TK-240 info

[ka7wnf]

I acquired a TK-240 and a TK-240D. I figured out how to program the D but the non D is giving me fits. The guy that had them said it needed reprogrammed. It has never worked since I got it. When I reset the uProcessor it thinks it's a 450 Mhz radio. When I try and program it I just shows gibberish on the screen and it won't work correctly that is if it even completes the programming. Most of the time the display will just go blank. It also gets hot as if it's stuck in transmit. It shows ERR or nothing at all when I turn it on. One time I was able to reset it and it thought it was a 150 radio but I can't duplicate how I did that. Am I doing something wrong or is this radio trash?

Now that I have had time to put on my thinking cap I took this little guy all apart and started some surgery. Turns out there was a leaky cap. It was a .47uf(?) 6.3 volt electrolytic sitting by the CTCSS board. I pulled it, cleaned the board and installed a new cap albeit a different value. Put it back together and now it works great!!
This is the 3rd Kenwood radio from about the same timeframe, early 90's, that I have come across with leaky caps. The others were TK-830's. It's not just a Motorola Spectra problem. I suspect they were all made by the same manufacturer.

[cumberland2way]

Thanks for sharing, I've seen this problem on many diff. radios, electronics, you name it, even in the same time frame. Again, thanks for getting back and proving this.