[Drake] TR7/R7 Blue LED Backlight Bar Lamps

[Don Buska]

Hey Guys,



As a Drake 4-Line owner for over ten years recently I had the 
opportunity of picking up my first TR7.  Wow what a nice radio.  As with 
my 4-Line one of the first things on my to-do list was to work on the 
meter and PTO analog display backlighting to return them to Blue.

Unlike the 4-Line equipment using replacement filters wasn’t something I 
saw as a good solution.  In my engineering contracting business I come 
across some very interesting small manufacturers.  Several months ago 
one of these manufacturers was producing some small LED bar lamps. 
Basically these lamps are mounted like a standard ¼” type fuse.  What 
was of interest to me was the LED’s used were diffused lens types, which 
produced a very wide angle of illumination in this bar configuration. 
Those small type 53 bulbs used in the original TR7/R7 just didn’t 
backlight evenly.

So I worked with the manufacturer to build up some “blue” LED bar lamps 
for me.  I put together a little lamp mount along with a simple slide on 
clamp.  Much like how the original bulbs were mounted.  I was extremely 
pleased at how well they worked in my TR7.  In order to get a decent 
price on the LED bars I ordered a pretty good quantity of them.  So I 
decided to put together a bunch of kits that I have now added to my 
website at  http://home.wi.rr.com/n9oo/products/products.html


Since the original type 53 bulbs and mounts are replaced you will need 
to remove the existing lamp connections and solder them to the new bar 
LED mounts.  Not a difficult thing to do but just an FYI if you’ve never 
held a soldering iron before.  Keep the old bulbs and mounts if you feel 
that you want to ever restore your rig to original.

  73

  Don N9OO