the original jackos 4pin mic a - e bands first came in silver then black face, my buddy was the first with a silver jacko in this county and i was the first to own the original blackface, same radio different color, both were a decent ssb fm radio once the agc mod was done, rejection was poorer than either the 148gtldx or grant,
1 or 2 crystal filters helped the rejection but spoiled the nb, a couple of cap audio mods gave them the bass and trebble back that had been removed when compared to the old exports,
they were not so good on am with its single conversion but nobody here uses am so it got under the radar, very sensitive and a great mobile radio if you dont use am and dont mind some frequency drift,
the later 6pin mic a-f bands version was much more common but imho not as good, somehow they seemed cheaper made,
they did nothing about the well known agc timing problems, they also had the chassis tied to ground with wire jumpers instead of decoupling caps found in the original and other exports,
an external smeter socket was also added which shorted the chassis to ground too, later versions had autosquelch,
the last versions had the 455 final and autosquelch + smeter socket,
even though the first version sounded best on ssb that never stopped the french version becoming very popular, the most popular export of the 90's over here,
smart people prefere to find a good original jacko over the french version, frequency stability is poor on them all, unlocking the clarifier is considered a must around here.
our export grant also came in several versions all used the mb8719 pll,
originals had no kc shift just the clarifier, these for an export had great freq stability and the best fm receive of any cb ever made imho, widely regarded as the best fm cb ever back in the 80's
some folk spoiled the stability by doing lou's superdiode mods or inductors in the clarifier so they could get on zero's and our legal fm ( not me i hate big slide conversions ),
the first blackface came out for a while using the small IF cans and less of them as found in the original ss3900 a cheap clone of the pb010 export cobra board, sometimes refered to as the fake grant, these were shit keep away,
then the french brought out a blackface that was almost identical to the original board with concentric shift and clarifier added,
using newer slightly smaller components in some areas and different tracking thermistors when compared to the original grayface export,
it sounded a little brighter/clearer on both tx and rx in a/b comparisons even though the component values were identical, it still had almost the same frequency stability as the original, it would get our legal fm, generally more frequency stable than other all mode exports,
then came the first french grant classic greyface with autosquelch and kc shift, not many around here and they all had issues with ssb sounding raggedyass nomatter who aligned it, i had a look inside a few and they looked the same as the french blackface with the autosquelch board added, i never looked into why they had issues, my techie buddies disliked them too,
next up was the french blackface with autosquelch, i have never seen or heared one to comment,
the last version on sale here was as far as i know the french greyface classic without autosquelch,
it had the kc/clarifier and seems to work about the same as the second blackface, almost identical apart from the face color,
my buddy bought one new old stock from truck-king a few months back, i unlocked the clarifier for him and aligned it,
it works great for a cb and is more stable on frequency than his other exports,
when you are buying a grant export it pays to know which version you are buying.
1 or 2 crystal filters helped the rejection but spoiled the nb, a couple of cap audio mods gave them the bass and trebble back that had been removed when compared to the old exports,
they were not so good on am with its single conversion but nobody here uses am so it got under the radar, very sensitive and a great mobile radio if you dont use am and dont mind some frequency drift,
the later 6pin mic a-f bands version was much more common but imho not as good, somehow they seemed cheaper made,
they did nothing about the well known agc timing problems, they also had the chassis tied to ground with wire jumpers instead of decoupling caps found in the original and other exports,
an external smeter socket was also added which shorted the chassis to ground too, later versions had autosquelch,
the last versions had the 455 final and autosquelch + smeter socket,
even though the first version sounded best on ssb that never stopped the french version becoming very popular, the most popular export of the 90's over here,
smart people prefere to find a good original jacko over the french version, frequency stability is poor on them all, unlocking the clarifier is considered a must around here.
our export grant also came in several versions all used the mb8719 pll,
originals had no kc shift just the clarifier, these for an export had great freq stability and the best fm receive of any cb ever made imho, widely regarded as the best fm cb ever back in the 80's
some folk spoiled the stability by doing lou's superdiode mods or inductors in the clarifier so they could get on zero's and our legal fm ( not me i hate big slide conversions ),
the first blackface came out for a while using the small IF cans and less of them as found in the original ss3900 a cheap clone of the pb010 export cobra board, sometimes refered to as the fake grant, these were shit keep away,
then the french brought out a blackface that was almost identical to the original board with concentric shift and clarifier added,
using newer slightly smaller components in some areas and different tracking thermistors when compared to the original grayface export,
it sounded a little brighter/clearer on both tx and rx in a/b comparisons even though the component values were identical, it still had almost the same frequency stability as the original, it would get our legal fm, generally more frequency stable than other all mode exports,
then came the first french grant classic greyface with autosquelch and kc shift, not many around here and they all had issues with ssb sounding raggedyass nomatter who aligned it, i had a look inside a few and they looked the same as the french blackface with the autosquelch board added, i never looked into why they had issues, my techie buddies disliked them too,
next up was the french blackface with autosquelch, i have never seen or heared one to comment,
the last version on sale here was as far as i know the french greyface classic without autosquelch,
it had the kc/clarifier and seems to work about the same as the second blackface, almost identical apart from the face color,
my buddy bought one new old stock from truck-king a few months back, i unlocked the clarifier for him and aligned it,
it works great for a cb and is more stable on frequency than his other exports,
when you are buying a grant export it pays to know which version you are buying.
