Episode: 4202
Title: HPR4202: Replacing backup batteries in my Kenwood HF Radio Part 3
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4202/hpr4202.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:19:23

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4200 and 2 for Tuesday the 10th of September 2024.
Today's show is entitled Replacing Backup Batteries in My Kenwood HF Radio Part 3.
It is part of the series Ham Radio.
It is hosted by Mr. X and is about 19 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is Part 3 deals with the replacement of the clock backup battery on my TS-94-0S.
Hello and welcome Hacker Public Radio days.
My name is Mr. X and welcome to this podcast.
As usual I'd like to start by thanking the BBLHPR for making this service available to
us all.
HPR is an invaluable service on these here into tubes.
HPR is a community led podcast provided by the community for the community.
That means you can contribute to why you pick up a line of up microphone and send a
show in.
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A phone, a tablet, anything you have to hand.
The HPR folk have gone to a great deal of effort to make it easy to send in a show.
You might even enjoy it.
For all sent in one show a year, we do more shows than we know what to do with and they're
always looking for shows.
I'm sure you've got something you could send in.
There's a host of ideas if you're looking in the, it's called give shows or something
like that.
So it's quite easy to start off with something.
Anyway, this podcast is a continuation of my battery replacement series replacing batteries
back up batteries and a Kenwood TS940S.
This particular episode covers the replacement of the clock battery.
This was recorded on about December time, so it's taken a while to pull the shows together.
Anyway, sit back and enjoy.
I took a picture of the late of my repair as you Americans will see your repair shop.
It's not a shop, it's a, it's just a mess, that's what it is, oh dear, I'll need to put
all this away.
So the chap on the video said about extremely careful when rotating the front fascia back
into place so as to not nip or catch any wires.
I don't actually, it doesn't look like that's going to be a problem, but hmm, I wonder.
It doesn't look like any of the wires were trapped.
I think what I'll do is, where to put those, I think what I'm going to do is, oh no,
no, no, no.
Of course, I didn't think that out, I can't now reach the screws, oh, they're goodness
sake.
I'm just going to release that again, right, I didn't think that through so, two screws
for that side, two screws for this side, right, then there, it doesn't help when the screws
are actually sitting on their ends, they almost become invisible, I don't see looking
down through the radio, I don't see if any wires are going to get trapped, they'll look
could create a me, but of course, what do I know, I know I expected this at all, now,
here's what I could do with that second pair of hands, but I'm definitely not going
to do the second batch of today, I don't have the time, so that's one screw on that side
in place, loose, and I'll do the same on this side as well.
This is going to be a very long air base od, they've got to be lifted slightly, hi,
it's going in, okay, that's one of the screws on that side in place, I don't know how I can,
how easy it's going to be to check whether anything's trapped, I guess I could look underneath
the radio, crawl under the radio, nothing looks trapped, I don't know, yeah, I don't see
anything that's an issue, I wonder if this works, other than works after this, right,
okay, so I think I'm safe to put the other screws in, I think, oh, hello, son, a four-legged
companion, is it a wee bit boring for you, I know, I know, I know, right, so, okay, so
now, all three screws located on one side, and three screws located on that side, oops,
I dropped the screwdriver, tighten that one up, tighten that one up, that'll be nip, each
side, two, and the third one, three, doesn't need to be massively tight, I'd rather, that
one over tighten them and strip them or something like that, own out and enter, fit that,
connected back into the, that board, yep, done that, okay, I wonder if I need to put the
puller front fish head down to get to the other batchy, maybe I don't, I want to look more
complicated doing a lot more connectors and stuff to remove, there's always a dingy pull
a wire out or snap, something when you're doing that, right, so that feels secure, so
isn't there, just a purpose of putting the, putting the covers back on, I think maybe
what I should do is tidy away some of my tools first before I end up breaking something
so back at the moment, okay, so I fitted the top and bottom cover, I won't bore you
with doing that just a reverse of removing it, I guess, I've let the screws off the top
cover because in the video chapters it, you need to, the timer display may not display
correctly or, and all likely to, I think I said it won't display correctly, you need
to reset the circuit with that, there's a switch on the board, which you can sort of get
access to with a small tool and push it in and then cycle the power in it, it'll display
correctly, I hope I haven't done any damage to the radio over, so anyway, let's bring
it over here with a tank, oh, good, that's me, oh, yes, and I'll just connect the antenna
lead, SO239, and I'm going to move it again once I've got the display working correctly
because I can't reach all the screws from here, so it's difficult when you're not going
to use space, right, the moment of truth, I haven't broken anything, I hope not, I'll just
power that on, 3, 2, 1, okay, yes, it has come on, but the display doesn't look correct,
so I'll take a picture of that, just so you all can see, I'll just probably hear the
radio in the background, just, so it's receiving, so I'll just go turn that off, remove the
top cover, mm-hmm, get a thin tool, such as a screwdriver I have here, now I don't know
if it needs to be powered on when you do this reset, so we'll find out in a minute, it wasn't
very, I wasn't very sure about that, anyway, so, okay, my torch, I located the switch before
I put the cover on so I could see, yeah, there it is, yeah, push it in again now, yeah, it clicked, now I'll put the
power back on again, and it's still not correct, so I'm guessing you need to do it while it's turned on,
so, okay, I'll do that again, yeah, it says now it says, chill, Ken, we done it, that's good,
turn the power off, one, two, three, four, five, turn the power on, yes, so I've got an off and on,
and it says, zero, zero, zero, so everything's been reset, I don't even know how to set these things, never
used it, I think I can believe it, I think believe it can be used to turn the radio on or off it at a
certain time, and I've got a clock on it as well, so, I think I picture that just so you can all see, so I'm
very pleased of that, of course, there's still the other batching needs to be replaced, and I also need to set the
clock in time or not, well, I need to make sure the timer's not turned wrong, because I don't think turning on
it, doing the morning or something like that, to delight everyone in the house, that's that off, I'll put the cover back
on, it's very satisfying when you can do something like this, I know when the thing that inspired me a bit from this
as I mentioned before was an episode from Tecmoan that was talking about is a high-file that he purchased, and I
can't even find the video again, but I'll try, and he was talking about how, it's like, well, that way, there's a good
other way, it goes other way, how these batches can leak, and destroy the device, basically, in his case, the way the
copper tracks from the PCB, and I was just completely, well, I guess if you're very skilled you can move, and you hide the
second diagram, and you could be, repair it a bit, a very difficult, complex job, and turn is a lot of them, I feel like this would be just, I don't know, too much, and
there's not, I don't know how many people where I, I don't know, they can, you know, there's fewer and fewer people, there's more
to get to repairs done, so I guess it might be quite difficult to repair, to get somebody to repair this, and costly, to repair
advantage redo like this, so, so, it wasn't really hard, it wasn't really too bad, but the Tec considerably longer than I expected, and I have the
battles if I had a nice, that doesn't seem to be something quite right there, that's it, if I had a nice workshop, I'll set up all the tools, and I
used bench, and you know, and lighting, it'll set up for the job, it would have been much easier and much quicker to do, but I must have
it didn't anticipate the difficulties that I'd have, I tried to balance all the tools on a, on the small desk I've got, was a challenge, trying to
lose it, screws a challenge, trying to keep track of all my tools, and then every time I leaned over the job, it, in my head, obscured the lights,
the bulb above, so I couldn't see where it was soldering, it was very frustrating, and then of course it didn't help the battery, the pitch of the holes on the battery was, it was too small, so I had to extend it, I thought actually there was a kind of double
bend on, on one of the terminals, and I thought if I straightened those out, it would increase the pitch enough, and it would have been a great
flick if that was a case, and unfortunately it wasn't quite enough, it was much closer, but not enough, and it might even have made it more difficult because, because the gap between the post and the battery terminal was now much less, so of course you heat the post up, it,
you're more likely to disrupt the other end of the link, you know, because you're so, you're just that bit closer to the, to the terminal, so um, just check I've got that lined up proper,
so everything lining up, that's okay, that's okay, just for some reason the, the back isn't lining up terribly great for some reason, quite understand, that's better,
um, a little bit trickier than I expected, I chose, well, and I needed that, that battery needed to be replaced because, it was causing the, well, I wasn't actually needed to be, because the clock, as I say, I never used the thing, but if it leaked,
of course, the thing is, these are, I don't know how old, I don't know about the age or the quality of the battery that was fitting, because I'm almost certain it wasn't a genuine Kenwood battery,
um, and obviously with cheaper batteries, it was both of eBay, about £11, something like that for two, the cheaper batteries, I think they're more likely to leak, you know, I found that,
um, when you buy a, there's no guarantee, of course, even with a super duper, oh, I'm gonna pull my headphones off here, even with a super duper, um, battery, you, you mean, still get a leak, I guess, there's no guarantee, you know, I guess, but hopefully,
because other, the other thought is that if you, if the battery lets say it's the original battery, it can't see it being the original, since 1980 odds, but if it's the original battery, then, then if it's not leaked yet, maybe it would be unlikely to leak at all, but then I, I think,
I think, in that, that tick-1 video that he was talking about his, high-fick at most, like, 20-year-old or something like that, or, you know, when he purchased it, and, um, never been opened or something,
and two notes when the battery leaked in it, so he just never know, um, so, as I say, I guess that was just, I really did these things back then, I don't know if they used these sort of batteries, never days, um,
yeah, I think that's now in place, um, just check, the bottom one, um, once I tighten, yes they are, good stuff, I don't know, I ran them all over the rubbish here, like, uh, one more grunt, oops, let's pick the radio up, yeah, yeah, oh,
I'm trying to tap my back, ah, alright, using it, okay, that was, put the ASO 239 antenna socket on the back, I can find the hole, that's it, I'm just creating templates, what's that, the mains lead, plug that in, um,
the microphone, can we hand-held the microphone, just create a place, and, uh, so it's straight, hmm, not quite, that's not bad, turn that on, yes, 0, 0, 8 off, 0, on, 0,
almost 8 minutes have passed, hmm, I'll just make sure the radio is actually receiving,
the radio is right now, it's 8.4, yeah,
hmm, key key for AR, is that what it is, I don't think I have a strong station here, but,
I have a strong station here, looking for it, nope, no strong stations,
we did it, where the groove are for, and came from the over up to, uh, to Cardiff, 17, 18 years old boys, good luck, good be X, and see you next time,
there we go, that was a strong station wasn't it, on the 7DS, 116, come here, so there we go, that's a good place to stop,
So I'll just tell you often and that's been very satisfying. I don't know, I'll get a chance to
fit the place to the second batch, but I can't afford to ignore it, that's for sure.
Okay, thanks for asking everybody. Bye for now.
Okay, I think that's it for this episode, episode three. If you want to find out if
the complete project is successful, replacing the batteries, the last one being the
phase lock loop frequency backup battery. Tune in next time to find out how it goes. If you want to
contact me, I can be contacted at MrX at hpragoglmail.com. That's MRX, ATHPR, the at symbol
googlemail.com. So until next time, thank you and goodbye.
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