The Atlas Solid-State Radios



 

G4FPH's nice clean '215

This site is devoted to the Atlas 110, 180, 210, 215, 350 and even the 400x transceivers. You can now download service manuals for all the radios in Word or PDF format and there are full line-up procedures for the 21X radios on the manuals page. Thanks to Bill Turini, to Marcelo E Giacobini, LW3ESC for the DD6C manual, ON6AB for the the 210/215 manual and F1URL the 206 VFO. Thanks also to Lee G8MXT for his scans of most of the service bulletins for the 180/210/215 radios, to Alex AI2Q for the details of his PA mod and to Darrell WB6VHK for the picture of his working 400X.

New! Jacques has contributed a collection of modifications by K3EZ, publishedin 1976. It includes metering improvements, RIT, CW sidetone, narrow CW filter and more. download here

Martin DJ3ZF has recently acquired a nice 215x "Limited Edition" (picture) complete with a manual which he has photographed for us. I have compiled the photographs into a PDF which you can download here. There is also a set of preliminary instructions and some notes on using the rig when mobile or with an ATU.

You can now download the very comprehensive "Atlas 210X/215X Transceivers Engineering Supplement" by Kevin Murphy – ZL1UJG and Clint Chron – W7KEC on this site. This pulls together lots of hard to find information on the Atlas mobiles. Download here.

As the page I had linked for the History of Atlas Radio has gone I thought I'd make a history page on this site. Whilst surfing for information for that I found this blurb about the still-born Atlas 310 which was due to become available in 1993.

Appeal! If you have any manuals or schematics for any of the Atlas accessories that we don't yet have please let me know.

Atlas were the first readily available 12V all transistor radios to hit the amateur market. They were introduced in 1973 and lasted until the early 1980s when the competition got too hot.

Most are 100W (nominal) models and cover the pre-WARC HF bands. The Atlas 180 covers160-20, the 215 does 160 to 15mtrs and the 210 does 80 through to 10. The 110 seperates covered 80 to 10 and the 350 did 160 to 10 (it also ran 200W when the PA wasn't blown-up!).

They are very suitable for mobile use, being compact and light, and the useful option of a noise-blanker was introduced on later models.

All models are electrically very similar. Plug-in cards are used for the low power circuits except the VFO and some other odds and ends which are scattered around the inside of the box. The PA lives in cramped conditions in its own box screwed to the rear of the cabinet. This was the "Achilles Heel" of the radio and very few now survive with the original CTC A50-12 power transistors. (Later models used the better CD2545.) Fortunately, new and better devices can be persuaded to fit.

This site aims to help the Atlas owner with information from the manufacturers and from users. Manuals for many of the Atlas rigs and accessories are downloadable from the "Manuals" page but beware because some are pretty big files.

Check out the Links page for other Atlas info on the web.

Any comments or mods for the Atlas, or a picture of yours? Contact me at



Webmaster; Dave Pick, G3YXM.