If you buy one new out of the box, the conversion is easy. There is a modular mini board that plugs in behind the frequency counter. There are youtube videos showing where to plug it in at. This is all it takes to open the TX from 24Mhz to 32 Mhz.What you guys think of radio shop supply, I'm going to purchase a new 2950dx3 from them converted and aligned. Any problems or things i should know before hand or extra services i should ask about or purchase?
.... but I would ask if the radio box is factory sealed because I heard some of these radio shops will take the mini board out and sell it seperately or try to get you to have them sell you a conversion and BS alignment.
If you buy one new out of the box, the conversion is easy. There is a modular mini board that plugs in behind the frequency counter. There are youtube videos showing where to plug it in at. This is all it takes to open the TX from 24Mhz to 32 Mhz.
As for alignments, the new radio should be good enough. Even still, any alignment could be moved some during shipping.
Save your money and just buy the radio as is but I would ask if the radio box is factory sealed because I heard some of these radio shops will take the mini board out and sell it seperately or try to get you to have them sell you a conversion and BS alignment.
yes sir, it is, I think I made the right choice going with them, time will tell. I've got a TS-350v to go with that 2950,Isnt Radio Shop Supply the warranty shop for RCI?
If you buy one new out of the box, the conversion is easy. There is a modular mini board that plugs in behind the frequency counter. There are youtube videos showing where to plug it in at. This is all it takes to open the TX from 24Mhz to 32 Mhz.
As for alignments, the new radio should be good enough. Even still, any alignment could be moved some during shipping.
Save your money and just buy the radio as is but I would ask if the radio box is factory sealed because I heard some of these radio shops will take the mini board out and sell it seperately or try to get you to have them sell you a conversion and BS alignment.
Why would that be? I'm willing to bet the export radio manufacturers know who their primary target customers are and that's the CB/freeband crowd. The 2950 models are used by some hams but that's about it. The rest of the exports with roger beeps, echo boards, noise toys, and other gadgets are less likely to be used in someone's ham shack. Besides, 10 meters is illegal to operate on without a license and most freebanders have some respect and know to stay off the ham bands.Export radio's are tuned and aligned at the factory for 10m use,
ILet them do the conversion and re-align
We see very little difference in performance before and after alignment with this model and the previous "DX" RCI radios.
The 2950-based radios use a technique called "track tuning". If you have looked inside an old tube-type receiver you would see a main tuning capacitor with plates that move together or apart as you turn the tuning knob. You'll usually see at least two separate sections, sometimes three or four of them, all turning together on the same tuning shaft. This is so that separate sections of the receiver will be properly peaked over a wide range of frequency coverage, each section with its own tuning capacitor.
The RCI radios do this in a different way. A component called a "varactor diode" behaves just like the big metal-plate tuning capacitor, but it's controlled by a DC voltage fed to it, rather than by turning a shaft.
The computer that runs the radio feeds a tuning voltage to one of these diodes to set your operating frequency. Every 40-channel radio you ever saw (but one or two) has one of these diodes in it, setting your channel frequency using a PLL circuit.
RCI put these voltage-controlled capacitor diodes into the receiver and transmitter sections of the radio as well. This has the effect of re-peaking those circuits as you tune from 24.5 to 30 or more MHz automagically.
The need to re-align a simpler-type radio for 11 meters is no joke. Just about any of the so-called "10-meter" radios you see with a 2-digit channel display will benefit from having the alignment optimized for 11 meters. Not all, just most of them.
But the RCI2950/2970 radios they sell now will almost never show an improvement you can see by aligning it for 11 meters.
73
Thx everyone, I canceled the order, i'm gonna use that TS-350hdv with the anytone 6666 for 11m. I am going to treat myself to a brand new kenwood TS-590sg get that old cushcraft R4 with the RK-45 warc band add on out of the garage and play RADIO!That's good information and I'm glad you responded. That said it does concern me about the horror stories we see about the 2970N2 radio's. There are some current posts running here on the forum talking about brand new radio's that have bias settings off, and the AM dead key settings are way off as well. Some also seem to draw way more amperage then they should. Then after some things get re-set inside the radio the amp draw is more in line with where it should be. The best deal would be to have a good honest local tech take a bone stock 2950/70 and at least give it a once over. This way he could check modulation levels, set your carrier levels, and make sure the radio is on frequency.