Recent content by nomadradio

Brings to mind Cory Doctorow's stages of enshittifcation. When an online resource is new, there is a surplus of value to the users. Bit by bit it gets commodified and eventually costs more to use than it's worth. Think how Facebook's pitch to sign up new users decades ago went. Come over here...

CT1 and CT2 are subject to oxidation. I prefer to eavesdrop on the carrier oscillator when doing alignment. If you tune it in on a sideband receiver you'll hear scratchy erratic frequency jumps when turning the trimmer screw. We dribble a drop of control cleaner into the plastic trimmers and...

The ghost of Billy. No negative feedback. 73

It's a frequency expansion. The switch selects bands above and/or below the legal 40 channels. I'm not familiar with that exact one, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. 73

Pretty sure the sideband-delay capacitor is the small dark-blue electrolytic seen just to the left of the big bare-wire coil between the coax sockets. Taking it loose permanently would involve clipping it loose where it stands. But to turn the delay back on would require a switch and a working...

Last seen Dec 17, 2025. 73

Oops. Next question is about all three (four) modes. Is the transmit silent on AM, FM and sideband? Or did he already answer that elsewhere? 73

Hi Wenefe, welcome to the forum! Have you tried another microphone? They tend to fail more quickly than a radio. And if you don't have another mike to try on that radio, do you have access to another radio that uses the same microphone? First step to troubleshoot failed transmit audio begins...

Have you tried another speaker? Do you have access to an oscilloscope? It's the only way I know to follow an audio signal through the radio seeking where the fault resides. 73

The radio I was thinking of is the "PC68XLT". A surface-mount specimen. Mostly. No handy jumper wire, you have to cut a foil trace. Got chores more urgent than that tonight. 73

I'm working on a version with hookup details for the PC68XL. Found some pics of the procedure. I don't know how many different circuit-board layouts were used in that model number, but the plan is to post a sale ad for that model. I should probably post it here, too. Soon. We always say that. 73

If all you care about is 11 meters, use the "A" slug. Covers 25 to 60 MHz. Tends to cost half as much as the "H" version for the same wattage. 73

Sounds like the SMT resistor poof. The 7805 will show around a Volt on the input pin. Thought I had a pic of the fix on my ImageShack account, but I can't find it. Those folks have developed some twitchiness in their database. The gist of it is pretty simple. Find the pin that feeds main power...

I have a Tenma brand 40-Amp supply that looks just like it, but with gray paint. I'll have a look inside and see if there's a blue and yellow wire like this one has. Even if it came from the same factory as yours, no guarantee they used the same wire colors. 73

The Bird's claim to fame dates back to the dark ages when the only way to tune the antenna on a police car or fire engine was with a wattmeter. It was the universal standard in business-radio installation/maintenance when I was wet behind the ears. The Bird's popularity was with its ruggedness...