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Not quite ready for prime time. Clone army.

nomadradio

Analog Retentive
Apr 3, 2005
7,536
12,405
698
Louisville, KY
www.nomadradio.com
Here's an item that may or may not ever see the light of day as a DIY install yourself product.

One of the stumbling blocks is the need for explicit instructions to install it.

I could just tell the buyer to "connect this resistor to the cathode of the PLL's VCO".

This would generate requests for exact info, like where is that part in MY radio? Don't need the distraction.

But putting together explicit detailed installation info for every model it may fit into would be a significant job all by itself.

So here is a procedure that qualifies as "experimental", both for the gadget and the installation setup.

pucBGI.jpg



Yeah, it's the clone army, a board that makes carbon copies of your AM signal every 10 kHz above and below the channel.

The radio is a Galaxy DX55V. More than one model uses this particular printed circuit board, the EPT360014C. Hasn't been made in quite a while.

This toy feeds a 10 kHz square wave into the radio's VCO tuning voltage. Has to feed directly into the varactor diode that acts like a voltage-variable capacitor. This circuit board has two of them. One is a tiny black cube on the component side. The empty two holes with the diode symbol are where we'll hook up. Gotta scrape the beeswax away to see the board surface.

O4Fnni.jpg


The hole for the cathode end of this diode symbol gets the solder removed.

RB1e2I.jpg


CAREFULLY! The pic isn't too clear on this, but there's a surface-mount varactor diode to the right of the cleared hole.

UUxJnq.jpg


Don't want to screw it up.

The board gets hung on the slot at the edge of the side rail. The frequency-counter module will JUST clear the edge of this board mounted here. The free end of the 56k resistor goes into the diode hole and gets soldered.

ELyfkB.jpg


The board's black wire is ground. I almost never suggest using a 10mm coil can for a ground connection, but for this it makes sense.

79WWHf.jpg


This trick has to have an on/off switch. No spares to hijack easily on the front panel, so it gets a miniature toggle switch on the rear panel. Best way is to use a Whitney punch to make a quarter-inch hole.

M3smjn.jpg


The red wire is main 13.8 Volt power.

EIZh6K.jpg


There are a variety of places to tap main DC power for the wire to the power switch. I prefer D29. Keeps the red wire short.

YeLcYP.jpg


Last wire to connect is orange. This is the "trigger" wire to activate the board only for transmit. Don't want to receive all 40 channels at once. Easiest place is J26. You could read the white screen-print legend next to it before I tinned it.

3G5ErD.jpg


The stripped end of the orange wire gets tinned with solder before it gets soldered to J26. This reduces the time the soldering iron is in contact with J26 and reduces the risk of degrading the jumper's solder connection to the foil side of the pc board.

This is the whole install. Only remaining detail is to set the trimpot on the board. This radio worked best with the trimmer set almost dead center. Best way to do it is with a spectrum display. A thirty-buck RTL SDR dongle and free software will let you see the clone army's result for cheap.

No idea when this will get run up the flagpole. Kinda depends on how soon this kind of procedure detail can get worked up for other radios.

73
 

I wish this didn't exist, but it's also interesting on a technical level. Assuming a 20 watt (ish) radio, what does the power spread look like on each channel, across it's usable bandwidth? I guess, depending on the range of the radios TX passband and VCO, the actual power out on each individual "channel" maybe quite low.

Do you have any SA measurements you can show?

Please don't make this available.

73
 
Last edited:
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I GOTTA SAY IT.....I HATE THIS SHIT. :mad:

I really wish it didn't exist as I've already witnessed the results of someone using one (or something similar) and it wasn't pleasant. The user was in Southern California (I am in Western Canada), and he wiped out most of the regular 40 channels for nearly an hour.
Of course the jerk was running an amp, the thing was at S7 on channel 17, and down to S1 180 KHz below and above. That's almost 400 KHz of overdriven rock music every 10 KHz.
Now imagine if even 10 or 12 people nationwide started using these.
The CB hobby as we know it would be done. Finished. Kaput.
The band is already on life support and this is like pounding nails into its coffin.

How the f*** can you put this shit on the open market and sell it ?
Do you not give a flying crap about people's enjoyment of the hobby, or that some folks actually use CB as part of their work ?
Is making a few more dollars worth it if it makes radio useless for communication ?
You know most people are incapable of using such a device responsibly right ?

Sorry Nomad, I can tell you are a very smart man, but I have lost most of my respect for you over this stupidity.
I don't understand how some people's minds work.......... :mad:
 
That's a really bad idea, and I should know, I used to be the king of bad ideas until this thing appeared. And it's so interestingly bad that it's hard to deny I really want one. That tells me it should probably not exist. Forbid unit 1 to the 38th power guy gets one.
 
I wonder if it would still have enough power to run a small amp like a kl203 or something? I could see this being used as an "all call" for emergency use.
Useless for that unless you scan the channels after every call since they can hear you on every channel but you can only hear them on ONE channel.
 
I could see this being used as an "all call" for emergency use.
Since when was a CB on any channel useful for emergencies ? Nobody has monitored channel 9 for more than twenty years now, and other than maybe channel 19 in some places the band is pretty empty of local users.
You don't need to request assistance on all 40 channels at once, because if anybody at all is listening, they are likely either on 19 or one of the sideband channels. And, as mentioned above, the device may transmit on 40 channels at once, but only receives on one.........
 
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I GOTTA SAY IT.....I HATE THIS SHIT. :mad:
Sorry Nomad, I can tell you are a very smart man, but I have lost most of my respect for you over this stupidity.
I don't understand how some people's minds work.......... :mad:
MY feelings EXACTLY !! For several months this past year, some degenerate A-hole played hip-hop music (??) on multiple channels between 35-39 lsb. He gone now, and I hope someone found him and beat him to a pulp. I know what would happen to someone like him if he was in Colombia. They'd find his body floating in a river.
There's no place for selling crap like this just to make a few bucks. But . . . the smell of a few dollars makes people do sick things.

- J.J. 399
 

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