[ICOM] No longer supported radios

[Roger (K8RI)]

  it a pretty risky proposition?


I hope this can be of help.

On 5/19/2012 9:54 PM, John G. wrote:
> What is the general view of list members concerning buy a no longer 
> supported radio (I won't say which model)?  Is it usually ok, or is it 
> a pretty risky proposition?
Back in the days of tubes it was no biggie. It's still safe to purchase 
on of those because most any one can fix/rebuild/restore to like new 
condition. OK, so most would have to pass on the restoration, but 
they'll likely be viable rigs long after today's state of the art rigs 
are headed for the junk pile.

Now as I assume you are not referring to the so called "boat anchor" 
class of rigs, there are 3 questions or options.
1.    Can you repair it?
2.    Can you get it repaired?
3.    Are you willing to play the odds and hope it won't fail if options 
1 and 2 are out?
4.    Can you get it cheap enough that if you have to rely on option 3, 
it's worth it to you?
4.Rephrased:  Can you afford to put that much money into a rig that will 
likely become useless if anything fails.

There are many rigs out there that are not just unsupported, but where 
some, or even many of the components are no longer available.  This is 
particularly true for drivers and finals in *some* solid state 
transceivers.  Parts can be difficult to find and/or expensive for many 
of the early transceivers that used discrete solid state components with 
a tube driver and/or finals.  Some of those sweep tube finals we used to 
get new for a buck or two have become scarce and very expensive as well 
as no longer in production.  Look for 12BH7 drivers.

Some of the early solid state rigs were not exactly the epitome of 
quality.  So if you find a no longer supported, but nice performing rig 
that looks good try to find some one that knows something about that 
particular rig.  They many not share your opinion on whether it's worth 
purchasing, but they should be able to help with the rigs strong and 
weak points so you can make your own decision.

Yes, I own some rigs that are no longer supported and I used to restore 
the old Hallicrafters rigs.  I sold off all the Hallicrafters equipment 
except for a fully restored HT33B amp as I had finally come to the 
conclusion that at my age I just didn't want to put the time and effort 
into them and they would have been far easier to restore than fix some 
of the old solid state rigs with a few notable items like the dial 
readouts on the SX101s.

  73 and good luck,

Roger (K8RI)