Older Galaxy radio repair location suggestions

[moose]

I have a 77 & 99 both older EPT3600 board radios that I would like to send somewhere to get brought back to proper working order. The 77 is mine which audio is very weak and modulation almost non-exsistent. The 99 was in another truck of mine and that driver, while he won't admit it, has had work done to it to the point of sounding like he was pulling containers with my equipment.....

Anyway, DTB had done some work for me a long time ago but he no longer accepts mail in repairs.

There is nobody down here (Louisiana) that I've heard their "work" that I want touching my stuff much less have the equipment to align.

Sadly, my normal guy's health prevents him from doing anymore work.....

 

[Robb]

http://www.radioshopsupply.com/Company_Information.php

 

[dave457]

Stickman

 

[loosecannon]

Hi moose.

I just wanted to pop in here and give you some perspective on these radios.

I'm afraid these radios just weren't made well enough to warrant a restoration.

The PC boards were very cheap, the quality control was pretty bad, the design needed a lot of refinement before these should have ever been allowed for sale, and the custom components on the board that have no modern substitute were so cheaply made that even if you find a replacement part, there is a good chance that it will fail on you too.

I know this is disappointing to hear, especially when you consider how much these radios cost when they were being sold.
The honest truth is that they were a bag of crap dressed up all pretty for the dance.

When trying to repair these radios, many techs ended up creating problems due to the cheap PC boards. the traces would lift off the board, the copper used was too thin for 27mhz, and don't even get me started on the bad solder joints.

I personally won't touch these old radios because the chances of the owner ending up disappointed and blaming the tech is just too high.

Many will disagree with me on this, and most of them will be owners of these radios that may still work, and have always garnered great compliments on the air.

yes, galaxy's design had very loud transmit audio, but that's about it.

All that being said, they are your radios, and if they are worth restoring to you, then that's all that matters. I do think you are going to have a bit of a hard time finding a tech willing to dig in to them.
Best of luck.
LC

 

[moose]

Epilogue....

I went ahead and bought a new radio (SR-955HP) which I'm very impressed with but has one hell of a learning curve as I'm finding out... It took me a week to figure out how to get a 10khz slide to work without a switch.

I kept the 99 & 77. I found a tech that is willing to look at them both. The 99 is sold pending repairs.

Now...... Onto finding an amp suitable for use with the SR-955...

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[Robb]

Got two 88's and two 99's . . .
I am currently restoring two of these radios; the 88's.
The 99's have already been restored.

First step in restoring them, is to acquire two new xtals for each radio. The 10.240mhz ref osc xtal, and the 13.560mhz loop osc xtal. Changing them out will greatly restore freq accuracy for SSB. One of the radio's loop osc was shifting +600hz over a six hour period. Changing out the xtals brought it back within +35hz/-0hz shift in six hours. Not as good as a Uniden; but not too bad for this Galaxy chassis at all.

Recap the radio; goes w/o saying. For an added measure of consistency, I also replaced the two tantalums in the PLL circuit. Replace the caps on the channel board and freq counter boards with 16v/min caps as well.

Go over the trace side of the board and touch up all of the solder joints.
Any dull looking joints should be re-touched to look shiny.
Gobbed solder joints are clearly improper; go back and do it again.

Clean the front panel control pots and switches with Deoxit, and then re-grease the chassis-mounted devices with fresh thermal grease.

You may want to consider replacing some of the trimmer pots with Cermet 12 turn trimmer pots, as this radio in any mobile application with knock them out of alignment in short order - unless the trimmer pots are upgraded. Driver, final bias (need 3 - 100 ohm) and carrier balance (10k ohm) pots in particular.
Thanks unit_399 - for that tip.

Complete alignment of radio.

 

[Candyman]

Stickman

 

[moose]

Could someone PM me his contact info? I'm not familiar with him at all.
Thanks