Need 9.785mhz crystal

[rixdafix]

I acquired a TRS Challenger 850 and have determined that the 9.785 crystal in the LSB circuit (X1) is bad. I know very little about these circuits. I'm assuming this is an SSB filter? Anyway, when I tap on it, I get audio on LSB. USB and AM are fine. Solder joints look good. Anyone have one of these? Ken's doesn't have it. Thanks

 

[nomadradio]

The only place you'll find this one is in a derelict radio. This circuit board was used only in brands that didn't sell terribly well, so there won't be a lot of candidate organ donors out there.

The companies that would fabricate a custom crystal to order have mostly gone away, and those that remain are high priced. Demand for their product declined, costs rose and the ones who didn't get put out of business have to charge enough to pay their bills. Makes the price of "just one" custom quartz crystal no longer economical.

Before long somebody will put a DDS chip and a tiny computer that talks to it in a package you can just install in place of a failed crystal. If it were me, it would have a USB socket on one end, and the desired crystal frequency get installed from a program on a PC. Would end up being a bit larger, but having "just one" crystal custom made will probably cost enough to just buy a whole working radio.

73

 

[Retro CB Guy]

I agree with Nomad above but if you get fortunate enough to find another of the same radio, you should be to make due. Mikes Radio Repair did a video of my 850 model on Youtube and at that time a company still made crystals which he ordered and got mine back on track.

This TRS Challenger 850 is in the very rare group I feel though so hopefully sooner than later things will improve 73's, Retro

 

[brandon7861]

Before long somebody will put a DDS chip and a tiny computer that talks to it in a package you can just install in place of a failed crystal. If it were me, it would have a USB socket on one end, and the desired crystal frequency get installed from a program on a PC. Would end up being a bit larger, but having "just one" crystal custom made will probably cost enough to just buy a whole working radio.

73

Being very tempted to do that, I stumbled on this video that shows the output (of a pre-assembled ebay board) has significant AM and FM modulation, far from a clean signal. Maybe they would be better with a better reference oscillator?