headphone, speaker, CW Key.if you're going to hook ANYTHING into the Triton II, plan on pulling it out from the wall and using a flashlight to find the right hole. The rig is also awkward in that every single jack on the thing is on the BACK panel of the beast. The "II" just has double output wattage (100w). Over a year ago, I friend brought me a box of junk over after cleaning out his shack (like I needed more junk!) In the box was a Triton II which looked exactly like the Triton One I owned in the late 70's. Looks cheap, like it was made from surplus plastic toys and soda cans, and has the fewest knobs/switches ever on a fullsized ham rig. It is! Ugliest ham rig I ever laid eyes on, although your mileage in the "beholder" department is sure to vary. It would be a great first HF radio, or a great backup. Other drawbacks the case is a little flimsy, and it is akward that the mike jack is on the back.īut in the end, it works great, sounds better, and is possibly the easiest HF rig to operate. To my surprise a replacement string is avaliable for $1.50 (and $3.00 S&H). I had heard of fixes with rubber bands and springs, so I decided to contact ten-tec support. It has a small elastic section which, after years of use, becomes stretched out. Mine also suffered the biggest flaw of the radio, the tuning dial string.
It is fairly easy to work on, and ten-tec support is always available for help. It is able to punch into pileups with enough power to get me noticed. It works great even at higher SWR, and less than ideal situations. It recieves beautifully, and I am able to pick out even the hardest to recieve stations with the addition of an external filter. I have hade many people comment on the clean, natural sound of my transmit audio.
The radio is incredibly easy to operate, it takes very little tune it up and transmit. I have had opprotunities to replace it, but I have a difficult time spending a thousand bucks on a radio which may or may not work as well. I have owned a Ten-Tec Triton II for over a decade now, and it still serves as my primary HF radio. It is a fun piece of ham history to use and own. It's only features that will put many modern rigs to shame are its keying, QSK and simplicity. The Triton II made a mark in history by being one of the first (if not the first) all solid state commercially available 100W transceiver. Keep in mind that it's 40 year old technology. Do not buy a Triton II if you expect it to work like your friend's brand new digital radio. To complete the station I rebuilt and cleaned up a Ten Tec KR-50 keyer to go with it. I mainly use it on CW where I do most of my ragchewing. I have used it on SSB (a net) once and got good reports. I found a cheap, slick and reversible modification to fix the RIT interaction with the PTO. Most of the issues were cleaning of contacts and relubrication the PTO. I spent less than $100 for a somewhat working radio in need of TLC. I bought a "tech special" on Ebay a couple years ago for a winter project.