Ham Radio Mods to Open Up Frequency Range

[aeromarine]

Does anybody here have experience doing the surgery needed to "open up" ham radios to expand their frequency transmit range? I'd like to have it done to my IC-R60 but don't have the equipment, skill level or confidence needed to try it myself. Any advice or help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[UJay]

What is the radio model?

 

[AHM]

(OP's goin' to radio jail...)

 

[aeromarine]

Sorry, the models are Yaesu FT-R60R and FTM-400. There are plenty of instructional videos on YouTube but I was just curious whether any NESers had done it.

 

[drgrant]

I've done them all the time, HTs are more of a pain in the ass than normal but not by much. Key is a good intermediate power soldering iron with a sharp tip.... and a pair of tweezers is sometimes useful, as well.

 

[MaverickNH]

Yup. Interesting that radio vendors usually make their units with that one critical resister easily accessible for removal, eh?. I “opened up” my Kenwood TH-D74a so it will TX on GMRS/FRS. Not that I’d ever do so and break FCC rules, mind you.

Like the man says - soldering iron with needle tip, steady hand, maybe magnifiers to see up close. Bingo.

But carrying multiple HTs seems silly. It’s bad enough I have a personal phone and a company phone, a personal laptop and a company laptop, a personal,tablet and a company tablet. Oh, you can use your personal gear and save the company $$$ if you want - they just install snoop/kill-switch apps on your stuff. F’that...

 

[appraiser]

back in the CB radio days I made a ton of side money cutting the foil to pin 10 on the PLL01A chip and putting a switch across the cut foil, giving most radios at the time channels above 40... up in what was a business band.... I used to screw with the local taxi company by sending cabs on wild goose chases for fun.

 

[timbo]

When I worked as a tech at HRO in Salem, one of my jobs was opening up transceivers for "MARS" mods. The one requirement was that they had to have a MARS license. Back then (in the late 80's and early 90's), the knowledge was kept pretty close to the vest. Eventually a publishing company called ARTSCII came out with whole books on how to do the mods...My job became less doing the mods and more repairing the botched jobs that came in. Some were so bad that the damage incurred rendered the handheld irrepairable. If the botched job was on an HF transceiver, the job was somewhat easier and probably worth the repair. I think I saw more botched jobs on HF transceivers because...CB. They also got the radio back with only the transmit enabled on the ham bands again...and a very large bill.