There's not much else I can think of at the moment - it appears the radio works, I just can't locate the cause of the voltage rise for cutout - except a bad solder joint, or broken part.
Going ovr this, you say,
AM power is adjustable - so VR 10 appears to be ok,
That can affect Q36...but you'd have no control of carrier power then....
First syllable is heard before cutout...
Are the Mic wires routed correctly?
You know there are two spots and the Pin 2 one goes closest to R159 R161 and that should be your WHITE wire.
BLACK wire goes right next to it towards the center of the board that next circle right by it.
Now, the element you have is dynamic, means it's a coil with some resistance to it - so it will IMPEDE a voltage flowing thru it.
I'm wondering if the Mic jack pin 2 is not quite right - yet...
Referring to CB/PA switch which tells a diode to ground or not - D44. So if the CB/PA switch is bad, speaker would route audio to PA jack and you'd hear RECEIVE thru it, and MIC Audio if D38 works right.
IF D44 works correctly - the PA would work, and you'd have receive. But if PA was on all the time between the two - we may have to recheck D44 in continuity thru that switch - for if it grounds all the time, that's a no-no.
Because of power sharing in the mic line, if the other side of the CB/PA switch was working right, your speaker would work, but audio would get killed.....
So look at PA audio - why? A resistor of 1.5K or less is used, and it can "suck" all the audio to it but have no where to go - killing your audio because the CB/PA switch isn't right...you mute the Audio Amp chip on TX because that is working right...speaker side or not - TX light is on and you're on the air.
Again, go over the pics I sent of my front panel board, make sure your switches and foil to ribbon cable traces are clean - take you time - I hope for the best...
:+> Andy <+: