почта from Russia: Fixing the FT-897 Display

As the Hudson River Radio Relay event gets ever closer, I wanted to finally get around to fixing the "zebra stripes" on my Yaesu FT-897 display so that it would be easier to use again in the field while on Bannerman's Island as N2B on June 11th.

Replacement LCD display modules and controller sourcing for this 18+ year old radio has not been easy. Luckily, there is an enterprising amateur named Aleksey in Russia who has designed a replacement and it only cost around $60 USD.

When Yaesu designed the mobile FT-857 and the multi use FT-897 radios, roughly 10 years later many users started to suffer display issues like pictured below. Now my radio was ready for a facelift! 

Not all, but many Yaesu FT-857 and FT-897
have suffered from "zebra striping" on the LCD displays

The bad news is when I finally found out about the miracle replacement display,  there were some issues starting to take shape in February 2022 in the region, which I shall not yet name.

Quickly, Aleksey rushed to the post office to hopefully get the package out of country before worse things could happen. After weeks of lead up, Russian military crossed the Ukrainian borders on February 24th. 

Display has arrived. Now what?

Amazingly, the two piece kit made it across the United States in only 3 days according to USPS after its 48 day customs event between Russia and the destination. Here is what arrived, well packed in bubble wrap. Thanks Aleksey R3ZI! 

The new LCD with attached ribbon cable along with the
new LCD controller on flexible PCB with connector thanks to R3ZI

After dissembling the front  of the FT-897 and separating it entirely from the radio body, all else was needed to remove the seemingly infinite number of screws holding the control board to the face.

It was rather easy to access the old LCD display and start preparing for surgery.

The old LCD display still set within the
white plastic holder prior to removal

Tilting the display up exposed the ribbon cable and the
connections which will need to be desoldered carefully 

I used a hot air SMD rework station to remove the old ribbon connections since I wanted to be careful to not lift off any of of the PCB traces on the main display board of the FT-897D.  I could have just as easily used a standard pencil iron, but when you have the means.....

Extraction was a success and a little clean up was needed to prepare for the new display controller to be attached.

A little more clean up was needed and what appears to be
a missing trace was intentionally blank.  Sigh of relief

I took some solder flux and solder paste and prepared the surface to receive the new flexible controller.

A quick wave of the hot air tool melted the solder into all the right places and the moment of truth in restoring display visibility was now one step closer.  

The new flexible PCB with controller is connected and now just waiting for the ribbon cable for the LCD to be attached and the radio to be reassembled. A thin bead of hot glue was put over the connections for extra security.

Pushing the power button

I was confident in my work and decided to just put everything back together and not try to do some sort of  "preliminary" power up test to see if everything worked the way it should.   

The moment after getting the radio fully re-assembled, applying power, connecting antenna and then taking a breath before pushing the power button was met with success as shown below. 

Thanks for reading and my goal was to NOT do some sort of step by step video or make it easy for you to find out where and from whom I sourced the display, but I promise you that this info is easy to find and is an easy project if you plan carefully.  

Hope to catch some of you from Bannerman's Island via this radio on June 11th.  Will be focusing on 17m SSB and 17m digital modes most likely as part of the N2B station.

Please give 17m a chance....

With nice weather finally returning, its time to take some green pictures of some outside operating compared to the last still frosty excursion with the Icom IC-705 promoting some upcoming combined IOTA, SOTA  and POTA activity here in the Hudson Valley via the Hudson River Radio Relay event on June 12th.

After some portable antenna discussion with Nolan KE8JCT who will be a guest presenter on HVDN Live scheduled for May 17th at 8:00 PM Eastern US time, I was tempted to build an even lighter antenna out of some really nice yellow Teflon 24 gauge wire acquired from the local candy store known as P&T Surplus.

While Nolan will be talking about the recent USMA Balloon Sat in a few weeks time with us, he is also very interested in portable operations and CW QRP!

There is a growing number of portable focused operators in the Hudson Valley like myself, Nolan, Jonathan KC2BNW and a number of others interested in the convergence of radio and the outdoors.

With a freshly mowed and goose poop free lawn for the moment at casa de K2GOG, I set up my just constructed "Lazy Linked Inverted L" to see how well it would work on 17m.  I needed a back up antenna for my pack and this seemed like a good idea.

This antenna which is supported by the 20ft version Jackite pole in orange is supported by a simple $4.99 Tiki Torch stake at the bottom with a piece of PVC that the pole slides over.

Dimensions for the simple 52 foot long chunk of yellow wire is as follows:

• 40m Band = 52 feet, plus 12 foot counterpoise, half wave, medium Z
• 30m Band = Link at 46 feet, half wave, no counterpoise, high Z
• 20m Band = Link at 33 feet, half wave, no counterpoise, high Z
• 17m Band = 52 feet, full wave, no counterpoise, high Z
• 15m Band = 46 feet, full wave, no counterpoise, high Z

The SWR was about 3:1 on 17m, but the magical ZM-2 antenna tuner got things quickly under control at 1.2:1 to help maximize my 5 watts of RF outwards on 18.1575 MHz.  The "long" end of the antenna not visible in the picture was tossed into a nearby tree.

Admittedly, my first contact with this antenna had a much better station down in Texas that probably helped a little, but a contact is still a contact. QSL? YES!

Tom K5VWZ has a world class station and was able to pick me up out of the noise as documented by the recording function on the IC-705. 

I really like this feature and how flexible it is, but to get the file off the radio still means I have to remove the SD card from the radio which is sort of annoying so I could trim it and convert to an MP3 to share with y'all in this article.

Click to play K5VWZ & K2GOG QSO on May 1st 2021

While this was far from an optimal antenna for 17m band and a dipole would have probably done much better, its still always amazing what low power communications without the internet can accomplish.

17m is your next challenge

Be sure to keep an ear on 18157.5 kHz USB as it is known as the 17m HFPACK calling frequency where portable people like me are likely to pop up, but usually not from the backyard.

During the upcoming Hudson River Radio Relay event next month,  expect to look for N2B located on Bannerman's Island (USIAP NY047) which has never been activated by radio before and also N2D, which will be operated by the United States Military Academy at West Point on Constitution Island that now has been awarded USIAP NY073 thanks to this event and its goals.

A few of the eight participating stations like N2B are also technically going to be part of Hudson Highlands State Park K-2079 which actually counts as separate parks such as K-5161 and which you will hear N2U operating on thanks to the PEARL club.  The Orange County Amateur Radio Club operating as N2O from K-2010 and possibly K-2081.

There is much more happening too, so hopefully this article excites you about 17m and some MAJOR upcoming activity across the Hudson Valley.

Learn more about Hudson River Radio Relay - June 12th 2021 and help support Bannerman's Island too!