Ranger 63FFC4

[davegrantsr]

LMAO.

-the LMAO has already been explained....as for 'for Novice and Technician Class amateurs upgrading to Tech Plus and higher'-yeah, that sure makes for one HECKUVA 'tech plus' radio. let's see, 400 watts peak on AM....make sure you keep it DOWN, because techs are limited to 200 watts 'peak'. next, with your tech privileges allowing 'voice' on 28.000-28.500, you're going to have a problem following the generally followed bandplans since you don't have 'privileges' on the accepted AM & FM 10m freqs. shall we continue picking nits here?
had ranger actually read the rules & thought out their advertising strategy BEFORE they put it into print, they may have been able to avoid a LITTLE BIT of wrath inflicted by the ham police.
i still like 'upgrading to tech plus'.......

 

[bigred222]

LMAO.

i love that lol

 

[kevin IB/379 Stringbean]

Well, Ive had my chance to spend some time playing around.Didnt want to jump the gun and post something before I had a true honest opinion.
Im using it in the house hooked up to a astron 50amp power supply with a dosy 4001 test center for my readings.Topps out at somewhere around 450 and no complaints from my problem neighbor as of yet.The first night I hooked it up,I got him on the phone and we went through the deal of checking whether I was bleeding or not and all was well at full power peaking out around 450.Clean as a whistle.
I'll start off with saying I love it.There are a couple of things that I feel are irritating and #1 is channel rejection suuuuucks.Unfotunately Im literally on the TJ border and have a lot of the Spanish speaking base stations very close.Within a couple miles as a crow would fly,and bleed just about all 40 sometimes.
#2 is its a drifter like no other.Not that it really matters much since its only an AM radio,it just trips me out how much it actually fluctuates.Starts out at 27.185.1 and as I use it,it goes down to 27.184.2 or 3. Havnt actually had a complaint about being off freq by anyone though.
Awesome reports from all my local base stations as far as quality of audio.Ive used a d 104 non amp,silver eagle,and my astatic echomax 2000.Hands down on the em2000 as far as what everyone pefered hearing,Although all were great.
Its definately a beauty and Im glad I purchased it.I'll continue to use it as my daily talker and leave my S-3 or 2517 hooked up to my Davemade 2x4 base box for Skip.Hope this has helped someone cause it sure took my woodpecker typing arse long enough to complete it!!

 

[Justme]

Some remarks fro over the pond
22 amps gives 200 watts FM? at 13.8 volt the INPUT DC is 303 watts, best i saw an transciever do is 50% of the DC input converted to RF output power.
400 watts SSB? wich is more as the DC input? environmentalists would lick their fingers with those results.

Bleeding? yes, the RF reciever design is 30+ years old, lacking in filtering in the front and M.F. section, reason i always put 10.695 XF filters in the first M.F. an Must here in Europe where bands are an lot busier.

Restoring an President Lincoln i got for free, just did the mods for just that, adding the MRF 455 as i did before, getting an clean 60 watts out. (needs reworking the output filtering, and change of feeding DC to the transistor etc), using it for mobile 10 meter use.

For the money, get an decent H.F. radio, 2nd hand nice Kenwood, Yaesu, and if you need power, add an decent 1 kW amp.

Using the FT 100 i get easy 100+ watts with decent filtering over all bands.
@ home an FT 847 with Collins filters and some mods done in the 9 years i own that one, with an middle of the road completely rebuild Heathkit SB-1000 with RF Parts 3-500 ZG i get an easy 1 KW and clean from 160 to 10 meters.

Living on the edge of my town, no complaints from neighbours using that setup.

73,

Cor

 

[bigred222]

glad you like it kevin sounds like it really gets out.

 

[dudmuck]

tell me why its a good idea to use this instead of a regular CB with an external 1x4 amplifier?

The heatsink looks inadequate to cool four pills.
I do not see a fan.
I thought a four pill draws around 80 amps of current, not counting the radio.
I guess this explains the frequency drift, since the amp must be heating the radio nice & toasty.

 

[ElectrikTec]

I had the opportunity to work on one of these, and the only complaint I have is that it has a memory battery.. I havent seen one of those in a radio for at least 15 years.. As for the rest of it. it worked pretty good.

 

[74IN]

tell me why its a good idea to use this instead of a regular CB with an external 1x4 amplifier?

The heatsink looks inadequate to cool four pills.
I do not see a fan.
I thought a four pill draws around 80 amps of current, not counting the radio.
I guess this explains the frequency drift, since the amp must be heating the radio nice & toasty.

It's all about the "Big Radio" thing.

 

[ExitThirteen]

tell me why its a good idea to use this instead of a regular CB with an external 1x4 amplifier?

The heatsink looks inadequate to cool four pills.
I do not see a fan.
I thought a four pill draws around 80 amps of current, not counting the radio.
I guess this explains the frequency drift, since the amp must be heating the radio nice & toasty.

QFT.

I'm more of an SSB guy than an AM'er, and this setup is pretty intriguing, would be curious to see an SSB version of this, altho I'd reckon that there wouldn't be any way it would work without serious changes to the heatsink, biasing on the amp section, and proper cooling.....Hmmmm....

 

[4600turbo]

QFT.

I'm more of an SSB guy than an AM'er, and this setup is pretty intriguing, would be curious to see an SSB version of this, altho I'd reckon that there wouldn't be any way it would work without serious changes to the heatsink, biasing on the amp section, and proper cooling.....Hmmmm....

I've got something similar to this radio but it has SSB. It's a 98VHP with 4x 2879 pills in it.

 

[ExitThirteen]

Galaxy 98 VHP? Doesn't that (originally) have 8 of them IRF520 mosfets in it? Or am I confusing it with a different model? If that's the real deal, that would be real nice to have. I could do away with my T/S DX500 I've been running with my President Jackson. Be nice to have radio/amp in 1 unit.

I think the Galaxy 98T is the mosfet radio, right? That's probably where I'm getting confused. My bad...

 

[4600turbo]

Galaxy 98 VHP? Doesn't that (originally) have 8 of them IRF520 mosfets in it? Or am I confusing it with a different model? If that's the real deal, that would be real nice to have. I could do away with my T/S DX500 I've been running with my President Jackson. Be nice to have radio/amp in 1 unit.

I think the Galaxy 98T is the mosfet radio, right? That's probably where I'm getting confused. My bad...

Yes it did have the mosfets in it. I had the mosfet amp changed out for one on a Connex 4300-300 I had. The Connex was modified. I had the 1446's change to the 2879's.

Then I thought that the 98VHP would be nice to have with the 2879 in it. So I asked GRTS, and he said it would probably work. He thought that I would have lost some of the features the Galaxy had. Like the SWR meter but it all works just fine. Changing the amps was pretty much Plug n Play.

The radio works well in SSB mode also.

I really enjoy this radio. I wish Galaxy would have come out with one along time ago. I wouldn't gone through what I did just to get the radio I've always wanted.

Now I have the BIGGEST gawd damn Galaxy radio in the WORLD!

 

[radiorat17]

Can anyone give me the correct procedure for converting the RCI 63FFC4 radio to standard 40 channels? Thanks, Partsman

 

[Carl]

Locate EPT900050Z, (small PCB behind channel selector switch) and plug in the conversion module (ekey) to CN8.

Main PCB..... move the wiring harness from J5 to J29

Find J30. move jumper from pins 1-2 to pins 2-3

Power up the unit and momentarily short JP3 (PCB EPT900050Z) to the right of CN8 The display will reset, Mod is complete