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Galaxy 959 De-butcher/Modify (help appreciated)

after looking at your pics of the radio I see it has had the extra final installed. the mylar on the driver looks bad 1st off. can not tell what is on the finals. and yes you will need a heat sink on the back with dual finals. . 1st off how does whoever have the echo board grounded. you should have a sheild wire running to the mic plug. and there should be a main ground running to some where on the board. they should be hooked up in seperate locations such as the shield to the mic shied and the main ground to the main board. if it is like that and you still have feedback try ubhooking the main board ground and see how it does. some times the main board ground will cause a squeal so try unhooking it to see if the squeal goes away if you need to.
what kind of wattage are you seeing out of the radio with the extra final in it? did not see how he added the extra final with the extra components not added to complete the 2nd stage for the added final.. make sure you have an insulator on all the parts as required.
let us know what you try and how it works.
 
No, I didn't buy this radio; it was given to me..figured with nothing invested I could make it work well enough.

Yes, I've ordered some ceramic insulation pads for each chip on the chassis, so that should resolve one issue. Other parts are on the way to replace/upgrade the current ones.

Output was mentioned in the original post, but pushed 10 watts initially, as stated by the person who gave it to me, and they said they managed 20 out of it. Obviously, something was wrong. I at least know one final as acting as a diode, due to how it was soldered in.

I'd ask the person who did all the mods (Rolling Radios or whatever the name is), but I have a feeling they may not know what was done, or something.

I'm considering going back to stock the more I look at this, and seeing if I can have it push a few more watts than stock. I've been reading that 20-30 seems fairly common for the 959? Maybe that's just flash in a pan.

The use for this would mostly be for travel, since I'm an over-the-road IT guy by day ("field technician."). The pay sucks, the hours are long, and I've no benefits, but this is what we have to do to get by, yeah? Hence why going back to stock makes more sense as I can do that more cheaply.

As for the echo-board; I'll take a closer look and see where it's going. It was mounted to the chassis with two screws, so that should have provided some ground contact, unless the board is designed differently (no idea).
 
Good! It would be nice to hear your reports if how you're doing restoring your radio back to a stock configuration. For comparison a stock 959 can be turned all the way up to a 12 watt deadkey but stick with the 4 to 1 ratio. I have my high deadkey adjusted to 6 watts in order to counteract coax losses. With a Astatic Road Devil mic I'm seeing 35 watts PEP and 43 watts whistling into it.
 
Lil'Yeshua said:
Good! It would be nice to hear your reports if how you're doing restoring your radio back to a stock configuration. For comparison a stock 959 can be turned all the way up to a 12 watt deadkey but stick with the 4 to 1 ratio. I have my high deadkey adjusted to 6 watts in order to counteract coax losses. With a Astatic Road Devil mic I'm seeing 35 watts PEP and 43 watts whistling into it.
Click to expand...

By stock I mean more in the power section. I don't mind the blue lights, extra channels, or echo-board in it, but putting it back to single final may be the easier road. As for removing the rest of it, and putting it back to bog stock...that would be too much work.

I have a few mics to use with it that were included: Superstar echo mic, the stock Galaxy one, and a rather old-looking Astatic "Trucker," complete with the silvery grille cloth and silver-style embossed letters. So, two active mics, and one stock.
 
You can run a single MOSFET up to ~22 watts until it starts to become unstable.
Roger on putting it back to stock, would also take out the hack mods and give it an alignment. Shouldn't be too difficult to do for you, a bench freq counter and a DMM will get you through it if you have a watt meter and a 50 ohm dummy load too.
 
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Robb said:
You can run a single MOSFET up to ~22 watts until it starts to become unstable.
Roger on putting it back to stock, would also take out the hack mods and give it an alignment. Shouldn't be too difficult to do for you, a bench freq counter and a DMM will get you through it if you have a watt meter and a 50 ohm dummy load too.
Click to expand...

The person who gave the radioto me has a frequency counter, and ran over the signals for me. He mentioned they were actually accurate, and the radio sounded fine, despite the hackery going on.

I wound up getting a watt meter in the big pile o' stuff, still new in box. Just a basic Workman, so who knows how accurate it really is, but might be useful. The DMM I have multiples of, of varying qualities. However, if I do need to realign, the freq. counter would be something I'd have to get on my own, as the person who gave me all this stuff lives a few hundred miles away.

I suppose the upshot is it getting the upgraded Q54 and 55 from me, so if putting it back to stock, should be plenty clean (hopefully).
 
The first picture that you posted is the echo board, the watt meter you have is just as accurate as a Dosy. They are by no means a Bird but they pretty good and I have had no problems with it. I would put it back to single final and use it.

UM
 
Ux Cow,

sorry for the late reply. just remembered that i posted to this thread. LOL

thanks for the pics, they do help.

you did a pretty nice job on L31. thats about what its supposed to look like.
should work fine.

its obvious from the pics that the person who tried to mod this radio had NO business holding a soldering iron, much less taking the covers off of a radio. :LOL:

this radio DEFINITELY needs to be put back to stock, even if you do decide to mod it later.
if you try to continue with the mods that are there, and they dont work for some reason; you wont know where to look first.

get the radio back to stock and working 100% in all aspects, then you can start modding it the way you want it.

here's the things i saw in the pics that need to be done.

1. the echo board can stay if you like it. find some instructions online and make sure it was installed correctly. im guessing that you had it mounted before taking the pic.

2. the cap was definitely added, and should be removed. i think the resistor should also be removed, but im not sure on that one.

3. the thing in the heat shrink tubing is a swing mod to increase the PEP swing of the radio regardless of where the deadkey is set.
some people like them, some dont. up to you if you want to remove it. if you do, just unsolder it and you'll be good.

4. HOLY CR@P!!! that is a hack job worthy of framing. whoever did that should be ashamed of themselves! LOL
definitely get rid of that other final, and there might be a jumper added that needs to be removed too. the person that tried that mod didnt even get all the way through the mod.

5. all of those insulators need to be changed out. you shouldnt have too much trouble locating the ceramic ones. they actually dissipate the heat pretty well IMO.

the vasoline thing i read about made me laugh. going back to stock is your only option.

here are the links you want to be using for this:

http://www.cbtricks.com/radios/galaxy/dx959_mosfet/graphics/dx959_mosfet_sch.pdf

Galaxy Radios DX959 Service Manual

use the first link for your schematic. its the mosfet version. the only thing it wont show are the jumpers. do some image searches to find pics to confirm the jumper situation.

the second link is the regular 959 page. everything but the schematic is the same so you can use this page for other stuff.

good luck with it.

oh, and keep your soldering iron temp low, these foil traces LOVE to peel up after the second soldering/ unsoldering.
LC
 
Here is a page that list a lot of hacks done to this radio. Some are useful; some should be avoided altogether.

The Defpom EPT06960Z Galaxy 949 / 959 modifications

Modulation Limiter:
Keep Q39 in, because SSB will not work right with it removed. If it has been taken out ('common') put it back in. You can however, put a 1-1.5k resistor between the emitter leg by cutting that trace and inserting the resistor between those two points. Has the effect of nulling AM Limiter w/o compromising SSB. If it has been removed, SSB mode will really suck! However, the VR for AM modulation would be best served using an scope to adjust it because it will too easy to cause square waved transmitted audio with no limiting at all.

AGC (Automatic Gain Control) Improvement:
They don't usually need this mod. But if every station you receive sounds garbled, then you might need to fine tune this circuit. I use a variable resistor/VR pot to dial it in, then take out the pot and measure its resistance, and put in a fixed value resistor that closely matches that value.

Power Amp Improvement (2SB754) - Q54:
OK to do. No harm; no foul.

AM AF Amplifier Improvement - Q55:
OK to do. No harm; no foul.

Receive Improvement - D30 & D31:
OK to do. No harm; no foul.
Check Q17 to see if it is a 2SC2999. If it is; then replace it with a 2sc1674. The 2sc2999 is a mod that DOES NOT work with this radio and is much better off with the stock 2sc1674. Been there; done that - many times before.

"Super Ears" Modification - D9:
Not OK; unless you want to play roulette with frying the receive circuit. The radio has a fine receive if properly aligned.

RF Output Increase Modification:
You have a MOSFET, so this won't apply anyway - don't worry about it.

Super Swing Modification - R264:
If you find this resistor clipped or missing, replace it. When the transmit coils are properly peaked, this will modulate like a bad dog without adding unwanted distortion by clipping this resistor. Definite 'NO'. If it is missing/clipped, the AM modulation VR pot will not work and SSB mode transmit audio will suck bozons.



Not necessary, but recommended after you get everything else right in the radio first.

'Goldfinger's TX/RX audio mods'
This will improve the audio bandwidth of receive AND transmit to 4kc wide.

Hi Fi mod for ept6900 series board
Galaxy 900 series radios 919 through 979

Receive
Remove C39
Change C78, C40 and C185 to 2.2uF non-polarized electrolytic
To add more highs change C184 to a .001uF ceramic disc

Transmit
Need more gain for running a stock mic or noise cancelling mic?
Change R-176 from a 270K stock, to a 470K.

Want more Bass?
Change C-154, a .22uF 16V tantalum, to a 3.3uF 16V tantalum.
Change C-171 and C-235 to .47uF 50-100 volt Mylar.

For even more Bass:.
Change C-154, a .22uF 16V tantalum, to a 10uF 16V tantalum.
Change C-171 and C-235 to 2.2uF, 50-100 volt Mylar.
(the 2.2uF non-polarized and the 10uF tantalum available at Radio Shack)
 
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loosecannon said:
you did a pretty nice job on L31. thats about what its supposed to look like.
should work fine.

its obvious from the pics that the person who tried to mod this radio had NO business holding a soldering iron, much less taking the covers off of a radio. :LOL:

2. the cap was definitely added, and should be removed. i think the resistor should also be removed, but im not sure on that one.

4. HOLY CR@P!!! that is a hack job worthy of framing. whoever did that should be ashamed of themselves! LOL
definitely get rid of that other final, and there might be a jumper added that needs to be removed too. the person that tried that mod didnt even get all the way through the mod.

the vasoline thing i read about made me laugh. going back to stock is your only option.
LC
Click to expand...

Thanks about L31. I tried lining it up correctly enough.

The soldering - that is AFTER I tried cleaning it up. There is still a ton of flux left over. Mostly I used a solder sucker to remove the old cracked/flat solder. The ground straps were not bent down very well (IMO) but it's better than what they were: all the way up, with 1/4" or more of solder built up to touch them.

Tons of flux all over the thing (I didn't use any myself), and the epcot solder balls were removed from the IC beside Q54. Soldering iron was set to 700 F, so low enough to heat things quickly without overheating.

I had figured on removing the cap and magical shrink-wrap.

Yeah, they sort of half-did the mod, put a resistor (L33 on the board) on the underside, with no ferrite core, and shunting drain to source on a FET makes it kind of useless until desoldered (electrically just a diode if I remember).

I have an IRF530N floating about, which should be able to sub for an IRF520N. Both are N-channel, with extremely similar electrical characteristics, except the 530 can handle more power (17A vs 9.7A for the 520N). I wonder if any benefit can be had from using the 530.
 
Alright, back to stock from all that I can see.

Q54 and 55 were upgraded (already mentioned that). I also stuck a name brand IRF520N in Q49, vs. the generic IRF520. Q47 was replaced with an IRF530N (faster turn on and way more amperage capable).

Now to build a dummy load and tweak this thing.
 

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