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Scorpion Repair Shop?

Well I’ll agree with that statement, assemblers more than builders, I’ll include myself in that as well. When something goes wrong and you can actually identify the problem and fix it, that says a little something though.

There must be something fishy going on though, there has been a silence lately. It’s probably due to jealousy though and not really from ham ops. Unless it’s interference to the bands in their area, I’ve not noticed one in mine though. 10m has only been open a few days sporadically here for me lately and I’ve not noticed anything on 6m.
 
@TheRealPorkchop
I am not taking a poke at you dude. No disrespect intended.
I realise that may have come off as pompous.

Some of these amp assemblers out there are not too smart.
There is a provision in the rules that you can build an amplifier for use below 144Mhz if your building it for amateur use. You just have to meet the spectral purity requirements.

They go get their Amateur radio license.
Now they say "I am building them for myself" when the FCC comes knocking.
But you are not except from two provisions:
1. It cannot work between 26 and 28Mhz. So it needs some form of inhibitor.
2. It needs to meet spectral purity requirements.

If these guys had half a brain they would fit an inhibitor, clean the amp up so it's not so nasty, apply for the cert and then say it's a 10/12 meter amp.

This is all RM Italy did with some of their amps.
But the problem is that these amp assemblers:
1. They cannot design and implement anything to inhibit operation between 26 and 28Mhz. Beyond their skillset. In fact, it's somewhat trivial but still beyond them.
2. Meeting the spectral requirements, again beyond them.

For some the requirements to build and sell them legally with a wink and a nod, just like "10 meter radios" are done, is trivial for some.

But show me one of these "techs" and "amp builders" that actually runs a legitimate business that does not use the "business" as an extension of their own checkbook or borrows from Peter to pay Paul.

Most of them can't do the next job until they are paid for the first one.
No stock. No parts on hand.
Parts have to be "ordered" for the job - even passives.

Their business acumen is a complete sham in most cases.
 
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Good job Martian...

One thing America has in it's favor,

You can't fix stupid - we have a right to be, and Laws are written to prevent us from hurting ourselves and protect us from those that want to hurt, kill, maim, destroy (insert disastrous metaphor here) including eliminate us - but we might wind up doing that to ourselves anyways...

The biggest loophole is - we have a right to purchase and own the product, but if we operate it, without proper license, or used improperly and/or cause harm using it - is where all those laws are focused on.

We can be packrats, we are free to do so, we just can't use it against others - whether we use it to defend ourselves from, or used to defeat a purpose intended by others, which then, they can show harm.

So that is where we stand - and those are generalized terms - to explain the whole thing would take over 200 years of laws enacted to prevent further harm from someone's else's stupidity in the first place.

We are allowed to make mistakes - but ignoring instructions is a violation of law - look at the back of a bottle of Tylenol - Failure to follow these instructions is a violation of Federal Law. It's written to prevent people from taking too many - but it doesn't stop them from taking too many - we are still allowed to be stupid, but we have to live with the results of those choices. If we survive the event to do so.

So that's where we come in. It's a little grey at times but once a mistake is made - were here to help them fix it.

Whether it ever works again or not, is not the problem - just going back out there to do it wrong again, is.
 
@Handy Andy
Right. You can purchase and own it. That's what I was mentioning about using the loophole - because it is there.

The issue is.. they can't make it or sell it.
The manufacture, marketing, and sale are expressly prohibited.
You are not even allowed to ship the amplifier.

So even if someone like Scorpion was not building them just simply repairing them they can pop him for shipping a non-compliant device.

And it all hinges on that regulation that they put in every warning letter they send:

Federal law requires that radio frequency devices must be certified in accordance
with the Commission’s technical standards before they can be marketed in the United
States. Section 302(b) of the Act provides that “[n]o person shall manufacture, import,
sell, offer for sale, or ship devices or home electronic equipment and systems, or use
devices, which fail to comply with regulations promulgated pursuant to this section.”
Click to expand...

That's all they really need to get you. Even for simple repairs.
The only way to skirt this is to not "ship" it.
If you hand it to me, I repair it, and hand it back they can't do a damned thing.
 
I didn’t take it as a stab or anything, I was just including myself so I didn’t sound pompous or anything like that. It’s all good, no harm, no foul.

My opinion on the whole amp builder thing is you’re right, a lot of copiers and clones. Some use slightly better parts, some take a little more pride in their work and are a little more knowledgeable about what they’re doing. But in the end they, we, us - are all building the same product. Then you have people arguing over who builds a better amp when they’re all the same thing.
 
Well fellas I finally heard from back and he said that he's closings up shop. He didn't explain and I didn't feel like prodding so I left it at that. I can speak for myself and say the man did some good work for me on a few boxes and I was always pleased with the results. Maybe he'll open up in the future. As some of us have found out after leaving only to return years later because we just couldn't stay away haha I thought I'd walked away for sure but after 4 years I got the itch and now here I am! Haha
 
Eldorado828 said:
Well fellas I finally heard from back and he said that he's closings up shop. He didn't explain and I didn't feel like prodding so I left it at that. I can speak for myself and say the man did some good work for me on a few boxes and I was always pleased with the results. Maybe he'll open up in the future. As some of us have found out after leaving only to return years later because we just couldn't stay away haha I thought I'd walked away for sure but after 4 years I got the itch and now here I am! Haha
Click to expand...

Yea this hobby is like herpes. Even when it’s not broke out, it’s still there. Same can be said for the asphalt business, it gets in your blood and you can’t seem to stay away from it in one form or another.

I closed my shop a long time ago and said no more repairs or tune ups. Got tired of all the crap there was to deal with, people asking questions and you tell them your answer or opinion and they wouldn’t listen to you or at least try it. Here I am again and with way more equipment than before and doing twice what I did in the past. It is very time consuming, not much free time. Not to mention the other endeavors I have as well, stinking dump truck and aquarium plants. Maybe he got tired of it, maybe there’s nothing more to it than that?
 
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this thread has brought up some interesting points.

The first one of which is the competition between amp builders that sell strictly to the CB market.

It's really easy to take out your competition when your activities are considered illicit.
I'm sure we've all seen a movie where a drug dealer "drops the dime" on a fellow drug dealer in order to take over their share of the market.

There used to be enough business to go around so that this was less of an issue, but it stands to reason that as the size of the market dwindles, the competition for that last piece of cheese becomes more fierce.

So, absent any actual facts regarding whether or not Scorpion received a letter from an official government agency or a personal letter consisting of a bunch of words pasted out of magazines telling him to stop repairing/ building amplifiers intended for the CB market; the only thing we know for sure is that it probably isn't too hard to scare someone out of that business.

That leads to the second thing that struck me as i read through this thread.
There's really only two main objectives when it comes to amps marketed towards the CB crowd.

First is pretty obvious; maximum power out for a given power in (amps be damned!!! LOL).

You can build amps like that with an SWR meter and a wattmeter. (Yes, they have to be hooked up at the same time).

Here's where everything changes!

for the CB crowd there is really only one set of instructions out there that everyone is going off of.

It's that set of instructions that wasn't originated by, but was broken down into steps by, that person (or group of people IDK) who also worked in aviation.

They were for sale for a while at first, and people got very excited about them.
Does anyone know why they stopped selling them?
I don't, but my first two guesses are pressure of indictment by either a private group/ person , or by the FCC itself.

Now that same set of instructions has been passed around like the proverbial (oh you are all such dirty old men thinking i was going to make some derogatory reference to a member of the gentler sex) cheap bottle of whiskey.

The only other sets of amplifier assembly instructions that catered to a CB operator that i can recall came from Lou Franklin and a company called Matco.

I suppose there might have been people that used Matco's instructions in the early 1980's to sell their own line of amps but i don't know of any.

I'm also relatively sure that Lou never sold enough of those boards for them to have been sold in an assembled form by some outside party.

so that leaves us with only one interpretation on how a CB styled amplifier is supposed to be built, and from what i understand that was first thrown together by some guy named Dave.

Which leads me finally to my last point, which are the other things to strive for when building an amplifier meant to increase an RF waveform!

efficiency and spectral purity.

messing around with those two aspects of amp design takes a bit more test equipment and a heck of a lot more math than the first goal i mentioned (whew, almost typed meth there LOL).

Alas, we have no set of assembly instructions for this type of amplifier, and the reasons become quickly clear. Once you start to understand the magic and voodoo involved in RF electronics, you realize that such a venture would be if not futile, at least laden with arduous tech support.

someone moves their output transformer 1/8" further away from the input transformer than the instructions say, or any number of other unsuspected calamities, and you quickly end up with a bad reputation.

It is this part of what an amplifier actually is that is difficult to win arguments on the CB with, and why those very debates will eventually be keyed on by a davemade clone amp behind a galaxy radio and rendered completely moot in a matter of seconds.

Well this has been fun, and remember, the only people who repeatedly burn pills for fun are drug addicts.
LC
 
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Making a clean amp is trivial.
Even for the amp assembly crowd.

Just open any amateur radio amplifier.. and copy.
That's all they are doing anyway.
 
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