Gum Boocho (@GumBoocho)

I have in a closet a pair of ICOM transceivers: IC-701 & IC-211, bought around 1979, now not having been used for years. I am reluctant to try to fire them up without getting a recap job done on them first, getting electrolytic capacitors replaced first. So if you know of anyone in the Dallas/Mesquite, TX area who works on 1970s transceivers, I would be thankful for a reference. BTW, these have no tubes. The IC-211 is a 2 meter rig, lacking CTCSS, so I am looking out for a used generator like the TE-32, box with dial on it for selecting tones. not interested in kits. But it looks like TE-32 on Ebay may be pricey. One just bid-out at Ebay for "$132.19 +US $8.95." When you get that expensive, you start thinking to just buy a whole new 2 meter transceiver. I saw a Baofeng HT on Amazon for about $15, can you believe it? Speaking of 2 meters, this Yaesu FT-1385 is an awesome inexpensive mobile transceiver; I have one on my desk. The claimed output is 5,20,50, 85 Watts, having huge heat sink. Of course nowadays it has become fashionable not to include power supplies with transceivers. I had to buy a power supply & a quiet fan to keep it from overheating; I also got a fan for the Yaesu. The drawback for me with the Yaesu is the incredibly obtuse manual, menu abbreviations; the operation is complicated. But it also has this Sooper Dooper Audio processor on the FT-1385R Asp (not rasp) model. I managed to knock it off my desk to the hard floor where it broke a ceramic bowl & partly hit a dumbbell (fortunately with some rubber or rubber like covering on it. But it got no dent out of the fall. And it seemed to suffer no damage, at least for a while. It did start to malfunction about a day later, requiring me to factory reset it twice & it seems that I got a lemon in that the software does not behave right. It has a complicated options-setting menu, which has locked up or failed to store properly functions which I set for its F Menu, 9 functions menu, which is user set. But I don't think that the hit from the fall is to blame, but that it is defective software. I ordered this great Hy-Gain, multiple element yagi, which MFJ used to make before they stopped manufacturing; I had to order it out of England & pay shipping with I think some tariff.