Down and Out with the Yamaha TX-1000 Tuner...

chops

chops

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Winter Haven, FL
All excited as the "new" tuner came in the mail today. I brought it home on my lunch break and opened it up to inspect it. Everything looks great under the hood. Button it back up and head back to work. I get home tonight, put the 300 to 75 ohm adapter on my antenna, install the tuner in the system, and...

A whole lot of nothing! :mad:

No matter what I do, it will only tune to three stations, all of which oddly enough are local religious stations. It will not tune to anything else.

I'm going to speak with my father tomorrow and see if he can take a look at it. Maybe it just needs an alignment, but I can't imagine a digital tuner being that far off that it won't tune onto anything. Unless there's something else wrong with it. I only hope he still has all of his alignment gear since now his thing is rebuilding cassette decks.

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I wonder if there is a fully system reset? Might want to check the antenna A/B... There are two inputs on that bad boy and if you have the one selected that does not have antenna connected to it....
 
Randy, I don't see any kind of reset anywhere, including the owners manual or service manual. And yes, I'm aware of the two antenna inputs, and I have tried both. No luck with either one.

Randy Myers said:
I wonder if there is a fully system reset? Might want to check the antenna A/B... There are two inputs on that bad boy and if you have the one selected that does not have antenna connected to it....
Click to expand...
 
Well dang... both suggestions were shots in the dark... have you tried contacting the person you bought it from?
 
Let me respond for him.... "Worked fine for me"....

Sorry, being cynical.... I just have an inherent distrust for buying from e-bay.

The unit does look clean, wonder if there is a sensitivity setting or something like that.
 
Trust me, I know Randy. Personally, I hate dealing with eBay as well. It's a great concept but the morons on it ruin it. Almost no one can be trusted on it.

As for settings, I have tried them all. Nothing makes any difference. And yes, it is extremely clean inside. The exterior isn't too bad either except for a couple of gouges on the top of the face plate that also gouges into the display's glass. Of course, you can't see them in the crappy pictures on eBay.

I think people purposely post crappy pics just to hide all of the flaws, knowing darn well even the cheapest of cheap phones and cameras can take more than adequate pictures for posting on eBay.
 
Charles that unit was made around 1988 I think, I would just if you can, take (or send it to a shop) it to a person that can work on electronics, maybe its a cheap and easy fix. Of course you might have more money in the unit than its actually worth after repairs.. Man its a bummer that TX1000 is a nice tuner.
 
Chris,

After doing some more research, I found someone suggest using a hair drier to "warm up" the components to see if it's possibly a cold/faulty solder joint. I tired it just for the heck of it... It didn't work.

However, during further inspection (I was in a hurry yesterday afternoon on my lunch break and didn't notice it), it appears that this tuner took a slight hit in the rear where the antenna connects are. In fact, the plastic housing on the inside where they are mounted to is cracked behind Ant A, which I now notice is also pushed it just a touch.

Something else I've noticed... Every time I push on the 300 - 75 ohm adapter and pull it back off, the center pin is pushed back inside the adapter. I have to pop off the cover and push the pin back in. So now I'm thinking there's part of a snapped off pin in both the Ant A and B connectors. This would result in little to no connection with the antenna.

What I've tried doing now is leaving the cover off of the adapter, push it onto the Ant B, then try to push the pin back in as far as it will go, which isn't much at all. With that said, it makes enough of a connection that I am now able to pick up a few stations. Not the greatest results, but it's better than nothing at all.

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chops said:
Chris,

After doing some more research, I found someone suggest using a hair drier to "warm up" the components to see if it's possibly a cold/faulty solder joint. I tired it just for the heck of it... It didn't work.

However, during further inspection (I was in a hurry yesterday afternoon on my lunch break and didn't notice it), it appears that this tuner took a slight hit in the rear where the antenna connects are. In fact, the plastic housing on the inside where they are mounted to is cracked behind Ant A, which I now notice is also pushed it just a touch.

Something else I've noticed... Every time I push on the 300 - 75 ohm adapter and pull it back off, the center pin is pushed back inside the adapter. I have to pop off the cover and push the pin back in. So now I'm thinking there's part of a snapped off pin in both the Ant A and B connectors. This would result in little to no connection with the antenna.

What I've tried doing now is leaving the cover off of the adapter, push it onto the Ant B, then try to push the pin back in as far as it will go, which isn't much at all. With that said, it makes enough of a connection that I am now able to pick up a few stations. Not the greatest results, but it's better than nothing at all.

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Click to expand...

Well that's good that you found that. Have you checked this site yet http://www.oaktreevintage.com/repair_links_outside.htm
 
I have a really nice Kenwood KT-815 tuner I will sell you. It's a big boy tuner and works perfect and it will skip all religious radio stations if you want it to. Seriously, it's a great tuner in really nice condition. It has that cool feature of automatically tuning to the center of the station you are trying to pull in. You can manually misadjust the tuner, but as soon as you take your hand off the knob, it will automatically adjust perfectly to the center spot. You can also defeat that function if you think you are smarter than the tuner.
 
Chris, my father actually does this kind of work all the time on 3-head cassette decks, and he's just on the other side of town. I'm going to give him a call and see if he has some time to mess around with it.
 
It sounds like the antenna connector should probably be replaced and you should be good to go. I hope this guy gave you a good deal because I can almost guarantee he knew there was an issue. I would think bad feedback is probably in order.

Your dad can probably take care of it nothing flat!
 
Okay, so I've had a fun filled day of minor surgery on this tuner.


  • Fixed the slightly bent lid
  • Fixed the bent rear panel
  • Fixed the slightly cocked chassis
  • Fixed the antenna jacks


For starters, I'm glad to find out that the antenna jacks didn't have any broken pins or wires stuck in them. What the issue there is either the contacts inside the jacks are way too tight or the center pin on the Rat Shack adapter is a little too thick. Once I push the adapter on, I have to use the flat side of a pair of pliers and carefully and slowly push the pin all the way in. Only after that can I put the rear cover back on the adapter.

With the tuner placed on top of the rack, under the turntable, I am able to raise the ugly dipole antenna about 1.5' above the TV (which I didn't want to do). I had to do this in order to get the best reception. It helped, but nothing huge.

I am now able to pick up the same amount of stations with the TX-1000 as I was with the TX-540, though still not near as strong. Maybe it's because of that adapter knocking the impedance down from 300 to 75 ohms, and it makes the dipole less effective. I don't know. I'm just guessing on that.

I'm happy to say that the few stations that come in strong and clean sound amazingly good considering the musical material being played on those stations. I can tell this tuner sounds bigger and better than the 540. Bass seems a little deeper and tighter, and the treble seems to be more refined. Stereo separation and width sounds better also.

All in all, I'm happy with the end results. The only thing that sucks now is the fact that the two stations I really need to come in clear (88.5 and 89.7), don't. Some of the other stations like 89.3 and 104.7 keep switching back and forth from stereo to mono. I think if I get a good antenna, that may help.

Anyway, picture time...

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Sounds like some fairly major surgery. So the 75 ohm inputs are push ons, not screw ons? Well maybe a better antenna will help. I am gone through a gambit of antennas so i understand what a difference it makes...
 
Yeah, they're the push on type (F-Connector). I wish they were the typical screw on kind though. Those provide a much more secure connection.

I'm hoping a better antenna will help. Speaking of which, I just bought a brand new Magnum Dynalab ST-2. Oh, and maybe a beautiful, mint Carver TX-11a too... :sneaky:



Randy Myers said:
Sounds like some fairly major surgery. So the 75 ohm inputs are push ons, not screw ons? Well maybe a better antenna will help. I am gone through a gambit of antennas so i understand what a difference it makes...
Click to expand...
 
Every place I checked were out of the ST-2's, so I ordered the Godar DXR-1000. Their similar whip antenna. The Godar has an extendable whip (tunable as they say.. yea right). I will give it a try, if it does not do the job then I will have to wait for the ST-2.
 
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