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eagle 5000 / galaxy turbo switch to turn off internal amp

missouri 69

Member
Jun 14, 2005
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missori
hi
Need info about adding a switch to turn off the internal amplifier inside an eagle 5000/galaxy turbo.....
the radio on lowest power setting is swinging too much for the amp I am using [DK 4watts swing to 120 pep]

I know on RCI 2970 radios that a switch can be installed to turn off the 2 transistor amp ....can the same be done to the eagle 5000? so that the radio final will be the only output?

thanks
sam davisson
missouri 69
 

Yes, The wires that control the amp are the same as in the 2970, etc. Typically the brown wire, of the brown black pair, is the one to cut and add the switch.
 
Howdy Inspector,

You're really THE Inspector, right?

Or, it's the black wire. Got fooled by that when they reversed the colors on some production runs.

The socket is marked "J120". It's located at the outboard end of the bias-test jumper ("mirror") board. The wire on the inboard-facing side of the socket is the one you want to cut, and insert the switch, whatever color it is.

This makes it a single-final radio, and a pretty wimpy one at that. Might not see more than 16 Watt peaks out of it barefoot. Max AM carrier will be 1 or 1.5 Watts. That's all the drive the internal linear needs. If you crank VR13 for more barefoot carrier, you'll have to be careful when the linear is turned back on. Setting it for a max carrier of 3 Watts barefoot will get you 90 or 100 Watts max on "high" side. Setting VR13 for a more-reasonable 30 Watts 'high-side' carrier will limit you to around 1 Watt carrier barefoot.

73
 
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I will use this old thread.. I have a eagle 5000 that txs and rxs way to wide you pick up clean 3 channels in either direction and tx the same plus tx tosses spurs all over the place with or with out the shorting bar in on my spectrum analyzer and not really spurring on the harmonics no real pattern to it. Any one got a clue why it is so wide?
 
I should look for a pic, but this is an old issue from the mid-to-late 1990s. Good chance the first digit of the serial number is "5", "6" or "7". Should indicate 1995,1996 or 1997 production year.

The factory installed a tiny surface-mount resistor on the solder side of the pc board, between two pins of a chip in the PLL circuit. The PLL in that radio has a half-dozen of them, more or less.

A spectrum display should show copies of your transmit signal every 10 kHz above and below the selected channel frequency. This is what the receiver is hearing, multiple channels.

Try as I might, I can't seem to come up with a file on this quirk. Eventually RCI discovered the problem and stopped putting that SMT resistor across that chip.

But this is what it sounds like, a 20 year-old radio that has never had this production error fixed.

I'll keep looking for some specifics. Gotta be on record here somewhere.

73
 
I will toss it on the SA and see what the spacing is on tx and thanks for looking also I noticed A choke missing on the radio L33 that is on the schematic not sure if it matters but it is in the circuit that you adjust VC3 for the lowest harmonic at 54MHZ so says the alignment page using a different model.

If any one has a copy of the service manual for the eagle or the saturn turbo i sure could use it

.L33.jpg l34.jpg
 
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Here is look at the output on my SA settings shown on photos and does it ever look ugly i think it can spur wifi freqs lol. This is in Am mic gain off and power set to 5 watts the 100 watt rf amp is not connected in the radio.
.DSC00124.JPG DSC00125.JPG

Here is a shot at 1 MHz span it spurs at every 100KHz on 11 meters that is channel 16 to 25
DSC00127.JPG
 
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Pulled out the paper library of RCI manuals. Amazing how seldom I refer to them now that I have a large-enough display on the computer to read a schemo. Our paper tech library is sadly neglected these days.

The routine way of recording errors in the diagram, production changes and mods was to scribble notes in the margins. Can find no notes referring to this crock. I was sure we had written it down.

Somewhere.

Don't have a Turbo/Eagle5000/RCI2990 manual file on hand. Found the power supply diagram somewhere on the web, attached here. The original 2950/2970 diagrams on CB Tricks is the closest you'll get for the main radio essentials. Front panel and meter wiring won't match, of course.

From what fuzzy recollection I still have, you should find a bogus smt resistor soldered across two adjacent pins on either IC7 or IC8 . These are both 9- pin SIP (single in-line pin) devices at the front edge of the main circuit board, both of them towards the front from the voodoo PLL chip CX7925.

Just can't find any written reference to which of these two chips, or which two adjacent pins have this resistor placed across them.

Should stand out just by looking at the solder side of the main pc board. The fix is to remove the smt resistor from the two adjacent pins of the SIP chip. Just wish I could remember which.

Sure has been a while since the last one of these I saw. Found this defect in base and mobile radios both. Sure had us scratching our heads for a month or so 20 or more years back.

73
 

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I do not have any resistors under the board but one for the clarifier mod and one on IC20 a TDA6130 double balanced modulator IC BTW first digit on mine is a 4
 

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I aligned this thing 7 ways to sunday and can not get the spurs out only way is to detune it so bad output is at all most zero.

I used 4 different radio procedures. Unless there is something different on the stock Sm for the radio that i am missing.
 
I read that the filter FL3 is so cheap that is why it tx's and rx's so wide. I would like to hear if any one has a saturn turbo or eagle 5000 or 2990 having any issues like hearing next channel over clearly.

I changed out FL1 and FL3 and no change.
 
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The pic shows a 100-ohm 1/4W resistor just inboard from the PLL section. Looks as if it's meant to activate the clarifier on transmit, maybe? We never do that to this radio, so I'm guessing here.

Could they have screwed up that mod?

73
 
I did this to a RCI 2970 once and Nomad is right it turns it into a whimpy radio much like an old early 23 ch transistor rig. Best just to leave it alone and get a standard 4 watt radio if you want to run lower power.
 
I will check into that, as far as the radio goes it does 100 watts out good sound just transmits every where at once
 
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