Can you add course/fine clarifier to Grant-XL or Cobra 148GTL?

[ShakyMcQuiver]

Thanks for the replies everyone! It's nice to know there are still some of us out here that are still interested in this mod.

As more luck would have it, I also ran across this write up on the mod. I actually found this years ago, but I forgot about it until I re-discovered it.

The write-up does caution about finding the 1k/20k pot. Apparently it was nearly impossible to find it back when whoever wrote this mod and it's not much easier today. I have NOT been able to find an Alps pot as it suggests, but I DID find something at CB World that I think will work. It is for a Galaxy DX88HL, but it looks like it should work for what I want to do.

Get the pot here:

POT-I - Galaxy Replacement Coarse Fine Clarifier For The Dx88Hl Radio

POT-I - Galaxy Replacement Coarse Fine Clarifier For The Dx88Hl Radio

www.wearecb.com

 

[nomadradio]

The 10-turn pot will really smooth out fine tuning. Best I can recall, a 10-turn dial for it costs several times the price of the multiturn pot. No trick to see where a single-turn pot is positioned. All you need is a pointer on the knob. A pointer by itself won't tell you how many turns from one end you have spun it. And if the radio has a frequency display that follows the clarifier you probably don't need a dial that shows where you are.

Not every radio's face plate had room for the turns-counting dial.

73

 

[Enterprise312ok]

Yes, the 10-turn does work well and I have one in my base station. The problem (imo) with a 10-turn in a mobile is that it can be difficult to find center frequency again. A frequency counter would certainly help, but I don't have one in my truck. And as you know, spinning the pot several times can get tedious.

I thought about a 3 or 5 turn pot. That might be ideal for a mobile precision pot, but they aren't easy to find, or at least I haven't had much luck. Thus the reason I thought of my old 148GTL-DX. The course/fine was awesome.

I'm old school like a lot of you. It's hard to get rid of our old rigs as they're too much fun to tinker with. I'm going to upgrade one of these days and get a true 10 meter export radio. I'm not sure which one yet as I've been out of the loop for years. I'm leaning towards a Galaxy though.

Its hard to find a good export anymore, gone are the daus of the galaxy 88/99 and the silver face president jackson, for some reason the new ranger made radios have dropped fm like the ric 99 and galaxy98hp. I ended up going with a lincoln 2+, but my cobra 138xlr is in the mobile until fall because I know it can handle the 110° heat.

 

[ShakyMcQuiver]

The 10-turn pot will really smooth out fine tuning. Best I can recall, a 10-turn dial for it costs several times the price of the multiturn pot. No trick to see where a single-turn pot is positioned. All you need is a pointer on the knob. A pointer by itself won't tell you how many turns from one end you have spun it. And if the radio has a frequency display that follows the clarifier you probably don't need a dial that shows where you are.

Not every radio's face plate had room for the turns-counting dial.

73

You can get a '3590' 20k 10-turn pot for less than $10 on average. Or at least a Chinese model. No the greatest quality, but they work. You can get them even cheaper if you're willing to wait for them across the pond.

I'd like to try a 3 or 5 turn for the mobile. I bet they'd work good too. Expensive though. Not a lot of sources for them.

 

[9C1Driver]

Hey all. What can I expect if I find the right person to "peak and tune", a grant xl. I have an old one that nothing has ever been do to but, I thought I might break it out again and see what kind of performance can be done to it without going over board. All info greatly appreciated.

Other then a properly done alignment, having the AM dead key set where you want it, and maybe a clarifier unlock that would be it. The Grant xl is a great old school low powered radio. I would not try to turn it into a 40 watt radio by over modding it. Get a KL-203 if you need mopowa.