coil T100 that steps up the low-impedance output of the SYN board to the Hi-Z grid of receiver mixer V301A, same as the 23-channel radio. Pretty sure all the 201A radios had two Murata CFU-455 filters in the AM IF.

Next D201A replaces T100 with a two-coil bandpass filter, wound on two blue toroid coils, T303 & L303. A trimmer capacitor in parallel with each one is used to widen the radio's useful receiver bandwidth. They are "hung" under the receiver board on the solder side.

Last D201A removes the self-biasing (cathode-bias) resistors, fuse and capacitor from the "BA" plug-in board. They are replaced by jumper wires. The main audio board has new, added traces and a thumbwheel trimpot on the underside. This circuit feeds "fixed" negative bias voltage to V603. Bad news if the "BA" board from this radio is inserted into an earlier model. Smoke, a blown 6l6GC tube and fuse. If nobody has put in a 20 Amp, at least.

Weird part is that this new "B" board has new traces and holes to accomodate this trimmer pot. But R631, V603's grid-return resistor is still grounded in the board's etch pattern. Every one of these I've seen has a cut made in the ground trace to manually 'unground' one end of R631, and a yellow jumper wire feeds the bias voltage there from the trimpot's wiper pin. Like I said, weird. Standard policy here is to pull the trimpot, and put back the missing parts/fuse on the BA board. Just more stable. If that trimpot fails, V603 will cherry and start smoking expensive parts. They took out that tube's separate fuse, right?

So, how many 'versions' does that make?

I have no reliable records to match serial numbers to these changes. Who knows where the file cabinets with that data ended up? Could be at the bottom of some landfill in NH. Or in the attic of somebody's garage, maybe.

Here's a question for you? Does anybody remember when they started putting Loc-Tite on the pins of the circuit-board tubes? Seemed odd, until a mechanic friend saw the residue on the tubes' pins when a factory tube was PULLED, and I mean PULLED from its socket the very first time. Told me what it was. Made sense. The sockets in the circuit-board radios don't exert the spring pressure on the tube's pins the older chassis-mount sockets would. Weird part was to put 20 or 30 pounds of upward pull on a tube to remove it. And when you went to plug it back in, the pins were now a loose fit. Rock it around with the power on, and it would cut in and out. Guess they had too many radios arriving with tubes rattling around loose inside. Just can't remember when we started seeing that. Pretty sure the first ones were 23 channel radios.

73

[Sandbagger]

2600 said:

Hmmmm. "Versions", eh?

Not sure I ever tried to count, but here's what I've seen:

Earliest D201, "Hand Wire" (I hate that term), made in NH, USA, has NO noise blanker. Four pc boards: SWR/Tx meter/ALC board, 455 kHz AM IF/filter board, Crystal Selector (syn) board, and the balanced modulator board, made with big, fat round pins that won't match the later PC board radios. 2-pin power cord/socket.

Later "HW", has a fifth PC board with the noise blanker circuit on it. Mounted on spacers above the chassis deck. No separate switch, or hint on the front panel that it's there. or not there. The right-hand "Limiter" switch turns on BOTH the AM-only ANL, and the Blanker, both at the same time.

First pc-board D201 from NH. Diamond logo, NO VOX, improves the SSB receiver-audio level by feeding the volume control from the output of a transistor in the SSB AGC circuit. Earlier models fed it directly from the product detector. Made the SSB receiver audio wimpy in comparison. VOX control is now Mike Gain and Tone. The AM-only ANL is on its own single knob. The blanker now has its own separate pull switch above the ANL knob. Now uses a 3-wire Belden "17280" business-machine style power cord that mates with three round pins on the radio's chassis.

First PC-board 23-channel D201 from Mexico. Logo now says "TRAM" on the speaker. Not sure how many "engineering changes" can be singled out on this one, Maybe a few. Before this version was redesigned as a 40, the original four 2-legged round beige 455 kHz resonators gave way to square, black Murata 3-legged 'ceramic filters'. At first, they used one Murata and two of the old round resonators. Later radios used two of the 3-legged black CFU-455 filters. Lots of empty holes in the receiver "A" circuit board when those are used. The older 2-legged round resonators required matching capacitors. The black, square Murata filters didn't.

First 40-channel Mexico-made D201A. NO HINGE ON THE TOP COVER. On most of them, at least. Two screws hold down the front edge of the top cover. Seems to me some of the first ones still had a hinge, but were screwed down. They lost the hinge entirely pretty fast. Power interlock switch is now beneath the right-hand top-cover screw. Rear panel Tune and Load controls are recessed on a bracket behind the rear-panel holes. A metal cover over them made it 40-channel legal, since you must remove screws to reach them this way. The triode half of two tubes (V602, V401) are now idle, nothing connected to them. Those two separate triodes were used to drive the 23-channel radio's meter. That's what made the zero setting critical. If one or the other of those tubes was old, and the other one new, they wouldn't balance, and the meter wouldn't zero. This version uses a 8-pin opamp IC for this task. More stable, but if the 14-Volt supply is interrupted, the 741 opamp chip will blow. NEVER power up a D201A with the BA board unplugged, OR with the 14-Volt fuse pulled (or blown). Has a slug-tuned coil T100 that steps up the low-impedance output of the SYN board to the Hi-Z grid of receiver mixer V301A, same as the 23-channel radio. Pretty sure all the 201A radios had two Murata CFU-455 filters in the AM IF.

Next D201A replaces T100 with a two-coil bandpass filter, wound on two blue toroid coils, T303 & L303. A trimmer capacitor in parallel with each one is used to widen the radio's useful receiver bandwidth. They are "hung" under the receiver board on the solder side.

Last D201A removes the self-biasing (cathode-bias) resistors, fuse and capacitor from the "BA" plug-in board. They are replaced by jumper wires. The main audio board has new, added traces and a thumbwheel trimpot on the underside. This circuit feeds "fixed" negative bias voltage to V603. Bad news if the "BA" board from this radio is inserted into an earlier model. Smoke, a blown 6l6GC tube and fuse. If nobody has put in a 20 Amp, at least.

Weird part is that this new "B" board has new traces and holes to accomodate this trimmer pot. But R631, V603's grid-return resistor is still grounded in the board's etch pattern. Every one of these I've seen has a cut made in the ground trace to manually 'unground' one end of R631, and a yellow jumper wire feeds the bias voltage there from the trimpot's wiper pin. Like I said, weird. Standard policy here is to pull the trimpot, and put back the missing parts/fuse on the BA board. Just more stable. If that trimpot fails, V603 will cherry and start smoking expensive parts. They took out that tube's separate fuse, right?

So, how many 'versions' does that make?

I have no reliable records to match serial numbers to these changes. Who knows where the file cabinets with that data ended up? Could be at the bottom of some landfill in NH. Or in the attic of somebody's garage, maybe.

Here's a question for you? Does anybody remember when they started putting Loc-Tite on the pins of the circuit-board tubes? Seemed odd, until a mechanic friend saw the residue on the tubes' pins when a factory tube was PULLED, and I mean PULLED from its socket the very first time. Told me what it was. Made sense. The sockets in the circuit-board radios don't exert the spring pressure on the tube's pins the older chassis-mount sockets would. Weird part was to put 20 or 30 pounds of upward pull on a tube to remove it. And when you went to plug it back in, the pins were now a loose fit. Rock it around with the power on, and it would cut in and out. Guess they had too many radios arriving with tubes rattling around loose inside. Just can't remember when we started seeing that. Pretty sure the first ones were 23 channel radios.

73

Thanks for the "revision" information. I clearly neglected the additional revisions of the D201A, since I've not had any experience with them as of yet.


My two D201's, seem to be two different Mexican PC productions. The "earlier" one has a 2 pin AC plug, with the older 455 Khz resonator IF filters. The BA board also did not have a fuse silkscreened into it, and it was added as a "cut and jump".

The "later" one has a 3 pin AC plug, the Murata 455 Khz filters and the BA board had the fuse incorporated.

Both radios had the cut and jump for the SSB audio utilizing one of the 2N3904 AGC amp transistors (Which were both fried in mine).

Both of my radios show considerable signs of heat. There are a few PC traced lifted, along with discolored solder connections. What's interesting is that the area of the greatest heat "damage" is not near the audio output tube, where you would think the most current would be drawn, but by one of the I.F. tubes (V401 I think). I have to wonder why a small signal tube needs to draw so much current. Is this a common condition? Are there some reliability improvements that can be made (Changes to the bias etc.)?

Also the power transformer on both radios shows signs of burning to the insulation, yet at least one of them is still working (I haven't powered up the second yet, it has a HV short somewhere). Is this also the result of normal use or a consequence of "power boosting" mods. I have removed one jumper across R643, as I want the rig to be basically "stock".

Also (Do I ask too many questiuons?), is it typical that the S-meter zero drifts from hour to hour, or is this a sign of a weak tube or other related part?

As for your question about lock-tite. I did not observe any in my rigs. But I'm sure none of the tubes were original. Also my V401 socket was rather loose (I assume another heat related issue). I would think lock-tite would be a band-aid fix, to a much deeper issue. And wouldn't lock-tite on the pins have the potential to insulate the pin at some point causing intermittent connections?

Thanks for your insight. I've got some accelerated catchup learning to do here. All in all, it's been fun restoring these rigs, and it's been a fun diversion to play with old tube analog circuits, as opposed to modern digital "can't-see-um" circuits...

[Tombstone (R.I.P.)]

I bought a new D201 back in the day and I have to admit that it had a killer transmitter and great sensitive receive. After reading the previous posts I don't think I would want another one, too confusing about what "version" and they seem to promote a lot of repair troubles. I'll stick to my bird radios, ha, ha, the truckers hate the ping.

[Sandbagger]

tombstone said:

I bought a new D201 back in the day and I have to admit that it had a killer transmitter and great sensitive receive. After reading the previous posts I don't think I would want another one, too confusing about what "version" and they seem to promote a lot of repair troubles. I'll stick to my bird radios, ha, ha, the truckers hate the ping.

Oh it's not so bad once you figure out what you have, and verify any changes with the service information.

I figure that any radio which saw heavy use over a 30 year time span is bound to have a few battle scars, so I expect to have to perform a little work. For me that's half the fun. I've got one of my D201's up and fully functional, the other will take a little more work, as there are more battle scars, but it's a rewarding passtime.

[air1]

Say 2600, how does one adjust T100 for the correct impedence match for V301A? I've been working recently on a D201A that I bought years ago and that is the only adjustment on the radio that I'm not sure what to do with. The manual dosen't give any clues. Thanks.

[wd8nia]

Well....mine has the four CU-455 455 Hz resonant filters, but it's got the old two-wire power cord. I'm assuming it's the first issue Mex unit.

Tombstone....I had a long string of very bad experiences bringing 4 Browning rigs online. Believe me, considering that and all the scare stories I surfed up about Trams, I thought long and hard before I finally took the leap. While there is much merit in the cautionary advice, I stand firm on it being possible to acquire a reliable rig by taking care in selecting the source from which to purchase one. Maybe I got lucky and perhaps mine will fail within the next few minutes....whatever. I'm having so much fun with this rig it's worth every penny I spent (less than $300) and any future expense to keep it up and running.

It has a couple of issues....the calibrator is 500 Hz off and something's still wrong with the squelch that a pot replacement didn't resolve. I fixed the flaky S-meter by replacing V402 and V601. I've put some hours into tidying up the insides and during the process discovered Pin 42 was loose on the A Board....I resoldered it and checked all the other pins. At some point I may have it completely gone through, but right now I'm down to having new hardwood sides made for it.

Here's a few images to demonstrate where I'm at with mine as well as perhaps a question or two. I'll begin with a power supply image....during the pot replacement I overlooked tracing the wire so, if anyone has a good idea about it, please tell me about the large cap that's mounted to the chasis side....I haven't seen it in any other D201 pictures I've looked at.


As per advice given, my rig stays locked in "Manual" VFO tune mode. I customarily operate it from 26.800 to 27.535 MHz grabbing the low frequencies with the switch on the bracerail.


The rig has lo/hi selectable power; 4.5w DK swinging 19w and 13w DK swinging just shy of 30w in AM mode. I keep it locked down in low power as this thing has such fantastic tx audio there's never been any need or desire to run the high power setting. Also, the low power setting works perfectly with my boxes. Here's the switch (to the left of the PA tube):


Here's one of the receiver board side:


And finally, here's one of the entire shindig:


My advice....go for it, Tombstone. My D201's whispering softly to me as I type. About 40 minutes ago, with the band dead quiet (thanks to a noise blanker that really works), I picked up a couple of truckers on IN Hwy 37 just south of the I-495 get-off up in Indy, meter at S-0. Now, they're in Mitchell about 35 miles southeast of me, giving me a solid S-1. At their closest, they were 21 miles distant from me in Bloomington, hitting me with an S-7....evidence that they're barefoot.

That's oldtime radioing, my friend. Eagles are nice and I may well own a couple more in my future, but I wouldn't trade this Tram for any Browning out there.

Take care and I wish you and yours outrageous good fortune in your futures,

[Tombstone (R.I.P.)]

I have to admit that a properly working Tram has a little more sensitivity on receive.

Tombstone

[crazybob]

I have a D-201 with the diamond on the speaker. No vox. 3-pin power cord. It's has PC boards. The noise blanker actually works on this one. Is this a rarer version than the HW "Rats Nest"?

[Sandbagger]

Oct 6, 2008 20:13:50 GMT -5 crazybob said:

I have a D-201 with the diamond on the speaker. No vox. 3-pin power cord. It's has PC boards. The noise blanker actually works on this one. Is this a rarer version than the HW "Rats Nest"?

I have one of those as well. It also has the Murata AM ceramic filter instead of the resonators in the I.F. This was the last D201 version made before the 201A came out, if I read my progressions right.

[wd8nia]

Nearly three years of failure, but I scored tonight. Patience and perseverence.



;D

73!

[wd8nia]

It's here and I'm very, very happy with it....

[Deleted]

Did you ever change those bulbs? They look dim. Radio Shack has them (type 47). You need 4, and they cost about $1.70 for 2.

[wd8nia]

Thanks....got some in the desk drawer. Right now I've got the shack torn down and reorganizing everything, and having too much fun playing with the rig to mess with little details.



I'll get bored in the wee hours some night and get into it....seems that's how it always works out.

Take care gd dx and 73.

[Deleted]

Forget the bulbs. You have the right idea! Set it up on the bed and you never have to leave the bed !

[wd8nia]

Woke up early and feeling good today....scrounged up my rubbermaid small parts container. Forgot that I don't use #47 bulbs. I use #755. Same V/A ratings and though they're 40% less cp they have a 20,000 hr service life where the 47s are 3,000 hr. 755s burn cooler.

73.