CTCSS and older radios on a budget
 

How many of you have older model VHF/UHF radios sitting around with no ctcss boards? I have several myself. Most are all mode rigs that I still use for 2 meter ssb. These are useless on repeaters today so we end up buying new rigs.

But how many of you are tight on money? Just don't have the extra cash to spend for the latest and greatest thing on the market. Single tone boards are pretty cheap. But if you need more than just one tone you are going to have to spend more money if you want to use those older rigs.

Here is a cheap affective way to solve your problem.
I was a repair tech for a few commercial radio dealers years ago. Anything we junked I save a lot of old parts from them. Many of the units had plug in adjustable tone boards. I save a lot of tone boards from Johnson PPL 6060's
These have a variable resistor and a couple of jumpers to achieve the tone you need.

I used an old enclosure from a TV UHF switch. Mounted the tone board, installed a couple of miniature switches and a 5 position 2 pole wafer switch.
I removed the variable resistor from the unit and connected it to the 5 position switch. So position one is variable and the tuning stub sticks out the top of the unit. The other nine positions I installed resistors for the tone I needed. One of the miniature switches selects which pole is used on the 5 position switch. Another miniature switch is used to select the tone range. (removes jumper).

Only three wires are needed for the connection to the radio.
Tone out
Power
Ground
You can connect the tone out to the center of the deviation control. If you do this make sure to install a 100K ohm resistor in line. You can install a jack in the back of the rig to plug the unit in or disconnect and move to another rig.

Total time to build the unit was a little over 3.5 hours.
Total cost was zero. Everything came from the junk box.

Just an idea to throw out to the ones on a budget.

Great idea and a nice job too Buddy!

We still have 2 around here with no tones. We're behind the times.:)

73

Chris

Thanks guys. you there are a lot of old rigs out there looking for a good home. And cheap too. But new hams want buy them because they do not have ctcss in them. I thought I throw this out to encourage peeps of another idea.

Its a great idea Buddy and you did do a great job. I meant to mention that in my first post. It looks very professional. I've seen a kit you can order to make one as well. My friend has a nice old Kenwood mobile unit that doesn't have a tone board. Its to nice of a radio not to use.

73

Chris

Thanks, we can always find a way to make what we have better.