Hardware Hacking

1) Remove battery, antenna from radio.
2) Remove sticker on inside of battery case, describes the dangers of
disposing the NiCD battery. Do not lose this sticker. The board attached to
it is vital; without it, the radio will not work.
3) Remove the two screws inside the compartment that was covered by the
sticker. set them to the side.
4) Remove the two knobs at the top of the radio, power/volume and the
channel/squelch knobs. Remove the dust covers from the knobs also.
5) Carefully remove the gold bands that are threaded onto the shaft of each
knob.
6) You should be able to remove the back case off the radio now. The
red/orange seal between the two parts of the case will probably come off…
Don’t lose it.
7) Behold, the insides of you’re VX150/110. The terrible little bugger

you’re looking for is located just below the microphone element. THE
RESISTORS ARE NOT LABLED.
There are two bridge rectifiers just below the mic element. They are side by
side. On each one, one leg is an open cicuit, the other leg is a resistor.
You will want the BR that is to the left, left being towards the PTT button
side of the radio. Cut the resistor out with an xacto knife if you’re brave
enough, otherwise carefully desolder it. Now bridge the open trace on the
same BR. What you should have is an open cicuit on the second leg where the
resistor used to be and a closed/soldered cicuit on the first leg, which was
not soldered to begin with. You can easily just cold joint the bridge or
place across a small piece of wire, like a single strand from a large (14,
12 ga) stranded copper wire.
Reassemble the radio by following these steps:
Place the rear case back on to the radio
Thread the gold band nuts back onto the vol/channel shafts
Reattach the dust covers by simply pushing them back into the shaft
recesses
Place the knobs back onto their respective shafts
Tighten the two screws back into their place underneath the sticker.
Place the sticker with the “dummy unit” back into its recess.
Reattach battery, antenna.
9) To complete this mod, you need to reset the CPU. To do this, push in the
PTT button and the Lamp button on the side of the raido at the same time as
turning on the unit. You will want to select the reset option by depressing
the F button on the keypad.
10) This completes the modification to the VX150/110 Handheld. Please note,
transmitting outside of the Amateur 2 meter band without a type accepted
radio, which the Vertex radio is not outside of the 2 Meter band, is a
violation of FCC Regulation. Use at your own descretion. The author is not
responsible for any damages or accidents that arise from this mod. I
originally did the mod to the second BR, which controls the A/B US-European
band plans. If you want a Euro band plan on your radio, be my guest. Also,
more or less, use common sense. If you’re radio is acting up and you’re
planning on sending it in for warentee repair, don’t do this mod before you
send it. It will more than likely void the warentee. And most of all, enjoy
Amateur radio. Experimentation is every bit a part of Amateur Radio as
Public Service or International Goodwill. I did this mod because sometimes
I’m in areas where I can’t access any other Amateurs via 2 meter, but I can
reach my local County S.O., for whom I work with extensively with their
communications systems. I use this mod for emergency use only; what you use
it for is completely at your own risk.

Yaesu VX-1R - Expanded Transmit 137 - 175, 410 - 470 MHz

Remove battery
Remove the (3) small black screws.
Carefully open the radio, spliting the radio front and rear cases
Looking down inside of the top left side of the radio (left of rotary
encoder) , locate and ADD Solder to jumpers “0″ and “1″
(jumper “0″ is the top jumper and jumper “1″ is below it)
Assemble radio.
Press and hold [M/V] and [AR] keys while turning on the radio.
Modification Complete

Remove the battery pack, beneath where the pack was, is a black cover
(heavy duty paper) it’s just stuck and is removable to install the
optional barometer/temperature module.

Remove this and you’ll see 8 solder pads, for some reason some have 3
pads bridged, in my case there were 4 bridged. In either case unsolder
the 5th pad counting right to left. Do a full reset, the HT is now
open.

Look down on the front panel, with the VFO knob just left of center. Look
at the jumper locations just above the VFO knob on the circuit board.
Solder the first four jumpers and remove the solder jumper at location five.
Reassemble the radio, and reset the cpu by pressing V/M and the “F” button
and turn the radio on while holding the buttons down. This will extend the
xmit freqs. on hf, vhf and uhf.

———————————————————————

The following Yeasu FT-817 frequency expansion modification is
identical to the version provided by the manufacturer for MARS/CAP
application.

1. Remove any power or battery from the Radio.

2. Remove the 14 screws holding the top and bottom covers to the radio.

3. Remove the battery cover latch.

4. Remove the covers.

5. Remove the BNC retaining nut.

6. Carefully lift the 4 plastic tabs holding the front panel to the
chassis and slightly move the front panel forward.

7. Disconnect the ribbon cable that connects the chassis and the
front panel.

8. Remove the jumper at location on Front Panel (J4005)

9. Press and hold the “VFO/MR” key and the “F” key while turning on
the radio.

10. Reassemble the radio.

Note: The manufacturer states that “this modification opens up transmit
coverage for MARS/CAP ONLY!” Other published modifications also have the
user bridge the “first four jumpers”.

Remove resistor: R1396, R1400, R1402 on the main unit of the radio.

Press and hold down the “MHZ” and “REV” buttons on the front panel
of the radio, while powering on the radio.

Modification is complete.

New frequency:
VHF RX 108 - 180 MHz
VHF TX 136 - 174 MHz
UHF RX 320 - 999 MHz
UHF TX 410 - 470 MHz