Ham Radio - Kenwood TS-130S repair and cleanup. 

I absolutely love the AT130 tuner - It works great ! I actually bought a TS430, the power supply, and a speaker, just to get the AT130. It was a smokin deal. $250 for all of it about 2 years ago.

I just got this radio from my dad and plan to see about 30,17,12 meter lockout that you cut the brown wire on. The op manual says it will transmit on the bands , but then says diodes installed to prevent transmission. I guess once I get my antenna connected, I'll know for sure. Nice to see the insides without opening mine.

You do an excellent job explaining everything in detail. I'm in the midst of a TS-130S that I got at the hamfest and your video showed me where to put back a connector that I took off. These TS-130S rigs are known to have issues as they age and it is recommended to loosen then tighten snuggly every screw holding down each pcb inside. If you want to be really thorough you can put a dab of contact cleaner between the pcb and metal that in many cases it is to ground to. One other suggestion: when setting your frequency, don't rely on the display completely. When you called that guy it was clear that you were 50 or more Hz off frequency by the Donald Duck sound of his voice. He might have come back to you on the first try if you had zero-beated on his voice. Many folks have a hard time getting call sign phonetics correctly when "Donald" calls, HI HI. Keeo up the great work. 73!

Just picked up a TS-130s so thanks for the insight of the repairs I need to conduct!

Always like seeing these older radios placed back into service. 73 wd4dda

So Kevin, I watch many of your videos, yesterday, 14 Jan,18.. I found a way to use a Soda Straw added to top of my mag lite, to help find solder pads on opposite side of the circuit board. Especially works well over transistors, the soda straw fits right over the transistor. When you turn the board over you can see the light over the transistor.

TS-130S and AT-130 tuner was the BEST and simplest transceiver I have owned. I even bought a spare AT-130 (also the BEST antenna tuner). I gave the radio and tuner to a trusted HAM friend, and it is still going strong (maybe "forever," who knows?) Hint: I cured the "drift" of the radio by simply exercising the crystal/vfo switch once in a while. Jim, AI4WC

Nice job. I learn something every time I watch.

Excellent very informative for someone like me who is new to all this would have loved to have seen how you cleaned the components God Bless

A very nice r&r video, Kevin. These are always very rewarding especially since the radio is going to a new ham. Also there is a nice, comfortable quaintness about these "old" Kenwood and Icom rigs from that era. With a half-way decent antenna they are MORE than good enough to land QSOs for a skilled op (and really show how superfluous many of the bells and whistles on modern rigs really are). I would only add that the burnt-out wheat grain bulbs JUST SCREAM to be replaced with the bright LEDs available with the shunt resistor. For example, I did an r&r on a DX-160 receiver and an old AN/URM-25D signal generator where the added brilliance was very welcome. Also consider the diode strips. They can be used with 12VDC and come with sticky tape to mske mounting easy. 72/73 de Bill, k6whp dit dit

Absolutely educational Kevin. Many people including me, have budgets that constrain us from purchasing new ham equipment. Your repair videos Kevin, give us hope that first off, the repairs are possible, and second, with some electronic fiddling backgrounds , these repairs can be done by the owner. Not always to be fair, however, if we match the faults to your repairs, a sudden light appears at the end the tunnel, so to speak. By the way, those long tubular light bulbs are common in aircraft emergency exit lights, they come prewired or bulbs separately. Anyhow, thanks for the awesome video. 73' KF2mS Biddeford Maine.

Here I explain what happens with my Yaesu FT-450. A few days ago I made the mistake of trying a radio from a friend of mine when my FT-450 was on receiving, they had two different antennas but the separation between the antennas on the roof are 3 meters. When I was testing the radio in transmission I felt a burning smell from my friend and I realized that it was coming from my radio, at the moment I turned it off and when I turned it back on it had changed many things like: - TRANSMIT BUT DOES NOT GIVE ANY OUT POWER IN (AM) MODE ON ANY BAND. - THE SYSTEM (ALC) DOESN'T WORK, NEVER MARK ANYTHING ON THE DISPLAY, BEFORE IT WORKED VERY GOOD. - ESPECIALLY IN 6M (50MHZ) BEFORE HAD 100 WATT, NOW ONLY HAS 10WATT AND WHEN CW OR SSB TRANSFER FEELS MY VOICE OR NOISE IN THE RADIO HORN. - THE INTERNAL RADIO TUNER ANTENNA DOES NOT ADJUST IN SOME BANDS AND HIGH SWR WITH GHOST ANTENNA DUMMY 50OHM ADJUST 1: 1 ALMOST ALL BANDS, I REMOVED THE RADIO TUNER ANTENNA AND CONTINUES WITH THE SAME PROBLEM, THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE INT-TUNER OF THE FT-450. - BEFORE ALMOST ALL BANDS DRAWN 100 WATT CW AND ALMOST 90 WATT SSB. NOW HIM RESULT WITH LOAD DUMMY 50OHM PER BAND IS: 160m ... fm .... 100 watt cw .... 100 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and digital .. 100 watt ----------------------------- 80m ... fm .... 100 watt cw .... 100 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and dgital .. 100 watt ----------------------- 40m .... fm .... 70 watt cw .... 70 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and digital ..40 watt ----------------------- 30m ....... fm .... 70 watt cw .... 70 watt am .... no carrier no power ----------------------- 20m ....... fm .... 70 watt cw .... 70 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and digital .. 40 watt ----------------------- 17m ....... fm .... 50 watt cw .... 50 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and digital .. 30 watt ------------------------ 15 m ........ fm .... 80 watt cw .... 80 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and digital .. 80 watt ------------------------- 12m ......... fm .... 80 watt cw .... 80 watt am .... no carrier no power fonia and digital .. 50 watt When I transmit on the phone you can hear it on the radio horn ------------------------- 10m ......... fm .... 50 watt cw .... 50 watt am .... 10watt fonia and digital .. 50 watt --------------------------- 6m ......... fm .... 20 watt cw .... 20 watt am .... 20 watt fonia and digital .. 20 watt, When I transmit in fonia it is heard in the radio horn. He also seems to be crazy, he makes noise and he seems to have serious problems. I RESET HOME OF THE RADIO AND CONTINUE WITH THE SAME PROBLEM, THE PARAMETERS THE HIDDEN MENU IS CORRECT, THE RECEPTION IS CONSIDERED GOOD IN ALL THE BANDS AND MODES. I CHECK THE BOARDS OR BOARDS AND ALL ARE IN GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION, NONE COMPONENT SEEMS TO BE BURNED. BEFORE MAKING THE ERROR MY RADIO WAS WORKING NO PROBLEM WITH 100 WATT IN ALL THE BANDS AND THE AUT INT ALSO WORKED NO PROBLEM. I HOPE THAT WITH THESE DATA YOU CAN GIVE ME AN IDEA OR OPINION OF WHAT PROBLEM THE TEAM HAS THOUSAND THANKS IN ADVANCE. note :Now I have realized that when I press the ATT or IPO key that is only for reception it falls even more the power in all the bands, in addition I tested it in reception 6m 50mhz and it has problems also at the reception . BEST 73.- EDUARDO CO8LY

thank you Kevin. It makes sense but I never seen the display showing the shift in any of the radio I owned. Neither did I see it on this one. But maybe I just didn't noticed as I bought it only a few weeks ago and hardly have been using it. That was agin a great video you did.

I picked up a TS-140S on Ebay that was As-Is and didn't find anything wrong with it right away, it has electronic band switching instead of a troublesome rotary switch, but the meter lamp was pretty dim so I replaced it with a 1 Watt LED. The digital display went out when a little inverter module on the front panel board that produces a negative voltage died. I opened that up and found a bad zener diode inside it that I replaced and the two 7805 regulators were a bit low so I replaced them while I was inside the radio.

good job on the rig i was wa9eox in elmwood park il now in california 73 kg6mn that was a great rig

Great job! Forgive me but I'm studying to get my tech. lic. I can buy a new radio but I like to know how to it really works and so I purchase a Kenwood TW-4000A on of all places,,,,,, eBay lol! I feel that if I learn the hard way going into it, I become better at understand more than just buy a new radio @ $300.00 plus, mainly my dream radio is YAESU FT-818 Thanks on your video it helps me a lot! 73's Wish me luck! Charles:) P.S. It has Optional Dual band CTCSS Tone Encoder. It is manual, Did homework on it found my local repeaters Tone #'s and now I starting to understand it better. I was in the dark before this on how it works. Now I know what to look for.

Found one in recycling yesterday.

Nice work, 73's

my first radio i had the 130se .. tnx jeff .. m0prf ..

awesome work. im looking into buying a kenwood Ts820s. and also a ts130s

I have a TS130S as well. After being on for about 20 minutes, the receive audio drops down to practically nothing and at the same time, the CW side tone gets louder than a car alarm; That's going to be a fun one to try and troubleshoot. It sounds like a cap in the AGC circuit might be bad but that wouldn't explain the side tone getting loud. If you have any ideas please let me know.

I just upgraded my Ham license from Technician to General and picked up a working Kenwood TS-430S with matching power supply, PS-430. The meter does not work on receive but does on transmit. Any ideas??? Can't wait to get a long wire antenna and antenna tuner to get on line. My radio has 2 mods, one white wire disconnected that allows all frequencies to be used and the 10th kHz jumper wire clipped to activate the last digit on the VFO. 73 from K9POW in eastern Tennessee.

Thanks Kevin for the video. After cleaning the wafer switches, do you use tuner grease or leave them dry?

THANK YOU..I HAVE A 570G,,,ALC IS ALL THE WAY OVER BUT ONLY PUTTING OUT ONLY 50 WATTS..ADJUSTED INTERNAL MENU,DID NOT HELP.ANY IDEAS? 73

I have two PS-50 PS. One works fine, but the other had a blown 20A fuse. Replaced the fuse with same, but there is less than a volt on the radio plug pins, but 23.4 VDC on the screw terminals. Is this a common occurrence with these PSs? Where would I start looking for the problem? Caps all visually look good with no obvious bulging or leaking. No burn marks on the board or toasted components. I have the schematic and a good bench meter. No scope though.

I just purchased a ts130s with 30, 17 and 12 meters not activated..Do you have a video showing how to activate these bands?...Thanks, Tom

Can you maybe fix mine up? Working on my general and purchased this radio from an older Ham.

I have one its just been repaired and sounds just like the one in the video M6goy

Kevin I’m thinking about to buy this model used… do you think is a good stuff? Thanks man EA1IFS

I have a ts-130s just got every time I turfn it on I get a loud tone, like calibrator but not. HELP?

I have a TS-130S. My daughter bought it for my Christmas present. The transmit power dropped to zero on several occasions. Have you had this problem? Could you recommend someone who could look at it? I live in Ohio in the Dayton area.

My model is the SE model. Curious what machine oil you use and contact cleaner. Thanks

I have a low sensitivity of about 1 mV and what needs to be replaced? greetings

Kevin, I bought a used one and it works fine in SSB but in CW it shift the frequency up 600Hz as soon as I close the key. Any idea why? 73, Yvon NU6I

You are very innovative. Michael VA6XMB

How do you kill the silly git making the plinky plonk noise

I need a tech for my Kenwood ts 130s & ts 530s my call sign is KB8WTA I'm good on Qrz

What antenna tuner is that?

kevin there some bands that a tech can use that is hf