For those of you who have never owned one of these radios I thought you might enjoy this overview of the functions on the AR3500
Clear Channel Ranger AR3500 Review
Clear Channel Ranger AR3500 Review
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Clear Channel Ranger AR3500 Overview Video
- Thread starter cbradiomagazine.com
- Start date
Nice video presentation.
I had both the 100w and 30w version of this radio; still have the 30w left. And yes, it is marked as a 3500; not a 3300. They both had the 4 pin mic plug and both responded favorably with a D104 handheld mic. To get these radios that come out of the box for 10m to get more freqs, you will have to go thru a number of programming steps to unlock it. Or, you could jump the two outer pins inside (see below) which unlocks it. In addition, this radio can also be unlocked to go down from 2.9mhz and scan up to 30mhz when programmed this following way:
2.9 - 30 MHZ
The audio reports have been fantastic with just a stock mic. SSB is sublime, as it has the same audio quality on AM and FM too. The receive is clean yet sensitive. They only thing I don't like about this radio, is reprogramming it each time you turn it off and unplug it. Or, you can modify it by putting a 9v battery and diode in it to retain memories.
This is from KF2TZ's page:
FREQUENCY EXPANSION- Remove bottom cover. Locate 3 metal pins
standing verticle in the PC board towards the front of the radio.Solder jump
a piece of wire on the 2 outer pins. Reassemble the radio.
Your radio will now tune 26-30 MHZ.
KF2TZ'S AR RANGER 3500 RADIO PAGE
I had both the 100w and 30w version of this radio; still have the 30w left. And yes, it is marked as a 3500; not a 3300. They both had the 4 pin mic plug and both responded favorably with a D104 handheld mic. To get these radios that come out of the box for 10m to get more freqs, you will have to go thru a number of programming steps to unlock it. Or, you could jump the two outer pins inside (see below) which unlocks it. In addition, this radio can also be unlocked to go down from 2.9mhz and scan up to 30mhz when programmed this following way:
2.9 - 30 MHZ
The audio reports have been fantastic with just a stock mic. SSB is sublime, as it has the same audio quality on AM and FM too. The receive is clean yet sensitive. They only thing I don't like about this radio, is reprogramming it each time you turn it off and unplug it. Or, you can modify it by putting a 9v battery and diode in it to retain memories.
This is from KF2TZ's page:
FREQUENCY EXPANSION- Remove bottom cover. Locate 3 metal pins
standing verticle in the PC board towards the front of the radio.Solder jump
a piece of wire on the 2 outer pins. Reassemble the radio.
Your radio will now tune 26-30 MHZ.
KF2TZ'S AR RANGER 3500 RADIO PAGE
Attachments
Most likely scenario there is the ar3300 fascia got damaged and someone replaced it with an ar3500 fascia either new or from a scrapped ar3500..
Robb is actually correct - I stated it incorrectly in my video (good catch Robb). There were actually 30/100 watt versions sold of both models. Funny I messed that up since about 8 years ago I owned a 30 watt AR3500 for a couple of weeks and then traded it for another radio.
It should be "chip switched" not the infamous Chipswitch from Bill's 2-Way. I don't think that chip is AR3500 compatible.
sorry for not viewing cb's video just yet, but......when rf limited introduced the microphone with frequency change controls, they needed more pins on the mic plug, and the 6 pin plug was an rci item, so they went with a uniden 8 pin plug. it's actually wired the same as the ft757gx2 i once owned. there were 4 & 8 pin versions right up until the end, never saw an 8 pin (factory) 3300, not sure they ever used one. also have never seen a factory 100w 3300, only 3500's. the face plates of the 3300 & 3500 are not interchangeable without replacing the freq span buttons underneath the display because the 3300 used vertically oriented rocker buttons and the 3500 used 2 individual momentary pushbutton buttons. neither are very durable. whoever the factory got those 2 types of buttons from used a very poor quality item. both types are unique to these radios & unless you find a junker, you will not find a replacement. there is no other chip that will go inside this radio, it reliably covers 12m through 30mhz, albeit via a 'soft' mod by reprogramming the cpu through the front buttons. at that point you can only change freqs by the scan control, dead/no battery, or going too far & causing the radio to lock up requires disconnecting power(and battery for lock up) which becomes a nuisance. it will work with the jumper mod, just 26mhz is as low as the jumper mod goes. let nobody tell you otherwise, a properly tuned ar3500, 30 or 100 watter, with the original speech processor is a SCREAMER on AM and SSB. no question about it. sure you can go overboard & crank the 2x2290 amp up to nearly 200 watts, and you can destroy the stock audio-which sounds far from stock to begin with-just leave it alone! it smokes my ic706mk2g in any mode from 12-10. the biggest complaint with these radios, after all factory updates, was ACR. bleedover can be nasty at times. this radio is NO magnum. nor rci. nor stryker. this is a super version of a uniden 8719 chassis, using a cpu instead of pll and different mixer freq then the uniden. adjacent channel rejection was the only miss. tuned side by side to factory specs, the ar radio outhears & outtalks the xl-type radios hands down.
i have one 100 watter & 3 30 watters......original owner of the 100 & 1 30 watter. and 'rod, either summer of '07 or '08, during E-skip season, you talked to my 100 watter on a 'particular' freq. 125 watts on AM through peak E skip season, pegged needle noise....pegging your needle with a mere 125 watts.
no matter how hard i try, 'humble' is not in my vocabulary ;-). neither is 'not adding my own 2 cents'.
but as elvis said........thank you very much.....
it's too bad rf limited sold the rights to the ar3500 (even sadder that no one else revived it). that radio was ahead of its time. heck, there isn't anything ahead of it today. it's a shame there aren't more in use. it cost $600 in 1988. look what that kind of cash brings you in an export radio today......a chrome plated, echo chambered, 200 nasty watted, slip sliding, over-glorified rci 6900, which itself was nothing more then an over-glorified 148-gtldx. i'd gladly slap six bills on the table for a brand spanking new fully loaded ar3500. a little cleanup around the ACR edges & you have one mean, nasty radio. that actually sounds good. magnum spoke a lot of hype in the late 90's when they bragged of the ar3500 replacement radio. the 357, and later the lower powered 257 just didn't live up to the hype. and once they realized a new radio wouldn't be a money maker, they jumped on the rci bandwagon, stole one of their radios, tweaked some pieces and called their own brand new radio. that plan only got them slightly farther then it got stryker. while i'm intrigued by the thought of an omega HP, even a 257 HP, and what dd18 has told us is available or in design on the other side of the world, that brand new ar3500 just makes me wanna.......sorry.
i know this isn't the DX thread......but while preparing the radio room for tomorrows impending blast of mother nature, i fired up the ar3500, for several hours. in barefoot form it is no doorbuster on the bowl, but to have multiple big-boy stations calling is impressive. i set up shop on 2 other freqs and all but owned them for much of the night. AM 13 & many of lazy's long lost pals, including boogieman, 33, 24, & jethro bodine were given the pleasure of hearing my ar3500.....for far too long according to several!! 12m was all but dead, but the log gained a few new entries. 10m? every ham in TENN spoke to me i think! along with plenty of others! not 1 bad signal report all night......
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