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Cobra 29LTD/GTL 10 KC mod????????

If you give up on that 5.12 crystal, send it my way, I'd love to take a shot at bending it. If I get it where you need it on a different PCB, I'll send it back. I think it just needs a little inductance to stretch it out a bit further. If you got the time, I got the postage.
 
I just finished up making my copy of the oscillator (with a 6.1704MHz crystal, its what I had) to see what affect my suggestion should have had.
View attachment 72431
Instead of a trimmer, I used a 10pF and a 30pF in parallel. Lifting the leg of the 30pF gives me the ability to go from 40pF to 10pF, which is the extremes of your trimmer. Also, from the emitter to the base, I have two 22pF caps. Lifting the leg of one allows me to go to/from 22pF to 44pF for C2.


Results:
*counter not warmed up and no crystal is the same, just seeing the direction and ballpark amount of change*

Trimmer 10pF, C2 22pF = 6.174354MHz
Trimmer 40pF, C2 22pF = 6.172502MHz
Trimmer 10pF, C2 44pF = 6.174215MHz
Trimmer 40pF, C2 44pF = 6.172262MHz

Doubling C2 lowered the freq 139Hz (22ppm) with the trimmer at minimum, and lowered it 240Hz (39ppm) with the trimmer maxed. The effect of increasing the trimmer is a decrease in frequency about 2.2kHz (356ppm).

Edit: I need to go to bed now, my brain is scrambled when I stay up this long. I see I was looking at a JFET circuit, not a more loaded down BJT oscillator. Once again, I made myself look like a total ass. I was thinking, OK, if 10% gets 30ppm, 100% will get about 300ppm. Being you said you got it to move 6kc (about 2/3 of 10kc), I figured, ok, about 3kc/3, or 1kc to go. 300ppm on 5.12MHz is 1536Hz, thought we had it in the bag. My apologies, I owe you a beer! I didn't realize I was looking at a JFET circuit with this particular chart.
View attachment 72433
here is a picture of the oscillator connected to my crystal/oscillator reader and it showes 5.1221mhz i will check it when its back in the circuit. Just gotta bend it a bit more for the full 10kc jump.

If 5.1221 is giving me about 6kc i figure if I can get it to read 5.1242 might do the job
 

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Send a couple. Paralleling them is a common way to extend their tuning range. It would be one extra thing to try if they don't go willingly.

You could try that, to or three in parallel, before you send them to me if you had the time to experiment. It might be just enough.
 
Send a couple. Paralleling them is a common way to extend their tuning range. It would be one extra thing to try if they don't go willingly.

You could try that, to or three in parallel, before you send them to me if you had the time to experiment. It might be just enough.
I will give that a shot in a few BRB
 
Brandon thanks for suggesting to parallel the 5.120 as that works perfect made the 10kc dead nuts and all the channels 3-7-11-15-19 all become the a channels and if I add an expo kit all those missed will there.
Also because it shifted up it gives channel 41 27.415

Still would like to try the 5.000mhz xtal and see how that will work.

Using 2 xtals is a second choice but it works great nice and stable and no drifting
STILL SENDING THE XTALS IN 1 HOUR HAVE TO GO TO PO and are all packaged and labeled.

thanks dss56/Bob
 
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Brandon7861

Well some good news and bad news.
Looking at the schematic pin 10 going to L22 and then if you add an Expo 100A kit to C87 they lead to the same L22.
So I tried a 100 Kit 40 up and down work great connected to c87.
Then the kit to the cut trace of pin 10 for the A channels. works great.
Problem is it will not shift the 40 up and 40 down to get the missed channels.
Would of been nice for that to happen.

thanks dss56
 
Brandon thanks for suggesting to parallel the 5.120 as that works perfect made the 10kc dead nuts and all the channels 3-7-11-15-19 all become the a channels and if I add an expo kit all those missed will there.
Also because it shifted up it gives channel 41 27.415

Still would like to try the 5.000mhz xtal and see how that will work.

Using 2 xtals is a second choice but it works great nice and stable and no drifting
STILL SENDING THE XTALS IN 1 HOUR HAVE TO GO TO PO and are all packaged and labeled.

thanks dss56/Bob
Cool!

I am fairly sure I can make it work with just one crystal, looking forward to trying. I have a few parts radios with SSB so I should have a decent selection of tuning cans.

With all the pulling tricks thrown at the 5MHz ones, I would be surprised if we get more than 4 or 5 ppt (20 or so kHz pull). Even that is asking a lot and it flirts with stability issues. Going from 5 to 5.1xx just isn't possible.

If you plan to operate them around their extreme of 5.020, that would put you in 25MHz territory and all your IF cans will be WAY off. The output network would be out of whack at those frequencies too and your final might switch to sending smoke signals (truth is, I don't know, not modeling it unless a need arises). Be careful trying those.
 
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Well thanks for your help and suggestions on this post.

Let me know what you come up with.

Bummer that i cant get the missed channels with the expo 100A kit also connected to c87. Can only get the 3-7-11-15-19A channels.

Well good luck again thanks and I will try the 5 mhz xtals when I get them
 
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    Coax question. I just put up a new Sirio monsoon base antenna with 100’ of rg8u coax testing with myMFJ antenna analyzer shows 1.4 swr at 26.965mhz and a 1.1 at 27.405 mhz . When I checked the ohms it’s steady a 30 ohms across the entire bandwidth.
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    Is 30 ohms worth worrying about in a 100’ run of rg8u ?


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