For years we would see tiny lumps of black potting resin with three wires protruding, installed mostly in radios built by RCI. These were "swing kits". You removed a resistor from the circuit board and inserted wires from the module into the holes where the resistor had been. Hammer the resin to see what's inside, and lo and behold. A resistor is inside. In fairness, not the same resistance value as the factory part you plucked out, but a part you could buy (back then) for a penny or two from Mouser in quantity. The resistor inside would have a higher resistance value than the factory part. The bonus was that a lot of radios would exhibit "squeal", or internal audio feedback if you turned the mike gain too high after the "kit" was installed.
We called them "rabbit turds". The shape, size and black resin reminded me of the waste that accumulates under a rabbit cage.
Fast forward to 2025 and we see a Cobra 2000 with a deluxe version of the rabbit turd, with ten wires coming out of it.
Anybody want to place bets on how many of those wires actually connect to anything inside the potting resin?
Three of them lead to the carrier-control pot mounted on the rear panel. Kinda clumsy, but we'll fix that soon enough.
That's three wires.
The factory carrier trimpot vr10 got removed, and three wires from the module take its place.
That's six wires.
In the first pic, a red wire going off the right is soldered to the AC/DC switch to obtain 13.8 VDC main power. The black wire goes to ground.
That's eight wires.
The white wire goes to the clockwise lug of the mike gain control.
That's nine wires.
The last wire is green. It provides full 13.8 Volt DC to the yellow bias-test wire. This feeds full main power to the final transistor, the "power jump" that provides the same peak power on AM as sideband. Some folks like this some don't. But it doesn't seem to cause any loss of audio quality.
That's ten wires total. Makes you think what's inside that lump of resin is pretty sophisticated, right?
The resin is just brittle enough to smash apart with a hammer.
The white wire escaped. Fell on the floor. Wasn't connected. The blue wire broke, only a tiny bit of it remains. The resistor broke in half, but at least there is one electronic component in there. The resistor served to lower the minimum carrier wattage by placing it in parallel with R196, the factory resistor that sets the minimum carrier that VR10 can set.
So yeah, there's a part in there. And technically all but the white wire are connected to someting. If you call connecting them to each other "something".
We set up the radio's SWR Cal knob to control the radio's carrier after the turdectomy was performed.
I did shoot pics of how we do that, but it's bedtime. Maybe I'll cover that later.
73
We called them "rabbit turds". The shape, size and black resin reminded me of the waste that accumulates under a rabbit cage.
Fast forward to 2025 and we see a Cobra 2000 with a deluxe version of the rabbit turd, with ten wires coming out of it.
Anybody want to place bets on how many of those wires actually connect to anything inside the potting resin?
Three of them lead to the carrier-control pot mounted on the rear panel. Kinda clumsy, but we'll fix that soon enough.
That's three wires.
The factory carrier trimpot vr10 got removed, and three wires from the module take its place.
That's six wires.
In the first pic, a red wire going off the right is soldered to the AC/DC switch to obtain 13.8 VDC main power. The black wire goes to ground.
That's eight wires.
The white wire goes to the clockwise lug of the mike gain control.
That's nine wires.
The last wire is green. It provides full 13.8 Volt DC to the yellow bias-test wire. This feeds full main power to the final transistor, the "power jump" that provides the same peak power on AM as sideband. Some folks like this some don't. But it doesn't seem to cause any loss of audio quality.
That's ten wires total. Makes you think what's inside that lump of resin is pretty sophisticated, right?
The resin is just brittle enough to smash apart with a hammer.
The white wire escaped. Fell on the floor. Wasn't connected. The blue wire broke, only a tiny bit of it remains. The resistor broke in half, but at least there is one electronic component in there. The resistor served to lower the minimum carrier wattage by placing it in parallel with R196, the factory resistor that sets the minimum carrier that VR10 can set.
So yeah, there's a part in there. And technically all but the white wire are connected to someting. If you call connecting them to each other "something".
We set up the radio's SWR Cal knob to control the radio's carrier after the turdectomy was performed.
I did shoot pics of how we do that, but it's bedtime. Maybe I'll cover that later.
73
