I was given this radio by a friend of mine as I have Shown much interest in the world of cb and he is also invested in it and has been for years. I bought an IMAX 2000 and have it temporarily erected on an aluminum pole beside my house. I hooked up my SWR meter and the swr meter pegs out when I key the mic. The rf and swr meter built into the radio also stay constantly pegged and move very slightly when I move the calibrate knob. I know the extremely high swr is not my antenna because I hooked up a little Uniden 510xl to check to see if I had a problem with my antenna and the swr was below 1.5:1 on all channel and was almost a 1.0 on channel one. So my question is what is the deal with the rci 2990? I have very minimal experience with radios so treat me as if I know nothing. Sorry for the long winded post. If I have left anything out feel free to ask. Thanks in advance for the replies.
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Beginner problems with rci-2990
- Thread starter Hollerhunter
- Start date
Shadetree Mechanic
Delaware Base Station 808
Welcome to WWDX! I am not familiar with that particular radio. In calibrate mode in the meter you would key the mic and adjust the meter with the calibrate knob to the far right of the scale. Then switch the calibrate switch off and it should read correctly. If the Uniden checked out ok then you already have done this. I think this is a 10 / 12 meter radio. Verify that the 11 meter mod has been done and that you are on the correct band selection for 11 meter (the CB band). Maybe someone who has one will chime in.
Chris 73s
Chris 73s
you need to find out if you are reading the SWR correctly.
you have to calibrate the meter each time you check the SWR.
here is a quick video on how to do it:
remember that changing channels, or changing your power output level will affect your SWR readings and you need to re-calibrate after doing either of these things.
your radio is just a base station version of the RCI-2950, and so, the instructions on how to set things up and what all the buttons do will work for your radio. (the power output will be different as you have a built in amp in your radio)
http://www.cbtricks.com/radios/rci/rci_2950/index.htm
here is a version of the owners manual:
http://www.cbtricks.com/radios/rci/rci_2950/graphics/rci2950_om.pdf
i am not 100% sure on this, but i believe the procedure for your radio is to switch the "calibrate" knob off of its "RF" position (put it back when you want to read the RF power out).
then key the mic in AM mode (no modulation) and turn the CALIBRATE knob until the needle on the SWR meter sits in the "SET" position. unkey the mic.
then push the rubber SWR button and key the mic again. note the reading on the SWR scale.
try this and see how it works.
LC
you have to calibrate the meter each time you check the SWR.
here is a quick video on how to do it:
remember that changing channels, or changing your power output level will affect your SWR readings and you need to re-calibrate after doing either of these things.
your radio is just a base station version of the RCI-2950, and so, the instructions on how to set things up and what all the buttons do will work for your radio. (the power output will be different as you have a built in amp in your radio)
http://www.cbtricks.com/radios/rci/rci_2950/index.htm
here is a version of the owners manual:
http://www.cbtricks.com/radios/rci/rci_2950/graphics/rci2950_om.pdf
i am not 100% sure on this, but i believe the procedure for your radio is to switch the "calibrate" knob off of its "RF" position (put it back when you want to read the RF power out).
then key the mic in AM mode (no modulation) and turn the CALIBRATE knob until the needle on the SWR meter sits in the "SET" position. unkey the mic.
then push the rubber SWR button and key the mic again. note the reading on the SWR scale.
try this and see how it works.
LC
I like the truck on your profile pic. I am a ford man myself. Have a 96 f350 4x4 swb drw flat bed. I know that the man that gave it to me did use it for CB at one time as he did not have a ham liscense. He did mention that the radio was getting hot and I have found that in my experience also just by listening. Not txing
I ran into a problem like this years ago. the little uniden 510 would work good on my antron 99 antenna and when I added a radio with power on it the swr would go off the scale. I found I did not have the grounds in the coax ends soldered and it was causing a problem. soldered the grounds to the connectors and all was good. may not be your problem but some thing to look at. I was trying a new galaxy 93T that was getting the high SWR readings and the 510xl would work fine.
just one item to look at. checking the ends with a ohm meter it was showing good. but power and the antron 99 was not matching up good until I had better joints.
just one item to look at. checking the ends with a ohm meter it was showing good. but power and the antron 99 was not matching up good until I had better joints.
eems that no matter what I do I can not get the rf power/swr meter to rest on zero. As soon as you turn the radio on it pegs over all the way as far as it will go. You can get very minimal movement from the needle when you turn the calibrate knob. It is like it is reading that I am putting out way past 50 Watts all the time even without the mic keyed. I will hook my coax back up tomorrow and try it exactly how you explained it and see if my luck changes any. I hope I am making sense here
I tried two different pieces of coax to try to rule that out. One of the ones I tried is brand new and from my truck but just has a stock cobra 29 pushing it. The ends appear to be soldered well but I will look into it more tomorrow
It would sure be nice to have one as it would allow me to tune my mobile radio, but I do not have a watt meter. How would I check to see if the 3 leg trns you mentioned was shorted out?
hollerhunter, if that meter moves to the right and stays there without the mic even being keyed, then there is definitely a problem with the radio.
Im afraid you are going to need to send it to a tech.
LC
Im afraid you are going to need to send it to a tech.
LC
Not sure where you guys are from but radio techs are few and far between here in West Virginia unfortunately. Good ones anyways. I prefer to do my own work on well, pretty much everything. But I understand that I’m going to need some equipment I most likely do not have and would not be worth buying to fix one radio. I am also lacking the knowledge. Any references where I could take my radio near central wv to get it repaired? And any idea how much I can expect to pay
just for fun unplug the mic and see if it still shows to be keyed up and let us know.
What are the symptoms of blown finals? I did have my wife talk into it very briefly while I was out in my truck just to see if there was any signal coming from it because it seemed like the radio didn’t work because I was getting no swing on the needle but I can’t really remember because I am so new to this stuff but I don’t think that needle was pegged before I had her do that. But as I said it was very brief. Just a few words to see if she was coming through on a magnetic k40 plus that I had stuck on the roof at the time. I hope these few words I had her relay back to be didn’t fry something.