So I tried it out tonight on a make magnet mount K40 on a stock pot with a 108" radial under said stock pot. SWR was 1.2 across all 40 channels.
Wow does it have ears! I was picking up all kinds of skip. Motor Mouth Maul was giving me a solid 5-7db with swing and No Name was giving me a solid 5db. I am in Mid-Michigan. North Carolina was rolling in strong.
I plugged in a NOS Philippines Uniden PC 78XL and while the audio sounded better the signal was much weaker and the meter did not read anything. I suspect the difference in audio quality in spite of less receiver sensitivity was down to speakers!
So I plan on recapping the unit and I might install a Digi-Max lite since I already have a kit laying around.
When I took the cover's off to inspect all of the electrolytic capacitors inside where all marked "Uniden" the old blue colored. It had all of it's original transistors dried paste and all. 2SC1307 final and a bunch of 2SC1419's. The bottom of the board had a tone of bodged but OEM parts so it looks like it had all the service bulletins done to it before it left the factor. I know this one was bought in 1978. I have all of the documentation.
So right now my plan is to look through the parts list that came with it and see what caps I have on hand and order 3 tantalums for it. Nothing is blown so better to keep it that way. I am going to see what I have to replace the questionable and always failure prone 2SC1419's most of the NPN's I have for voltage regulation are HUGE modern parts.
So besides re-cap and replacing those always problematic 2SC1419's is there anything else I should do?
When I fired it up with the Radio Shack 1.5A 12V power supply it came with the channel changer took some use and about 1 minute for all the LED's to light but it finally came to life with a few twists of the dial.
Since it is a uPD858 PLL I like the idea of the huge amount of channels it would gain with the Digi-Max-Lite since I bought it years ago just in case I came across a nice 858 or 002 PLL.
Nothing clipped inside and the factory wax is still in the 54Mhz slug.
If she was not 45 years old I would not touch her but 45 years is a long time for those electrolytics. Amazing the Tantalums are still holding up.
It came with a Cobra C55 Dynamic but it takes one of those old 7V Mercury Batteries. I tossed a stock Uniden 4 Pin mic on it but there was no local traffic just skip so no audio reports.
The case and bezel are an 8.5 to 9 out of 10.
Looking forward to advice and keeping this old beauty going for another 45 years!
Wow does it have ears! I was picking up all kinds of skip. Motor Mouth Maul was giving me a solid 5-7db with swing and No Name was giving me a solid 5db. I am in Mid-Michigan. North Carolina was rolling in strong.
I plugged in a NOS Philippines Uniden PC 78XL and while the audio sounded better the signal was much weaker and the meter did not read anything. I suspect the difference in audio quality in spite of less receiver sensitivity was down to speakers!
So I plan on recapping the unit and I might install a Digi-Max lite since I already have a kit laying around.
When I took the cover's off to inspect all of the electrolytic capacitors inside where all marked "Uniden" the old blue colored. It had all of it's original transistors dried paste and all. 2SC1307 final and a bunch of 2SC1419's. The bottom of the board had a tone of bodged but OEM parts so it looks like it had all the service bulletins done to it before it left the factor. I know this one was bought in 1978. I have all of the documentation.
So right now my plan is to look through the parts list that came with it and see what caps I have on hand and order 3 tantalums for it. Nothing is blown so better to keep it that way. I am going to see what I have to replace the questionable and always failure prone 2SC1419's most of the NPN's I have for voltage regulation are HUGE modern parts.
So besides re-cap and replacing those always problematic 2SC1419's is there anything else I should do?
When I fired it up with the Radio Shack 1.5A 12V power supply it came with the channel changer took some use and about 1 minute for all the LED's to light but it finally came to life with a few twists of the dial.
Since it is a uPD858 PLL I like the idea of the huge amount of channels it would gain with the Digi-Max-Lite since I bought it years ago just in case I came across a nice 858 or 002 PLL.
Nothing clipped inside and the factory wax is still in the 54Mhz slug.
If she was not 45 years old I would not touch her but 45 years is a long time for those electrolytics. Amazing the Tantalums are still holding up.
It came with a Cobra C55 Dynamic but it takes one of those old 7V Mercury Batteries. I tossed a stock Uniden 4 Pin mic on it but there was no local traffic just skip so no audio reports.
The case and bezel are an 8.5 to 9 out of 10.
Looking forward to advice and keeping this old beauty going for another 45 years!
