KDK FM-2015R reviews

I currently own 10 KDK 2015 and 2016R's. Some work some don't. For some reason I felt a need to buy them all up with the intention of fixing them as needed or as parts rigs as required. Why did I get 10 of these? Because it was my very first FM rig in the 70's and I guess nostalgia got to me. Back then they were expensive but now on sites like Ebay, I have got some of them for $ 10.00!

They all power up but one of them was exceptionally clean. I powered it up and it worked. The only down side was the memory battery was DOA and so was the battery holder. I got rid of both. I wanted to use the rig with my local repeater. Problem was the PL is only good for one frequency at a time and it is under the hood so if you wanted to change it, you needed to lift the hood and get out the screwdriver. The next problem was how do I know I have the right tone? This is how I did it. I have other rigs that you can set for squelch PL. Well, I set my Kenwood TH-F6a for 141.3 to open when received. As I transmitted I turned the circuit board pot until the squelch opened up on the HT. I went a little beyond until the receiver shut down, brought the PL tone back down until the squelch opened again, continued in that direction until the receiver squelch again and then brought the pot up to a position in between the high and low end of the pot adjustment. At that point, I placed a dot of glue on the pot shaft so I would not move.

I now use the rig on my local repeater here and get a kick out of using a 30+ year old rig when everyone else is using state of the art equipment.

K2WH

I got my KDK-FM2015R from a ham friend of mine who did not want to bother with an older rig that had problems. I figured, what the heck.. I'll give the old girl a try. So after putting it on my bench power supply and a wire back in it's place, I got the old girl back on the air! Local hams report a very clean and clear signal! And she puts out nearly 20watts at 13.5v. And a solid 1W at low.

Overall, this rig is awesome because it has an ANALOG METER! And it has stood the test of time in that it works TX/RX very well. Having a true analog meter can be very nice. Every station now has it's own little place on the meter. And I can tell if a signal really is close or far--or is someone's radio is not doing what it should be. You cant do that well with the new digital LED/LCD redouts that have been stuck in rigs since the early 80s. (why they did away with real analog meters I have no idea)

Off by 5kc
I am trying to find the schematic so I can her a tune up. The rig is off by 5kc. It may sound like a big problem, but this is a TX/RX problem that quickly is solved when you round up the freq. So if you want to talk to someone on 146.52, set the rig to 146.525--if your rig has this problem--with the switch for 5kc below the dial. This does fine so there's no band loss. I'm sure with the schematic or the right diagram this problem can be fixed. Does anyone know how??

There are a couple of things people should know as the switches can be confusing. Turn the radio on with the first switch up for high and down for low power. The "tone" and the "close open" switch must both be in the middle position for VFO or memory operation or you may hear a 60hz HUM in the TX audio (ouch!). And the deviation can be a little high, so keep the mike back a ways. Otherwise, it's the best strictly 2m rig I got because it has an analog meter and you can't beat that. They don't make em' like the used to! If you find one of these rigs.. grab it fast, it's worth it even though you'll need a tone board for most repeater use.

The "close open" switch if for memory control, memory scan, etc.

Contrary to the specs on this and other sites it's marked and I bench tested it from 144-148Mhz.. not 146. It has a simple band switch and it's memories only require you keep power on the rig. You can replace the internal battery but it's not necessary to use the memory function. Definitely worth getting if you like old rigs and want a true analog meter. This radio even has RIT and a meter setting for RIT so you can see how tuned another station really is.

NEAT STUFF! It's replaced the new stuff as my bench 2m simplex rig!

73s
Gabe Beasley KF7DFP
Mostly Macros photography
The Dalles, Oregon