I was told in one of these posts to put a 100 watt ac light bulb in line on one side of the ac power cord. If the bulb glows very brightly then there is a short or a high current draw. The bulb is glowing very brightly. Question is. Is it save to leave the radio turned on in this state so I can take voltage readings?
A ps I am getting a short ohm (000.3 ohms) reading across the 10.5vac windings of the power transformer. Does this mean that this winding is shorted out in the transformer? I isolated the 10.5vac lines (no load on the 10.5vac secondary windings) and the light is still very bright.
If you do not know what you are doing, don’t touch it.
You will cause more problems then you will fix.
There is many instances of people hurting themselves by trying to work on their own equipment. Hybrid radios uses voltages higher then more modern equipment. The most common use of light bulbs is as a temporary dummy load. Some people will use it as a variactor to regulate the amount of current going into the radio - primarily to warm it up slowly to dry out damaged components and to test capacitors.
Once the caps goes bang - the show is over.
AS with most older radios with electrolitic capacitors - you need to replace the caps before you can do anything else.
Most FT 101’s were modded to operate on 11 meters.
The people that bought them were primarily CB’rs and they did not understand antenna technology - all they wanted was more power.
In the end, many of them were burned up by their operators.
By 1990 - most people had abandoned CB radio - hence they were delegated to the top shelf of someones closet or put in a box and forgotten.
23 years in storage is never kind to anything electronic.
Since you can’t diagnose anything with just a light bulb, you need to take it apart, measure the known components and replace what ever is faulty, and clean everything else. Deoxit will be your best friend by the time you are done.
Find someone with a tube tester and test the tubes while you are at it.
I have the receive working now on the internal power supply. everything is fine except the 600vdc line. It is a center taped secondary winding on the power transformer. according to the service manual there should be 240vac across the outside wires (if i am reading it right). there is 0 volts across the outside wires. But I get 247vac with the volt meter between ether outside wire and the center tap. that don’t make any sense to me. There should be half the total voltage of the secondary winding when measuring from one outside wire to the center tap.