My old friend President Jackson.

DTB Radio said:

Not sure what anyone else is seeing, but I'm noticing that almost every one of these out of the box has loose/stripped screws or screw holes.

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Those screws aren't stripped. They are coarse thread screws. Problem is, the case is threaded with fine threads. A real mechanical genius assembled these radios. Just throw away those screws that came with that radio and put in some fine threaded screws. I did; worked for me . . .

So far these seem to be genuine Jackson boards all the way, right down to some of the part manufacturers that have been gone for years.

I agree on the screws. I've been replacing the ones I find stripped, but I'm going to have to start replacing all of them. I apparently dropped the ball pretty badly with one radio. A customer just received one from me that he says has all 8 stripped screws, and he is steamed. Trying to work with him to make it right, but I don't know if I'll be able to satisfy him or not.

DTB Radio said:

So far these seem to be genuine Jackson boards all the way, right down to some of the part manufacturers that have been gone for years.

I agree on the screws. I've been replacing the ones I find stripped, but I'm going to have to start replacing all of them. I apparently dropped the ball pretty badly with one radio. A customer just received one from me that he says has all 8 stripped screws, and he is steamed. Trying to work with him to make it right, but I don't know if I'll be able to satisfy him or not.

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The board I have says: 'EPT001A10Z'.
Looks like a Ranger board # to me . . Still not certain when these radios were mfd. . .

". . .But you can't please all of the people all of the time"; but you sure can try.

Dave,

What are the most common mods people are requesting to be done, besides expansion?

So if one got by you just send him 8 new correct screws for the radio. That is if the chasis threads aren't stripped. if that's the case I would be upset s well.

The only thing I can see if that is the case would be to take back the radio and issue another that does not have that issue.

m42duster said:

Dave,

What are the most common mods people are requesting to be done, besides expansion?

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and can you get all of 10 meters? after the expansion to 11m.

See that sticker that says "Made in Malaysia"?
If you remove it, it says 'Taiwan' underneath . . .



Talked to Chip at 'Radio Supply Shop' again today. He said that the SuperStar JA's made in the early 90's had two 2SC2312 output transistors; not the MRF477. Chip didn't work for Ranger/RCI in the 80's; so he was surprised that my radio has the MRF477. So he agrees with me that this had to be before that 90's time and '84 is a very likely production date. Twenty-nine year old radio . . .

He also said that Ranger/RCI isn't going to honor the warranty repair. That issue is still up in the air. If so; then all of those vendors that claimed it is 'new' will have to fix them because they didn't imply a warranty either way. That will be very tough for them if they try to replace the MRF477! Hard to find and expensive to replace.

Oh, wow! This sounds like a big twisted mess.

Copper Electronics will just hang up on you.

I have no doubt that they would.

extra can, no adders, whatever it is its not a jackson board but its very similar,

jacksons never had the frequency stability of other uniden exports, the original would typically drift about 300hz from cold to warm in a base station setup, notably more than a 148gtl-dx and even further behind the stability of a grant dx or stalker 9fdx,

Ok, there seems to be allot of them floating around over there where you are. Everyone I have ever talked with in europe seems to love those Jacksons as well as the grant exports and a few others.

bob85 said:

extra can, no adders, whatever it is its not a jackson board but its very similar,

jacksons never had the frequency stability of other uniden exports, the original would typically drift about 300hz from cold to warm in a base station setup, notably more than a 148gtl-dx and even further behind the stability of a grant dx or stalker 9fdx,

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I found some more out about the extra tuning can as well. There is a misprint in the service manual; they called it L49 instead of L44. The SuperStar Jacko has just as many cans as the original Jacko did. They did add a ferrite slug to the core of L31 in the SuperStar Jacko; that was different from the original Jacko. For the most part, the original Jacko schematic matches right up to the SS Jacko clone.

The SS Jacko does have the two 2-bit adders chips on a stand-up board too. But that board doesn't plug in to the main board like the original Jacko did. It is soldered directly on to the main chassis instead.

This radio didn't have freq stability either - until I used that mod which ties the loop osc cans to the loop crystal. Now it is just as stable as any Cobra 148GTL.

Did your AGC mod to it too. Now the AGC works just fine.

I am still having no luck getting enough bias current for the MRF477 final. 35mA is the best I can get with it; it is supposed to be 80mA. Removed and checked the bias pot, replaced the elect. cap and even tried another MV1Y diode with no luck. The President Jacko schematic has the same driver/final circuit as this SuperStar Jacko. Any insights with this issue, Bob?

The Mad Scientist said:

Ok, there seems to be allot of them floating around over there where you are. Everyone I have ever talked with in europe seems to love those Jacksons as well as the grant exports and a few others.

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yes the jacko is popular over here, much more common than the grant,
they both have their pros and cons.


rob,
check the resistors in the bias circuit are the same value as the jacko, check for leaky caps, check or replace the mv1y, if all checks out ok and the voltage source is at the right voltage i would suspect the final has a much lower beta than the original 477,

i have used lower beta motorola green dot 477's in jacksons with good results, they bias ok and still give more output than is healthy for the rest of the pa stage.

My radio showed up today. Definitely a older Chassis and board .Capacitors are old and discolored. One stripped case screw but the screw was bad chassis side was not stripped. Mic jack was twisted and wires were spun tight. Those were the quality control issues. The radio was about 2 Hz off dead cold and did not change after warm up. AM dead key was set way to high 15 watts. SSB was doing 35. I reset the bias and frequency. Receive is great .05uV on my HP8640B. AM is now 7W dead key but only swinging to 13. The problem is AMC will not adjust. 60% modulation on AM will not go lower or higher using VR12 it Just stays at 60%. Great sideband reports but the receive sounds a bit tinny. Frequency alignment step 6 through 8 test point L24 not showing adjustment. So far the radio is not a real dud. And not bad.