President Lincoln II AM dead key and swing

[bassman21]

I'm seriously looking to get this radio, but I'm worried about it's dead key and forward swing on AM. I run a Texas Star DX 350 and it likes a dead key under a watt. Is there a way to get the dead key on the President Lincoln II at or under 1 watt and to have it swing 15 plus watts? Anyone know what I can expect after tweaking it? Does anyone have any tweak and mods for it besides the channel unlock?

Thanks

 

[fourstringburn]

I have this radio and was working fine until I took a lightning hit yesterday.

The radio has an RF power knob, that's it's purpose to adjust the deadkey from the bare minimum to it's maximum.

The radio can be set to deadkey at 1 watt and should still easily peak at 15 watts or more. I set mine at 4 watts deadkey and peaks over 25 watts.

Best thing to do with this radio is leave it alone. You already have an amp for high power. This radio uses surface mount components and is not easily tweaked by your typical golden screwdrivers out there.

 

[jadocs]

I'm seriously looking to get this radio, but I'm worried about it's dead key and forward swing on AM. I run a Texas Star DX 350 and it likes a dead key under a watt. Is there a way to get the dead key on the President Lincoln II at or under 1 watt and to have it swing 15 plus watts? Anyone know what I can expect after tweaking it? Does anyone have any tweak and mods for it besides the channel unlock?

Thanks

It's a great radio. With the RF Power all the way down, I dead key right around 2 watts. With the RF Power all the way up, I dead key around 11-12 watts. I'm currently running it with a TNT 350 that has been tuned by Crusher and when using the Amp, I set my dead to 3 watts using a MFJ-822 that I mounted in my center console.

I'm sure it could be tuned for a 1 watt dead key though.

 

[222DBFL]

Yes you could turn the low power rf pot inside radio to lower the dead key some more if needed to get to 1/2 watt, but I don't think that going from 1/2 watt to 1 watt carrier will hurt your amp. What is the dead key of the amp with it at 1/2 watt? Check it at 1 watt with the current radio and see what you get. I'm with the others here, no need to peak and tweak the radio. It's already a dual final radio and will do 20-25 watts stock. They are good radios, stable, stay on freq and sound good on air. Don't over drive amp with pep either, it's just wasting energy and creating heat. If you make 200-250 watts vs 350-400 watts, no one but you will know the difference on the watt meter. No one in dx land will notice a change and if they do it will be very small, like 1/4 s-unit or less. Again, not worth decreasing the life of the amp to get a few more watts. Stop looking at the watt meter so much and concentrate on getting the signal out cleanly. JMHO. But the Lincoln is a good radio from all the ones I have talked to as well as the local that has one. Works well. Another radio to consider is the optima MK3 if you so much SSB talking. Best export radio I've used for SSB myself. And I have used a few. Pair it with an icom mic and they sound really good on air as well. Just some food for thought. The Lincoln is a good radio however and wouldn't be a bad choice either. Again, JMHO.

 

[AL567]

Yes you could turn the low power rf pot inside radio to lower the dead key some more if needed to get to 1/2 watt, but I don't think that going from 1/2 watt to 1 watt carrier will hurt your amp. What is the dead key of the amp with it at 1/2 watt? Check it at 1 watt with the current radio and see what you get. I'm with the others here, no need to peak and tweak the radio. It's already a dual final radio and will do 20-25 watts stock. They are good radios, stable, stay on freq and sound good on air. Don't over drive amp with pep either, it's just wasting energy and creating heat. If you make 200-250 watts vs 350-400 watts, no one but you will know the difference on the watt meter. No one in dx land will notice a change and if they do it will be very small, like 1/4 s-unit or less. Again, not worth decreasing the life of the amp to get a few more watts. Stop looking at the watt meter so much and concentrate on getting the signal out cleanly. JMHO. But the Lincoln is a good radio from all the ones I have talked to as well as the local that has one. Works well. Another radio to consider is the optima MK3 if you so much SSB talking. Best export radio I've used for SSB myself. And I have used a few. Pair it with an icom mic and they sound really good on air as well. Just some food for thought. The Lincoln is a good radio however and wouldn't be a bad choice either. Again, JMHO.

I use my Lincoln 2 with a RM KL503 and you know how sensitive they are. My low side on the RF pot is just below 2 watts on AM and swings around 10 watts. it sounds good and doesn't get hot. When using SSB I keep the pep down around 10 watts on the radio and I get really good reports from other stations. If an RM amp can hold its own then a Texas star or one of the others should have no issues at all with this radio.

 

[bassman21]

Thanks
I did some research and it says that you can clip D41to open the modulation. That is usually not a good idea on these type of radios as they will lose their clean sound, but it might get that swing where I want it. If I get it I might try just to see or if there is a modulation VR I might try turning that up. I'm sure there is a lot that can be done to this radio, but no one has really tried yet. I love the look, size and features on this radio.

A two watt dead key will be too much for sure. I need a watt or less and need at least 12 watts swing. A half a watt dead key gives me around 70 watts out. 1 Watt gives me about 100 watts or so. It's very touchy.

 

[M0GVZ]

Thanks
I did some research and it says that you can clip D41to open the modulation. That is usually not a good idea on these type of radios as they will lose their clean sound, but it might get that swing where I want it. If I get it I might try just to see or if there is a modulation VR I might try turning that up.

What for? What do you hope to achieve? Nothing positive. You'll get more swing but you're running an amp anyway so there's no point and as has been said the additional power you'll get won't put a single extra S point on the meter at the other end but your audio is going to suffer unless you're one of the very few who use a scope to monitor what they're putting out so its not flat topping.

 

[222DBFL]

Clipping the mod limiter allows for higher peak audio but you will sound over modulated most of the time. Don't worry so much about the "swing". That is some garbage. Only reason to mess with am power should be to lower dead key and get radio to 100% modulation. But hey if you can afford Toshiba transistors and can readily find them, by all means, get that swing and every watt you can from the radio and amp. That radio wasn't intended for mostly am use, it was more directed at the SSB group and 10 meter crowd. So AM will suffer. You want a swinging AM radio, get an old cobra 29 side mic and use a 2018 extreme mic. Leave the mod limiter intact on the Lincoln unless you are monitoring it with a scope. Bottom line. Cause if not, you will most likely end up sounding bad as you will want to crank the mic gain wide open it seems. Let the amp do the work and so what if it's not putting out 1-200 more watts than it did before, like said no one on the other end will notice a bit of difference. JMO.

 

[bassman21]

What for? What do you hope to achieve? Nothing positive. You'll get more swing but you're running an amp anyway so there's no point and as has been said the additional power you'll get won't put a single extra S point on the meter at the other end but your audio is going to suffer unless you're one of the very few who use a scope to monitor what they're putting out so its not flat topping.

I really appreciate you guys' feedback. I've been hearing the "you'll overmoduate if you clip the audio limiter" since I got into CB and later ham when I was 11 years old back in 1988. However I have generally not found this to be the case. Over modulation/muffled/distorted audio in my experience is usually from using the wrong microphone (power mics included) and doing dirt mods to your radio. Not talking about the swing mod either unless you run them with something like a 1/10 (ie dead keying 1 watt and swinging to 100) carrier. I'm talking about changing resistors values, spreading coils and doing other things just to make that meter swing when you're actually splattering harmonics all over the frequency spectrum. Clipping the audio limiter rarely does this. It's usually only there to keep the wattage from swinging above the legal limit or bleeding over to the next channel. The people usually against clipping the limiter tend to be the same people that are against running more than 4 watts on CB and people that are older (not saying you guys are old lol). I guess it really comes down to your definition of over modulation. I personally find loud modulation useful when talking to someone far away. Nothing annoys me more than someone that is lower than the static. You can always turn the mic gain down when talking close by if need be.

I just ordered the radio from Cheap Ham for $290 USD with shipping. I'm going to do the mod and record it from my base about a mile away to see how it sounds. If I don't like the sound I can always add it back. So looking forward to getting this radio!

 

[fourstringburn]

You got alot to learn on what the modulation limiter does my friend.

 

[Road Squawker]

You got alot to learn on what the modulation limiter does my friend.

I don't know about that,............ he already seems to know the answer to his own question

 

[222DBFL]

Man you have opened a can of worms that you may never hear the end of!! You go on and think that way and the rest of us will keep the limiters intact!!

 

[M0GVZ]

Clipping the audio limiter rarely does this. It's usually only there to keep the wattage from swinging above the legal limit or bleeding over to the next channel.

No it isn't. It is there to prevent you overdriving the audio amplifiers. Audio limiters were put in CBs because the manufacturers recognised that idiots would put power mics on them and ramp everything up to 11. When you overdrive the audio amps and other transistors in the chain you end up with harmonics, the audio limiter is put in to prevent that and therefore reduce the harmonics. You personally may not notice any difference but you can bet someone listening at multiples of the frequency you're on will. I bet if you actually put that radio when modded on a spectrum analyser you would be quite surprised at what you saw. Suffice to say that there's probably aircraft on the VHF air band who could hear your crud.

Here's what your signal should look like with a 3kHz tone:

And here's what crap a radio with the limiter removed and being overdriven looks like:

That is the same radio being overdriven with nothing else changed. NOTE HOW THE CARRIER OUTPUT DOES NOT CHANGE. YOU DO NOT GET A STRONGER SIGNAL.

But as I said, it won't just stop there. It'll be repeated many times throughout the spectrum at various multiples of your TX frequency.

Its also one of the reasons the 4W limit was introduced. The FCC and various authorities worldwide recognised idiots would bolt all kinds of crap on causing all kinds of spurious transmissions all over the spectrum and the 4W limit reduced the impact of this.

And the crappy audio on CB of the type you describe is not down to the wrong microphones. In every single case it is down to the audio input being too high somewhere along the chain.

Read and learn.
http://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/am-modulation-visited-via-spectrum-analyzer.22881/

I personally find loud modulation useful when talking to someone far away.

Personally I find clear audio with plenty of articulation far more useful than loud modulation when talking to someone far away.

I recall an Italian station who was 40 over to me trying to get hold of a JA station. He had the loud booming audio you like and couldn't get through. Even I couldn't work out what his call was. I managed it first call with probably a 100th of the ERP he had because I had properly set up TX audio so the JA could actually understand.

Contrary to what you believe, the audio type you prefer actually makes understanding you HARDER by stations far away than having it set up to the proper and lower levels.

 

[AL567]

No it isn't. It is there to prevent you overdriving the audio amplifiers. Audio limiters were put in CBs because the manufacturers recognised that idiots would put power mics on them and ramp everything up to 11. When you overdrive the audio amps and other transistors in the chain you end up with harmonics, the audio limiter is put in to prevent that and therefore reduce the harmonics. You personally may not notice any difference but you can bet someone listening at multiples of the frequency you're on will. I bet if you actually put that radio when modded on a spectrum analyser you would be quite surprised at what you saw. Suffice to say that there's probably aircraft on the VHF air band who could hear your crud.

Here's what your signal should look like with a 3kHz tone:

And here's what crap a radio with the limiter removed and being overdriven looks like:

That is the same radio being overdriven with nothing else changed. NOTE HOW THE CARRIER OUTPUT DOES NOT CHANGE. YOU DO NOT GET A STRONGER SIGNAL.

But as I said, it won't just stop there. It'll be repeated many times throughout the spectrum at various multiples of your TX frequency.

Its also one of the reasons the 4W limit was introduced. The FCC and various authorities worldwide recognised idiots would bolt all kinds of crap on causing all kinds of spurious transmissions all over the spectrum and the 4W limit reduced the impact of this.

And the crappy audio on CB of the type you describe is not down to the wrong microphones. In every single case it is down to the audio input being too high somewhere along the chain.

Read and learn.
http://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/am-modulation-visited-via-spectrum-analyzer.22881/



Personally I find clear audio with plenty of articulation far more useful than loud modulation when talking to someone far away.

I recall an Italian station who was 40 over to me trying to get hold of a JA station. He had the loud booming audio you like and couldn't get through. Even I couldn't work out what his call was. I managed it first call with probably a 100th of the ERP he had because I had properly set up TX audio so the JA could actually understand.

Contrary to what you believe, the audio type you prefer actually makes understanding you HARDER by stations far away than having it set up to the proper and lower levels.

Thanks
I did some research and it says that you can clip D41to open the modulation. That is usually not a good idea on these type of radios as they will lose their clean sound, but it might get that swing where I want it. If I get it I might try just to see or if there is a modulation VR I might try turning that up. I'm sure there is a lot that can be done to this radio, but no one has really tried yet. I love the look, size and features on this radio.

A two watt dead key will be too much for sure. I need a watt or less and need at least 12 watts swing. A half a watt dead key gives me around 70 watts out. 1 Watt gives me about 100 watts or so. It's very touchy.

I really appreciate you guys' feedback. I've been hearing the "you'll overmoduate if you clip the audio limiter" since I got into CB and later ham when I was 11 years old back in 1988. However I have generally not found this to be the case. Over modulation/muffled/distorted audio in my experience is usually from using the wrong microphone (power mics included) and doing dirt mods to your radio. Not talking about the swing mod either unless you run them with something like a 1/10 (ie dead keying 1 watt and swinging to 100) carrier. I'm talking about changing resistors values, spreading coils and doing other things just to make that meter swing when you're actually splattering harmonics all over the frequency spectrum. Clipping the audio limiter rarely does this. It's usually only there to keep the wattage from swinging above the legal limit or bleeding over to the next channel. The people usually against clipping the limiter tend to be the same people that are against running more than 4 watts on CB and people that are older (not saying you guys are old lol). I guess it really comes down to your definition of over modulation. I personally find loud modulation useful when talking to someone far away. Nothing annoys me more than someone that is lower than the static. You can always turn the mic gain down when talking close by if need be.

I just ordered the radio from Cheap Ham for $290 USD with shipping. I'm going to do the mod and record it from my base about a mile away to see how it sounds. If I don't like the sound I can always add it back. So looking forward to getting this radio!

I have 2 of these radios and they sound great right out of the box Even when paired with the cheapest amplifier on the market like the one I have. the RF power turns down low enough to properly drive the amplifier with the right amount of swing. They have nice clean sound. i believe I'd leave the cutters out of this radio. There's a few stations around here that have cut the limiter and are loud but you can't understand what they are saying. I won't talk to them. With that said though I've also heard some really loud galaxy radios that sound great but they were unmolested too. The Lincoln 2 is not designed to be loud like a galaxy.

 

[BigKahuna]

I run mine stock with mic gain at max into KL203. I only use SSB but I get great reports.