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.
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.
The hole for the cathode end of this diode symbol gets the solder removed.
CAREFULLY! The pic isn't too clear on this, but there's a surface-mount varactor diode to the right of the cleared hole.
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.
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.
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.
The red wire is main 13.8 Volt power.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
The hole for the cathode end of this diode symbol gets the solder removed.
CAREFULLY! The pic isn't too clear on this, but there's a surface-mount varactor diode to the right of the cleared hole.
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.
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.
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.
The red wire is main 13.8 Volt power.
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.
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.
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
