setting up a radio work shop

[loosecannon]

Daddyo,

If you are picking up on some disdain coming at you in this thread it is because of the long and rich history of shadetree CB mechanics, and the burnt out radios left in their wake.

Being new to the forums, you might not know yet that pretty much everyone is united in the opinion that if you don't know what you are doing, then you should only work on your own equipment, and shouldn't be trying to charge people money for your schooling.

That is a big no-no in the CB world.

So, yes, people will blame you for trying, because you shouldn't be trying to do that.
SO MANY people have gotten themselves in big trouble with their local crowds by taking in someone's radio, accidentally damaging it in some way, and not having the funds or resources to repair or replace the radio.

If some guy comes to you with a Cobra 148GTL (side mic) in really good condition, and wants you to volt the final in it, you might think that it's easy money and try to take on the job. What you didn't know is that his radio had been modded in a way that caused your volting of the final to smoke the 1969 and two other coils.

Now what? Do you just hand him the radio back and say sorry?
Do you go out of pocket for parts that aren't made anymore and end up losing money on the deal?
See where im going with this?

You should absolutely unequivocally NOT be trying to work on other peoples' radios yet.

As for your antenna problems, don't try to transmit with that firestik antenna, as it's always going to cause you problems to have your antenna in the same room as a radio with it's covers off.
your 102" whip needs counterpoise to work properly.
This is something any CB technician should know all about.

Also, with everyone knowing that when you ask for advice on a radio, that it is probably someone else's radio that you told them you could fix, you're not going to get much help here or on any other forum.

i don't say this to be mean, or discourage you from learning. It's just that for the past 40+ years, people have been screwing up other peoples' radios and charging money for it, and it rubs people the wrong way.
LC

 

[Tallman]

I have spent too much shop time fixing a golden screwdriver radios. Some I could not fix at all . I sadly returned radios that should have lasted 10 more years. Trashed by a youngster that had no training or experience. Traces burnt off of the board and solder shorts all over the place. Too many parts destroyed and irreparable P.C.B. damage. The owner was heart broken over this radio that his nephew killed. I'm not saying you will do that but I don't know your skill levels.

 

[Sideways]

Daddyo, these guys arent trying to discourage you, so I hope you dont take it that way. But "just trying to get by with this" doesnt necessarilly work with radios. Thats all they're saying.
Take your time, and read..alot..
But a dummy load is essential, as has been said. Should be the first piece of test gear you aquire. I made my own, I think it cost less than $10 in parts. The one I made is in this link
http://www.k4eaa.com/dummy.html

 

[M0GVZ]

Daddyo, these guys arent trying to discourage you, so I hope you dont take it that way. But "just trying to get by with this" doesnt necessarilly work with radios. Thats all they're saying.
Take your time, and read..alot..

Absolutely spot on. Its why my last sentence on my last post was learn to walk first. There are mountains of faulty rigs for sale or for free that will both simultaneously provide an excellent source of training material and a source of spare parts to repair others. There are no short cuts to repairing gear and "rednecking" when you're missing something you need, it always ends up in tears. My friend has a business running a trunked VHF network where he installs and runs repeaters, installs and maintains the users radios and every single time he's tried to shortcut something it has bitten him in the arse. Every. Single. Time. And as well as taking twice as long to do the job as it would've done to do it right the first time its also cost him money.

Get together the following gear and then you're set:

Dummy Load - ideally a 1kW and it wants to be oil cooled, not air cooled.
Good quality SWR/Power meter with peak hold function (must require power to work - ones that claim to show PEP but don't need power are no good for measuring SSB power output. Diamond NP-660 is a good one)
Digital multimeter
Analog multimeter (analog meters can indicate fluttering voltages, a digital one won't)
Temperature controlled soldering iron
Solder gun (for doing PL259 plugs)
Desolder tools (solder sucker, braid)
Hand tools (screwdrivers, pliers, side cutters, tweezers etc)
Oscilloscope - a 50MHz one is more than good enough.
Either a Radio Test Set like a Marconi 2955 which has several test items built into it or the following individual items:
Signal generator (only needs to be a few MHz but needs to go down to 1kHz, you're going to use it to generate TX audio)
RF volt meter
AF volt meter
RF signal generator
RF sampler with about 40dB attenuation on the sample output so you can connect your radio to your oscilloscope without blowing the nuts out of the scope input. You can build one yourself out of a few resistors and a capacitor.

That lot will get you going. As you progress you may want to add a SMD rework station to that and a spectrum analyser in the future.

 

[Tallman]

Daddyo, these guys arent trying to discourage you, so I hope you dont take it that way. But "just trying to get by with this" doesnt necessarilly work with radios. Thats all they're saying.

Absolutely! I would not want to discourage anybody from learning! At one point and time I thought it was all "Magic" and there was no real explanation of how it worked.(I was nine years old) I started by hanging around a Television repair shop and the owner was patient and answered questions that made him roll his eyes. I worked for him just doing what he said to do like replace these tubes for me and let me know when your are done. Once he got me past the basics I devoured all I could find at the local library. Just be prepared before you jump in. There are lots of things you can build yourself for your shop.
Get a good quality power supply like the MEGAWATT units sold here by one of the sponsors. I have three of them and have worked them HARD with no failures or degradation in performance. Also buy more power than you think you will need.
You might not need it now, but soon you might when you start working with amps.