[Boatanchors] FT200 Resurrection

[Geoff Roberts]

I have dusted off my ancient FT200 so I can start operating again.   It's
hybrid, but the closest I can get for now.   It has an intermittent fault
that I really need to track down, but mostly it works pretty well.   Still
hunting around for another couple of radios, something for the shack (read
bedroom lol) mains powered and something for the boat (35' Ferro Ketch for
MM) so it really needs to be 12vdc and not too hard on batteries, so I will
probably have to stick to solid state for that, ideally something that will
do general coverage tx/rx so I can cover the Marine HF bands as well as the
ham bands on one radio.

 

Hunting around for boatanchors here is a bit difficult actually.    Seem to
be a few FT101s and the odd Kenwood box around and that's about it.    They
always seem to be offered as in 'good condition' but read in the text that
the finals are about dead, yet they still seem to want top dollar.   Maybe
I'm a cheapskate (okay, I am lol) but some of the prices seem a little steep
for a thirty or forty year old radio with dying finals.

 

Looked enviously at some in the US on ebay, but the cost of freight
frequently exceeds the price of the radio.    We don't seem to have the
diversity here either.   Yaesu and Kenwood and such, but never seem to see
Collins, Drake, Swan or Hallicrafters or indeed any of the real boatanchor
stuff.   I guess there just isn't that much around down under.

 

 

Geoff 

VK5GDR