My Yaesu FT-817 gets a overhaul

After many years of use, my FT-817 has developed a number of issues that prompted me to spend part of my vacation repairing it. I want to thank Stuart MM1AVG for his blog on how to replace my SELECT control. The critical elements of this repair are 1) how to disconnect the ribbon cable from the main unit 2) removing the main tuning knob 3) using a good desoldering station that will allow you to desolder the old control without damaging the front panel circuit board. One additional point I wanted to mention was how to remove the main tuning knob on the 817. It is not very obvious but if you slide the rubber knob ring off of the plastic knob housing, this reveals an allen set screw hiding underneath that need to be loosened up to take the knob off. One might assume it is a push on type of knob and try to pry it off the tuning shaft with disastrous results. Dont do that :) Also worth mentioning is the fact that the new replacement SELECT control has a longer shaft and requires a NEW SEL knob to be ordered along with the control. Well, with patience and the proper tools, and my good background in electronics repair, I successfully replaced the SELECT control. Nice ! The other issue that was plaguing me was an intermittent power output condition on the 440 band. Whenever I tried to use the rig on 432 MHz CW, I had no RF output but yet the current draw indicated the rig RF module was drawing more than the usual amount of current. This was alarming to me as I knew why I had an issue with damaging the RF module in previous months past. The RF module was dumping RF in nothing, no load. This is NOT a good condition to have when you have an RF module that is prone to failure when its output termination is poor or non-existent. The problem only seemed an issue on the 440 band. I dug through the FT-817 supplement schematic and realized there were a couple of relays paths that only involved the 440 band. My suspicion was a cold solder joint somewhere on one of these relays. After some very close visual inspection of the RF module board which needed to be completely removed, I noted a few fractured solder joints on those relays. I spent the time resoldering ALL the relay connections to the RF module board. This action resolved the issue. With all the work on my FT-817, I treated it to a nice Begali Adventure key. I am back on the air with the rig and a nice new set of awesome paddles ! CU on the air ! 73 Stephanie WX3K