Yaseu FRG7

After a long time looking I managed to pick up an FRG7, I used to own one a good many years ago and I was sorry when I finally parted with it.

I looked around for some time and then saw one on ebay and decided to try for it, I did get it and it cost me about £60. I was a little disappointed when I first got it as it was not in pristine condition but I have done a little bit of work on it and now I am quite pleased with it.

When I got it home I was not happy with the main tuning dial, there was a lot of backlash in it, when you tuned one way it did not start to move the other way when you changed direction of tuning, although the set did change in frequency.  I decided to strip it down and see if I could find out why, it soon became apparent that the teeth in the top gears were not meshing fully and so I had to take out the main tuning capacitor along with the gearbox. I found that there was a screw missing and also the three remaining screws were very loose. So I replaced the missing one and tightened the others whilst squeezing the two parts together. The gears after that were meshed properly and there was no backlash, however I was still not happy with the tuning and I found out that a 6:1 slow-motion drive had been added, this I understand is a common mod but the drive only had one mounting flange and that had not been packed out properly and so the bearings were now u/s. I managed to get another drive with two mounting flanges but the shaft was too big to fit the main tuning knob, this I fixed by using a drill bit to ream out the brass insert in the knob so that it would fit. I fitted it in place, reassembled the front panel and now the tuning is better than the one I used to own.

While i had the case off i found out that it was modified inside as well! a narrow filter , ASTEC 2khz had been fitted in place of the original 6khz one, it was mounted in a metal enclosure on the underside of the main chassis, also a small pcb which i assume is part of that mod is fitted to the underside as well.

If anyone reading this has any information at all on this ASTEC filter mod would you please contact me at g4kki.william@ntlworld.com

Since writing the above i have discovered that the Astec filter contains a mechanical filter and also the original 6khz filter that was removed from the if board . The mechanical filter is used on LSB/USB and also in AM mode, when it is switched to Am/Anl the 6khz filter is switched in, i presume by diodes from the mode switch. here is a photo of the "Astec " filter pcb. I would still like to have any info you may have on this filter, so please email me if you know anything about it.

The Astec filter ?and the original 6khz filter

 I left that in place but removed a preamp that i found fitted and did not like how it was wired in (hanging from it's coax )

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