Okay. As in "new out of the box, nobody had messed with the factory packing" kind of 'new'?
There have been reports of retail dealers who will take a new radio back from the first purchaser, and put it onto the shelf to resell WITHOUT checking first that it still performs like new. If it did in fact get used in a OTR truck for one day and returned to resell, there's the question of receiver damage from a nearby BandSmasher5000, pulled up mirror-to-mirror in the truck-stop parking lot.
Sorry to have to tell you this, but if it was never "sold once", returned and then sold to you second, this points to a genuine, real-live factory defect.
If it really was like this out the factory's door, and into your hands, that is a really bad sign.
So-called infant mortality is a reality of any mass-produced radio. Out of every thousand units shipped, there will be a handful of out-of-the-box failures like this. Haven't heard any rumors of a bad batch of this model, or a production run made with one bad part.
This kind of failure won't fall into any "we see that a lot" category. Most of those are the things that fail in everyday use. Every different radio design will have a list of those. The things you see over and over in the first hundred radios of that type that get repaired.
A true-blue "Dead On Arrival" failure will usually require the full set of tools and know-how to track down. I remember one batch of Galaxy Pluto radios that had one diode turned around the wrong way in the SSB receiver section. Played the devil tracking down the first one. Odd part was how many users just couldn't tell. Or just didn't care. Didn't have any effect on the AM receiver performance at all. Only if you used SSB would you even notice. Took a while before the first time somebody complained, and the problem got some attention. Don't know how many they made that way. Not a lot, but enough for us to see a handful of them.
A factory built-in problem like this one may be as simple as a rotten solder connection. Not likely, since those tend to come and go. Yours receives poorly all the time, sounds like.
One wrong resistor, an incorrect value, can disrupt the receiver all by itself. Don't see that more than once every two or three years. One transistor turned around the wrong way. Or, a part that was just no good in the first place.
In general an out-of-box defect like that calls for a 'scope, signal generator, service data and somebody who can use all 3 to do the troubleshooting. Oh, and the right replacement part, when you track down the culprit. Finding a bad part is a good start. Seeing the problem FIXED is where the troubleshooting really ends.
A typical shortcut involves observing how "sharp" the peak appears on some of the slug-tuned RF and IF transformers/coils. When a tuning slug that usually shows a sharp peak, one that drops off a quarter of a turn either side of the peak, becomes "flat", or shows only a gradual rise when turned all the way to one end, it's time to check parts in the circuit hooked to that coil. Trouble is, you have to know which adjustments normally have a sharp peak, and which ones have a broad peak, one that requires a full turn either way to make the meter drop off.
A coil that behaves DIFFERENTLY in this radio than it did in the last several dozen (preperly) working units is a clue. Trouble is, no written record of this characteristic exists to use as a guide. A tech who has aligned a lot of them will know, but odds are he has no written record of this to pass along.
Fixed a Galaxy mobile radio that was receiving poorly last month. Found the first mixer FET turned around, with the flat side facing the wrong way. Trouble was, the flat side of the part agreed with the flat side of the little white screen-printed outline symbol on the circuit board. Looked right, as if it was turned the right way. The coil that feeds into it would not peak. Normally it shows a sharp (quarter-turn) peak with the slug only halfway down. This one would almost show a peak with the slug cranked in as far as it goes. This led to removing and checking the FET. It was perfectly okay, but testing it required that I identify which leg was the gate terminal. When I went to put it back, that leg was facing the wrong way for the circuit. Put it in the holes with the flat face opposite the outline symbol on the board. Fixed the mysterious receiver problem. Don't know how the part got in there backwards. Somebody who looked at the white outline symbol on the board and believed it, I guess.
The only clue was that the tuning slug in the RF coil feeding into that FET wouldn't peak normally. Until I poked further and saw the problem. Once the FET was turned around the right way, the radio had full receiver sensitivity after touching up the alignment.
Would never have found it without a way to check the FET and a signal generator. The 'scope was only a little help that time.
Your mileage may vary.
73
