One of the previous owners of my 139XLR modded the clarifier. The 5 khz swing was just too touchy on the stock control , so I switched to a 10-turn pot. Still a PITA. So I put the Cobra on the bench and set the clarifier back to stock. Never did like unlocked clarifiers, because tuning in an off-freq station put my transmitter off-freq too. I had not done a realignment after recapping it, so I figured while it was on the bench why not. The transmit was almost spot-on, but the receive was way off. Even after realigning, it was really sad for an 858 . Looked it over and found that someone had done a 2SC2999 mod to it. Put a stock 2SC1307 in, and when I hooked it up, the receive had come back to life!! No more "alligator radio."
Talked to "Double Zero" (Steve) in Aukland New Zealand yesterday afternoon . When we got our antennas aligned, we talked for a solid 30 minutes on 38LSB. Best QSO I've had since getting back on the air.
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