Furuno FR160 Radar info

[AussieGeoff]

)Picked up an (allegedly) 'working when removed' FR160 for $75.
It's complete including head to display cable etc. Open scanner, probably four foot
It's still in Queensland so need to get it shipped to Sydney where the boat is, be nice to ship it here, but too expensive, bad enough from Queensland to Sydney and I'd then have to lug it back there and we are tight for car space.

It's not an ideal sailboat system obviously, it's big and heavy and old and will be less power efficient than a more modern CRT sytem and much less so than a recent LCD system.

It dates from 1976 so it's older than I would have liked, but all the budget allowed. Radars are in short supply on the s/h market for some odd reason. The only other one I've seen in recent times (other than new or almost) was a 1990 CRT based system that went for over seven hundred dollars which was well outside my budget. I'm experienced with electronics and worked on a couple of radars so I'm reasonably confident I can keep it alive for a while yet or nurse it back to life if it's expired in storage.

Looking for an info anyone might have on it. It's a very basic system judging from the controls (or lack of) but it's better than nothing so long as it works. Manuals, schematics, anything at all. Naturally Furuno no longer carry specific spares for this model, or any technical or service info (at least according to the Australian agents).

If you have something salted away, I'd be grateful if you could pass it on.

In general, I'd like any advice on what components are likely to need replacing routinely. I'm aware of several components in older radars that need to be changed out, having done so once before on a slightly newer but still CRT Furuno system.

1) Magnetron. Not sure what's in it, but they are probably still quite a few around or possibly in production. If not, there's doubtless a substitute available. They get tired over time, depending on how much use it's had.
2) T/R 'Crystals' (PIN Diodes in the Transmit/Receive circuit, they get noisy and you get a lot of 'grass' as a result.
3) Electrolytic capacitors. Dry out, fade away, die. Storage in hot conditions can lead to these going out quite spectacularly when you feed the system power for the first time after a long time. If they survive that, even if not working perfectly, they often 'reform' themselves and recover.
If not, and they are leaky, you will get ripple in the image or other indications of high frequency AC ripple where there should be DC. Tedious to fix but not expensive.
4) CRT. Can get tired, but can be 'revived' to some degree with judicious use of a HV pulse or six to the cathode.
Also considering the possibility of taking the video signal and feeding it to a monitor as some kind, either as a substitute for the original display (not ideal, Radar CRTs of the older type used high persistence phosphors but I digress) or as a repeater. Probably a question of getting horizontal sync, vertical sync and Video out of the system somehow. If anyone has done this or something like it to utilise an old b/w tv or similar as a repeater, I'd be pleased to hear from them.

IN short, any information that might be useful would be appreciated.
I am not an electronics novice and I hold an advanced class ham ticket.
I've worked on everything from microwave ovens to TVs and mainframe computer power supplys, so well aware of microwave radiation and high voltage hazards etc.

Hope to hear from someone.


AussieGeoff