I'm sure many of you have some radios laying around that need the membrane keypad fixed on them. Lucky for you, I might have just the solution, and it's with things you probably have around the house.
The Radio
When I was first starting out in ham radio, my great uncle gave me a 1980s Wilson WH2510. I instantly fell in love with the radio but it's been sitting in a box for the past 10 years. Why? A poorly constructed keypad, that's why. And a butchered solder job...
In addition, I also planned on adding on a programming switch, but this was back when I used to absolutely butcher solder jobs. Now that I've gotten better at soldering (and desoldering too!) I'm confident and ready to restore this radio and get it moved to the 2 meter band. Can you believe this thing even has a built in CTCSS encoder???
These radios come from the Regency factory, since Wilson is a submodel of the Regency radios. You might think at first glance that they are Regency M100s just rebadged, but this isn't true - the M100 was a scanner only, this is a fully-blown 25 watt mobile transceiver. At the heart of it lies a Fairchild F8/Mostek 3870 microcontroller which does everything for the radio - accept keyboard input, frequency synthesis, etc.
These radios are programmed by jumping an internal jumper near the MCU. I was young and dumb and thought that I could solder my own switch in. Harmless right? I darn near butchered the poor rig! But that is on my to-do list to restore this radio.
The WH2510 has a 10-channel memory, but its bigger brother, the WH2516, has 16 channels. This radio operates on the business/commercial (150MHz) band so I can't use it. BUT...I moved a GMRS radio to 70cm, didn't I? ;)
My plan with this radio is to move it to the 2 meter band where I can maybe use it for repeater work. In fact I COULD pair it with the SM4450 to make a cross band repeater! UHF in, VHF out maybe?
The Fault in Our Keypads
These keypads, both Regency and Wilson types, are prone to this kind of failure over time. As you remove them and reinsert them into their sockets, the traces start to tarnish, fade, or even scrape off. This is what happened to me as I took this radio apart more than a dozen times. I also cut off the majority of the connectors hoping I could get some contact, but to no avail. I was however successful in giving myself my first botched radio job.
As I graduated high school and then college, the poor Wilson sat in a box beneath my workbench. A short time ago, I was given a slant-faced Regency scanner to mess with, which gave me a bit of an idea and a reignited interest in repairing the Wilson. Along with the Regency. Just the story of my life...
I tore up the Regency keyboard beyond repair but I got a good look at the innards of the Wilson's keypad. They were pretty much the exact same keypad but with different markings. So off I went internet sleuthing and brain scratching to see if I could come up with a plan. And I think I may have.
Copper Tape
Yes, it all starts with copper tape. I bought this initially to fix a trace I thought I had tore up but never really got around to fully using this stuff. I bought an assortment pack of 3 sizes and after patching up the said PCB, I couldn't figure out what else I'd need it for. Well, today's the day I'll need it.
The copper tape in question is relatively easy to find on Amazon. Just like PCB traces, this is super conductive and will accept solder connections. If you can't get your hands on copper tape, you could also try aluminum foil. It's just as conductive as copper and is a bit more budget friendly.
I'll actually need to make 2 keypads, as the Regency scanner's keypad also went kaput and was beyond saving. Luckily, I got the pinout by jumping a wire between the pins on the keypad connector and programming in frequencies that way. Once I had the matrix figured out, I styled a keypad that was functionally the same as the original.
Does it work?
ABSOLUTELY YES!!!
I was so surprised. Now it didn't work the first few times as I had made the spacer section incorrectly (I think it was too thin). But once I thickened it up a bit, it worked great. I used the original keypad as the top layer for the MX3000 and some DuPont wires for the harness. In hindsight, I'd use the thinnest wire you can find and I might go back and do this later on. Now on to aligning this thing!!!
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