This is a radio that I probably didn't really need, but always wanted to have. Many decades ago I was doing a lot of DXing, with a Sony ICF7600 radio, which was sort of the smaller and much cheaper brother of the ICF-2001D (or by the US model number, the ICF-2010).
This model is an iconic portable receiver, due to not only its performace and features, but its part in a lot of interesting stories.
While browsing eBay, this specimen popped up, advertized as not powering up. I knew that this model had a problem with the battery holder for the 'computer' batteries. These are the batteries that power the digital part of the radio. They are required to be there to keep the time and the station memories. Without these batteries, the unit will not power up even when on mains! Many times people mistake this as some kind of grave problem, which results in a completely dead radio.
Anyway, the price was right, I took a chance and a couple of weeks later, after it did its travel across the Atlantic, I had it in my hands.
A wast amount of information, including scematics and service manual are available at the ICF20102001D usergroup.
A quick test confirmed my suspicion. The plastic post holding the battery terminal for the computer batteries was broken and was not making connection.
It was an easy fix with a bit of epoxy glue and the radio was operational. However, I did not want to stop here. There were a number of other problems. First of all, the radio was dirty. Second, the backligh was extremely weak, barely visible even in total darkness. Finally, the set was out of alignment, especially its main feature, the synchronous detector.
To clean it really well, the best was to completely disassemble the radio which made it possible to simply wash and scrub down the case. It is quite simple, the whole internals can be removed more or less in one large piece. The two main boards are fixed to an internal frame. There are some loose parts, and I had to be careful not to break the delicate wires going to the ferrite antenna coils.
The backlight replacement was a bit more involved. In theory it is a simple replacement of one LED. In practice however, the boards have to be removed from the frame, which includes unsoldering the rotary encoder fo the dial, removing some other juggly bits and most importantly making sure to not damage the flex cables between the boards.
I opted to replace the faint green backlight with a high brightness golden yellow LED. I found it more pleasing to the eye. It is a simple round LED, once the set was apart, it was trivial to replace.
Realigning the receiver is not that easy though. The actual procedure is simple, but I need access to various parts of the radio, which not only includes connecting all the boards, but unsoldering shields, etc. I used my Agilent 6627A power supply to power the set. It needs 3V and 4.5V. This is how it looks why I'm operatig it disassembled.
