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Galaxy 2 radio issues

Tbone725

Tbone725

New Member
Mar 29, 2019
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I've been sand bagging and reading on this forum for a while. But here is my issue, and dont flame me too much I'm no tech. I recently have got back into radios, have not left the CB all together but I have got more interested in it again. Anyhow I picked up a galaxy 2 off of offer up, looked like new, the man who sold it two me was well dressed and in a brand new mercedes. That being the case I didn't even bother plugging it into my truck and just handed him $100, that was a big @$$ mistake! The radio has very little recieve or white noise on ssb, lots of white noise on FM, and absolutely no recieve or white noise on AM. The frequency counter makes a crazy wine, it does go away when the counter is shut off. I did read about a jumper wire cure on the freq counter board that will probably cure this. And with my workman meter I get a 8 watt dead key with decent forward swing (I know I cant get pep out of that meter but that's all I carry with me in my big truck to keep up on swr). The guy I purchased this radio from had lots of ham equipment for sale, and told me he did no modifications to the radio and its factory. I dont know how a un converted galaxy acts, is this how it would act? I took it to two different radio "techs" that told me its obsolete and too old to fix. One even looked inside the radio and said the finals are blown, he didn't even put it on a meter or anything. My meter shows a dead key and forward swing, could the finals still be blown if that's the case? I'm sorry for the long winded post. I'm just turbo pissed, bummed out, and embarrassed that I got took like this. And these 2 techs who turned me around and didn't even look at my radio for more than 3 min pissed me off even more. They just tried to sell me new radios. I'm a over the road truck driver and run between California and Florida on i20, i10 and sometimes i40. If anyone knows a good radio tech for this please let me know. My usual radio guy is retired and closing at the end of the month. Once again sorry for the long winded post and thanks in advance.
 

Power output = working finals.
The noise on FM is typical.
If all 5 bands work on the frequency counter, it's been converted. (450 kc difference between bands)
My guess would be the radio needs to be re-capped. It's over 35 years old and I'd bet they are original.
There COULD be an issue with a bad receive transistor, but my money is on the electrolytic capacitors as your main issue.
It most likely needs an alignment, but I doubt that, by itself, would cure your issues.
 
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999 said:
Power output = working finals.
The noise on FM is typical.
If all 5 bands work on the frequency counter, it's been converted. (450 kc difference between bands)
My guess would be the radio needs to be re-capped. It's over 35 years old and I'd bet they are original.
There COULD be an issue with a bad receive transistor, but my money is on the electrolytic capacitors as your main issue.
It most likely needs an alignment, but I doubt that, by itself, would cure your issues.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the reply, I was thinking the same thing about my finals. That does make me feel a bit better. Would new caps be hard to find for a radio that old? And would a new recieve transistor be hard to come by as well? I forgot to mention the first guy I took it to said it was probably a audio ic chip, he never even opened it. He hooked it up to his antenna and it was coming across a radio he had on his bench with a dummy load. He then said the wine was caused by a bad audio ic chip, then I told him it goes away with the freq counter off. Then he proceeded to try and sell me a lincoln 2.
 
Tbone725 said:
Thank you for the reply, I was thinking the same thing about my finals. That does make me feel a bit better. Would new caps be hard to find for a radio that old? And would a new receive transistor be hard to come by as well? I forgot to mention the first guy I took it to said it was probably a audio ic chip, he never even opened it. He hooked it up to his antenna and it was coming across a radio he had on his bench with a dummy load. He then said the wine was caused by a bad audio ic chip, then I told him it goes away with the freq counter off. Then he proceeded to try and sell me a lincoln 2.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the whine was a known issue with the old counter modules. My Pluto does it, but it's not very loud and disappears with incoming audio noise.
The audio IC is a POSSIBILITY, but I would leave that idea on the back burner as a last resort.
One of our members (klondikemike) sells capacitor kits, but this radio might be something that he doesn't have made up.
 
Come to think of it, when I did recieve a bit on 38 lsb the noise was pretty much gone. So it's possible it's not to big of a worry with the recieve issue addressed. How do these older galaxy's do on side band if you dont mind me asking? I'm really excited to get it on the air and try it out.
 
Tbone725 said:
Come to think of it, when I did recieve a bit on 38 lsb the noise was pretty much gone. So it's possible it's not to big of a worry with the recieve issue addressed. How do these older galaxy's do on side band if you dont mind me asking? I'm really excited to get it on the air and try it out.
Click to expand...
TBH they tend to drift, but if they are aligned properly and you can deal with fiddling with the calrifier, they work fine.
I have used all of the galaxy radios I have owned on SSB with little issue.
 
999 said:
TBH they tend to drift, but if they are aligned properly and you can deal with fiddling with the calrifier, they work fine.
I have used all of the galaxy radios I have owned on SSB with little issue.
Click to expand...
Thanks much again! This will likely be my in between radio. I've got a side mic connex 3300 that I use for AM, and president p300 and cobra 138xlr that I use for side band. It would be nice to not have to swap radios every time I go between side band and AM, that was the idea behind getting this galaxy 2. Thanks much for the advise, and giving me a bit of hope in this radio.
 
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It's a decent radio, it just needs some love.
Ask RollingRadios if he's willing to work on it. He did some work for me a few years ago and I was very pleased with it.
 
999 said:
It's a decent radio, it just needs some love.
Ask RollingRadios if he's willing to work on it. He did some work for me a few years ago and I was very pleased with it.
Click to expand...

Wow that's a name from the past. Years ago when RR had a difficult radio he would send it out to Key CB and have Jim repair it for him. They used to be in Warren,IN but then he moved to Dowagiac,MI. You could try Doug at Custom CB Radio's as well.
 
Sometime around when that model was sold, the factory stopped soldering wires directly to the circuit boards, and began using single-row "header" pin connectors for the wiring harness.

A soldered connection sounds like it would be better, but there is a fatal flaw when one of these radios is used as a mobile. The constant vibration causes wires to sever and fall away from where they are soldered. The cause of this is the brittle point where the solder stops wicking up the wire's strands. The wire goes from being a solid conductor, where the solder has "glued" the strands together, and becomes a stranded wire where the solder stopped wicking up the strands.

This brittle transition from solid wire to stranded wire is where the wires break away from the circuit board in a mobile radio.

Base stations built this way are not so vulnerable. Mobile radios will just spontaneously quit or lose a function when a wire comes loose from a circuit board.

The single-row pin plugs have a crimped pin that grasps the plastic insulation. All flexing force is now applied to the plastic sleeve that insulates the wire. And there is no solder in the wires on a crimped plug's spring contacts.

Odd as it sounds, using connectors becomes more reliable in mobile use than using soldered wire connections on circuit boards.

That radio might be new enough to be built with those connectors. If so, you only need to worry about the performance flaws built into it. The build quality of the radios from that factory improved immensely in the mid-to-late 1990s. The Galaxy 2 dates to the late 1980s.

And if you see wires poked directly into holes in the circuit boards, you will find that it's not so reliable in mobile service.

73
 
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I have had good luck re-caping the entire radio with quality new stock caps, (counter module also), and relocating the counter board ground wire to a ground point rear of the main PCB. Also try relocate the metal shield box ground to the rear also.

Also depending on the counter module type, long rectangle or the more square body, the more square type has a surface mount resistor that is way too small wattage wise to handle the voltage drop. It will get hot and create havoc or quite completely. A larger wattage size replacement is recommended. It will be tight fit but fits. Mikes Radio Repair on YouTube has video about this.

But I would bet you have the long rectangle style. Good advice to re-touch up all solder points on the main PCB with some quality electronics solder.
 
AudioShockwav said:
RollingRadios?
Is he still around?
I have not seen anything of him in decades.
The XLR is a excellent radio and the P 300 is a good rig.

Real CB radios.

73
Jeff
Click to expand...

Thank you sir! I keep the side mic connex around because I sound more like a truck driver on it ;)
When skip rolls in I'll get the p300 or 138xlr out of the closet and plug it in.

Chevboy0167 said:
I have had good luck re-caping the entire radio with quality new stock caps, (counter module also), and relocating the counter board ground wire to a ground point rear of the main PCB. Also try relocate the metal shield box ground to the rear also.

Also depending on the counter module type, long rectangle or the more square body, the more square type has a surface mount resistor that is way too small wattage wise to handle the voltage drop. It will get hot and create havoc or quite completely. A larger wattage size replacement is recommended. It will be tight fit but fits. Mikes Radio Repair on YouTube has video about this.

But I would bet you have the long rectangle style. Good advice to re-touch up all solder points on the main PCB with some quality electronics solder.
Click to expand...


I think the plugs on it are the plug in type rather than soldered in, but I can't be too sure. Its definitely got the long rectangle style counter module. One thing that did throw me for a loop is the board is a ept360010a, rather than a 014 like the later ranger boards used in DX galaxy's. Do you think thatll make it anymore difficult or about the same to recap? I really do appreciate all this advise. My CB tech was a old boy out of tucson who had been doing it for 30 plus years and hes hanging it up at the end of this month. So I'm looking for that tech to keep things going for me. There is a guy called Lawnmower Man about 45 miles north or where I live. I've heard lots of good things about him, but I gave him a call and hes almost a year out on repairs. Yall would be amazed of the incompetent boobs who run some of the radio shops out here on the interstates. They got no time, knowledge, or want to fix a radio. They are more interested in selling a new one. It's simply sad.
 

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