I recently bought a president washington base station radio.it worked ok powered up and everything fine... people say it has good signal, but low modulation. So today i gently blew the radio out with compressed air. both covers are off. i plug it into the wall and it powers up for just a second then dies.i have checked the fuse in the back of the radio and its good.any sugestions on why this thing wont power up. I never saw any smoke or anything.... i was carefull while i was blowing all the dust out of the radio.
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president washington problems
- Thread starter red97k1500
- Start date
Check the AC/DC switch on the backside of the radio, and make sure it didn't get moved. If it's just a hair off of the AC position, it can potentially cause the issue you're having. Have a look and let us know how you get on.
~Cheers~
~Cheers~
I did not know there was a switch i hope i have not damaged anything i have been plugging it in my house and in my truck without ever flipping this switch... i just plugged it into my truck not long ago and it powered up but there was no receive.... i need to check the switch for sure im guessing its under neath the covers
Ohh! I bet you have the old school President Washington, with the 4 pin mic jack and the 2 push buttons in the front. In that case, you won't have an AC/DC switch in the back. 
In this case, does it always power up for just a second before shutting down when trying to run it on 110V? Or did it do that just once, and now it's not powering up at all?
If it powers up on 12V, I'd suspect something in the power supply went fault.
Try keying up the radio in your vehicle. If you are able to key up on AM, but do not have any modulated audio, and no receive audio, I'd suspect a bad audio IC.
~Cheers~
In this case, does it always power up for just a second before shutting down when trying to run it on 110V? Or did it do that just once, and now it's not powering up at all?
If it powers up on 12V, I'd suspect something in the power supply went fault.
Try keying up the radio in your vehicle. If you are able to key up on AM, but do not have any modulated audio, and no receive audio, I'd suspect a bad audio IC.
~Cheers~
Yes it is an old washington 4 pin mike jack, 858 pll chip.... and no before i blew it out it powered up fine when plugged into the wall.... the only problems with it before i blew it out was no modulation.... now it will power up in my truck on 12u volts but no receive... im about to do some reading up on it and try to fix it myself
Could check the relay and see if it's come loose in the socket, or possibly dirty contacts. That can cause the receive to drop. Have a look at that too.
~Cheers~
Good thinking.
I forgot all about the relay.
Sometimes the wire retainer has been removed and is no longer present and could allow the relay to wiggle loose in the socket if the radio were to be moved around in different positions such as what might occur if you were to blow the dust out with compressed air.
Radiooman
I got it to power up again when i plug it into the wall.All i did was pull out the relay and put it back in.Now its working the way it did before but kind of intermittently.When i plugged it back in at first only the meter light and channel display came on then i pushed the cb/pa switch a few times and played with mode switch and turned it off and on and the recieve came back.Btw this radio is bone stock from what i can tell.I dont think its ever been moded,clairifier is still locked etc.
Sounds like some of the switches might have some contact issues.
Sometimes if you exercise them they will start to behave better.
If not then you might have to administer some contact cleaner to the internals of the switches and then give them some exercise.
And unfornately that is some of the woes with older radio equipment.
Radiooman
Sometimes if you exercise them they will start to behave better.
If not then you might have to administer some contact cleaner to the internals of the switches and then give them some exercise.
And unfornately that is some of the woes with older radio equipment.
Radiooman