I recently pulled my old HR2600 out of mothballs, haven't used it since the mid 90's, stuck a new battery in the mic and hooked it up in the car on a 1/4 wave whip.
I was pleasantly surprised to see it working well after so much time.
My biggest concern was that some of the caps had dried out and gone bad, or worse, leaked acid on the board, which is what happened to my Kenwood TS-60 all-mode 6 meter rig. [sad2]
I had an empty spot on the dash where the TS-60 had resided for the last few years.
I had a few other options, such as putting in my ICOM IC-38A, another radio that's been stashed away for the better part of a decade, but the 220 band is just as dead as it's always been.
I also have an all-mode 2M Kenwood TR-751A, but there's hardly any activity on 2M sideband and I already have a 2M/440 Yaesu FT-7800 in the car.
Anyway, I hooked up the HR2600 and found lots of activity right away, the band was open and I QSO'd with a KC4 station in Georgia on 28.425 USB.
If anyone remembers the Uniden (President) HR Series of radios, the HR2510 was the most popular and well known variant, many were modified for 26-30 Mhz operation. The other radios in this model range were the President Lincoln and Uniden 2830. These were "export" models and not FCC type accepted for US operation, but plenty of them were used here on the 11 meter band. The Lincoln featured variable power output.
The HR2600 was the only variant with a built in tone encoder and allows for repeater offsets, this is what sets it apart as being the version that real Hams wanted, the rest were used as glorified CB's.
The NERD list is showing Mass repeaters at 29.640 and 29.660 (both 131.8 pl) but I wasn't able to bring up either of them. Anyone know if they're still up ???
I was pleasantly surprised to see it working well after so much time.
My biggest concern was that some of the caps had dried out and gone bad, or worse, leaked acid on the board, which is what happened to my Kenwood TS-60 all-mode 6 meter rig. [sad2]
I had an empty spot on the dash where the TS-60 had resided for the last few years.
I had a few other options, such as putting in my ICOM IC-38A, another radio that's been stashed away for the better part of a decade, but the 220 band is just as dead as it's always been.
I also have an all-mode 2M Kenwood TR-751A, but there's hardly any activity on 2M sideband and I already have a 2M/440 Yaesu FT-7800 in the car.
Anyway, I hooked up the HR2600 and found lots of activity right away, the band was open and I QSO'd with a KC4 station in Georgia on 28.425 USB.
If anyone remembers the Uniden (President) HR Series of radios, the HR2510 was the most popular and well known variant, many were modified for 26-30 Mhz operation. The other radios in this model range were the President Lincoln and Uniden 2830. These were "export" models and not FCC type accepted for US operation, but plenty of them were used here on the 11 meter band. The Lincoln featured variable power output.
The HR2600 was the only variant with a built in tone encoder and allows for repeater offsets, this is what sets it apart as being the version that real Hams wanted, the rest were used as glorified CB's.
The NERD list is showing Mass repeaters at 29.640 and 29.660 (both 131.8 pl) but I wasn't able to bring up either of them. Anyone know if they're still up ???