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Magnum 257hp Garbage

pkmak12 said:
Robb what radio would you recommend?
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Few radios are without flaws. Even new ones. Galaxy radios drift on SSB when cold; sound great when warm. Magnum radios are too easy to over-modulate, but modulate the best when adjusted right. RCI radios work fine on SSB; but have too much white noise/'hiss' in their receive for my tastes. SuperStar and Ranger radios aren't much different than a Galaxy. Uniden and Cobra SSB radios are all classics. Nothing wrong with an older radio, so long as it has been aligned and isn't so old that the electrolytic caps need replacing. Getting any radio 'fully aligned' is better than having it just 'peaked and tuned'. Of course, you will form your own opinions after you own all of these over a few years too . . .
;)
 
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Ok so now I have boiled it down to a few radios, I am thinking about the Magnum s9 175 with nitro knobs, Connex 3600HP,Stryker SR490HP ,RCI-2970n2.
 
If your going to use SSB a lot buy the N2 first if no SSB is in the works it's a toss up. I have had 2 S9's no power extras, one worked ok the second works great and use it everday for my base radio, I use SSB 99.9% of the time. Seems with the S9's you either get a great one or an OK one so that would be a factor to consider
 
I do have a 2950dx and the 257 hp which I like for sideband, the new radio I want would be mostly for the extra toys like talkback echo etc. But I do want it to be loud and clear. Good audio is very important for me.
 
Ok so I just ordered the Stryker 497hp and will also be ordering the Magnum s9 175, so I decided to get both radios. I just hope the Magnum is trouble free.
 
I have had two Magnum 257Hp's in the past six months so I think I can chime in here.

I mostly DX and enjoy working all frequencies....

The first 257Hp only lasted a few minutes:
I had expanded the frequency and turned up the modulation it inside the microphone first.
*Initially the transmit and receive was awesome and had several favorable reports through a Solarcon A99 up 40'
*Then switching through the modes, SSB power decreased down to 15-20 watts and reports came back as weak and muffled.
*AM was fine.
*No matter what I did, power never came back up on SSB.
*Radio was a pig.

My supplier readily took it back and dropped shipped another 257Hp.

When the second 257Hp arrived:
*After I opened the cover, noted a speaker wire disconnected from speaker (cold solder? a resold radio?). Quick resolder fixed this.
*Performed the frequency expansion and modulation pot adjustment.
*Again this radio never had many reports of sounding loud both local and CQDX.
*Modulation LED sometimes showed my modualtion on SSB.
*AM was OK.
*Otherwise the radio was again a pig.

Emails to Sam Lewis led to a phone call and the radio was sent off to the Radio Shop in Ontario, CA. Some five weeks later, the 257Hp came back with repaired external speaker jack (I had never used the speaker jack before, so again thinking this was a resold radio), a software upgrade, and re-biased SSB (what ever that means).

So far, I have had good reports of the radio in the mobile. Power meter shows 80 watts max RF power and since then we have turned it down.

I have to admit, Mr. Lewis was prompt in getting it repaired. It still has a 1.5 year warranty on it.

It has been an interesting journey. Intend to run this for a home QTH station with a Sirio Gain Master.


Lastly, I will add, Copper's has the most "horrible" return policy that is not listed on their website. They will not reimburse you for all shipping costs if an item is simply defective and you want a return. Our family has owned several businesses (to include metal fabrication and an accounting firm) and it is not good business to "rape" a displeased customer.

I will go out of my way NOT to support Copper's. They are an awful company.

You may have had a favorable transaction(s), but if ever you need to have any customer service that includes a full refund, you will be left holding onto your pecker.

ps: I $hould have had li$tened to my Elmer.
It would have saved me a lot of money and headache.
 
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Mine just died again today. It was working fine around noon and then started acting funny with display dimming on key up and making a buzzing sound. I shut it off and looked over my system and found nothing so I powered back up and went to 27.185 AM to check SWR on low power and found I had no output no matter where I set the power and radio just buzzes when keyed. I disconnected it and hooked up my old Galaxy dx88 and found my swr off the scale on my meter so I began searching again, I visibly found nothing but my antenna will not tune below 3 SWR anywhere? I put up the old Imax and SWR's tuned up great. My 2016 had never seen more than about 400 watts and had not seen an amp inline in a while. We did have snow here 2 days ago but it didn't affect anything then so why 2 days later? It's still below freezing here also. If the 88 goes down I'm off the air as I have cleaned house and traded a lot of stuff to fund a new fishing Kayak. Please Uncle Sam send me my refund soon!{Cry_river}{Cry_river}
This will be the third time it has went down.
 
BammBamm said:
Mine just died again today. It was working fine around noon and then started acting funny with display dimming on key up and making a buzzing sound. I shut it off and looked over my system and found nothing so I powered back up and went to 27.185 AM to check SWR on low power and found I had no output no matter where I set the power and radio just buzzes when keyed. I disconnected it and hooked up my old Galaxy dx88 and found my swr off the scale on my meter so I began searching again, I visibly found nothing but my antenna will not tune below 3 SWR anywhere
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And the radio failed?!?
Geee....I wonder why....:whistle:

Sooo...you fried your antenna?
 
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well in my case they said the radio did not act up at their repair place but sent me a new radio anyway,DUH, sent me a new radio because???? Anyway the new radio got here recieve is great, go to transmit my local guys said it sounded like shit, I changed mic's changed everything other than my underware, just before packing it up I was like " let me give this a look see" well the ALC pot for SSB was all the way up. I turned it down and it still had big time output, I took off the other cover to look at the board and the connections for the ALC pot had a big blog of solder across all the connections, I solder sucked all the solder off, resoldered everything and now it works GREAT
 
A friend of mine got himself an HTX-10 and we decided to try the radios to see how we sounded on 10 meters....as I found my radio sounds like ass on FM, AM it sounds ok, SSB it seems to drift off frequency, and they said there's no drift on these radios. Well on mine you can set the clarifier for 12 noon and it sounds ok but as you keep talking it tends to start to sound like it's off frequency, then it's hard to get it back on.

My buddies $40 HTX-10 that they don't make anymore, sounded fine on all modes. Of course it was a chilly 24 degrees - would that make a difference on SSB?
 
I ordered one for a friend recently and it had problems as well and had to go to the radio shop in CA as well. Radio is back now and seems to be working nicely but I'm going to venture to say there is a quality control issue right now.
 
Robb I can't say the radio is to blame this time and I agree it was the antenna that took out the whole system. The radio has locked up twice before, Once on the Imax and once on the 2016 and it was found to be the radio both times. My problem now is the fact that I like this Galaxy 88 way more than I should and I am glad I kept my old Imax. I want to put up a new antenna but it is cold here and about 3 inches of snow on the ground and I can't decide what antenna. The Imax will be going back to my cottage in Michigan come spring.
 
m42duster said:
I think it's more of a design error myself.
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it sure isn't a design error it's a quality control issue. These radios need to be used in all modes before packaging, not just slapped in a box and sent to us. I am no doubt a Magnum lover but with all these issues with the new run of 257HP radios I sure won't buy one now. I think Sam Lewis is a great man and does a very good job with his customers but he must not have any control over production cuz this last run of 257HP radios is horrible no doubt.
 

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