New Acquisition from Craigslist - Kenwood TS-130SE HF Radio

17 February 2022 at 01:29

Of late I've been scanning the "Electronics" section of Bellingham Craigslist. My radius on Craigslist is set pretty tight so I only see items that are in Whatcom County or perhaps a bit into Canada (which I ignore as a useless exercise at the moment).

A couple of days ago I saw this mention:

Short wave radio equipment - $200

Used short wave radio equipment. Kenwood HF transceiver TS-130SE; Astron RS-20A amplifier; MFJ HF SWR WATTMETER model MFJ-816; MFJ antenna tuner model# MFJ-16010; kenmore handset model # MC- 35S; all the necessary cords. This was my dad's equipment. I have never used it. I have little knowledge of how it works. It does power on. No holds. First person who shows up.

The Astron RS-20A "amplifier" is, of course, a "20 amp" 120V AC to 12V DC power supply, and the "kenmore handset model # MC- 35S" is a Kenwood handheld push-to-talk microphone.

I need more radios / projects like I need... well... you know. But this was too good to pass up - the price was reasonable, and it was right here in Bellingham.

My primary criteria was that for me to be interested in it, it must be 100% solid state (no vacuum tubes). In my opinion, life is too short to deal with vacuum tubes. (Mostly... I have some vacuum tube equipment solely out of nostalgia.)

Per Universal Radio's page on the Kenwood TS-130SE:

(Image courtesy of Universal Electronics)

The Kenwood TS-130SE is designed for SSB and CW modes in the 80 through 10 meter ham bands including the 30, 17 and 12 meter bands. All solid-state technology is input rated at 200 PEP input on SSB, 160W DC on CW. The TS-130SE features a 100 Hz digital display with analog subdial. (This transceiver does not have general coverage receive).

Requires 13.8 VDC at 19 Amps. 9.6 x 3.8 x 11.7 inches 12.3 lbs. (241x94x293 mm 5.6 kg).

So, reasonable features / vintage, reasonable story for selling, price was reasonable, and it's local.

So I went for it last night. I contacted the seller, we met up, and I came away with a copy paper box full of about 30 pounds of radio equipment.

The seller was glad that it went to another Amateur Radio Operator.

I confirm the weight! One won't be backpacking this radio anywhere. All of the gear looks in reasonable shape, just a bit dusty.

One thing I liked about the TS-130SE is that it looks like a reasonably simple, basic rig which I appreciate since despite my decades as an Amateur Radio Operator, I'm an HF Newbie. I know all the theory, but...

Manual Hunting

The hunt online for the TS-130SE user manual started inauspiciously. The first site I found had the TS-130SE listed as a "Boating Accessory". That should have been a clue. To download the manual, I tried the "captcha" three times and "failed". Apparently that site is clickbait to help train some Artificial Intelligence.

The second site, despite being "Kenwood Ltd." immediately clued me that I wasn't in the right place with the mention of "Cooking Chef".

Finally, ManualsLib was "reasonable" though to download the PDF they put all kinds of tricky buttons around the actual Download link. But I did get a PDF of the TS-130SE User Manual downloaded, and it's now printed. ManualsLib injects an unobtrusive footer into each PDF page, and that's a reasonable compromise for being able to find this manual (scanned at reasonable quality), download it as a PDF at no cost , and for ManualsLib not to get ripped off wholesale by some other site profiting from their work. (Assuming, of course, that ManualsLib actually did this initial scan of the user manual. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.)

I'm looking forward to powering up the TS-130SE and hopefully using it (gently, power reduced) on HF data modes. The new home has some good possibilities for HF wire antennas.

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