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Uniden 980 Cracked?: Clarifier + Channel Mod

Thats right Robb,you are 100% correct!!
Some basic maintenance like recapping,peak/tune and aligning,,those old radios are made to last,,smt is going nowhere fast with these new rigs,,even ranger/rci need to step up the pace,,there receivers cant compare with the older dual conversion stuff..nope

577-Jersey
 
Lol Watching the edited video.... such old news. He could have made it so much easier on himself if he'd swapped out the 10.2417 reference crystal like I did.

I will admit that the FC-390 counter hookup is a nice touch.

~Cheers~
 
I chose to buy the CRE-8900 instead of the 980. Not as flashy but much more buttons and stuff. I like the 980's display though. Could use a sleeker more Europeon look and change that ugly angular bezel into something sleeker(chrome,chrome,and more chrome). And put the color that the box shows as one of the display colors! And find a way to surgically separate Uniden from the FCC just a smidge.
Les sells the modded fC-390. :glare:
 
Lil'Yeshua said:
We're still waiting on ExitThirteen's findings.
Les found out that the radio's circuitry switched off the clarifier slide adjustment on tx. By pulling that wire from that plug and applying 8 volts it slides on tx as well as receive. I think he did something else in combination with that to get the clarifier to open up. I might buy one now or a Midland PC 787(like the 687's color).
Click to expand...
577-Jersey said:
Thats right Robb,you are 100% correct!!
Some basic maintenance like recapping,peak/tune and aligning,,those old radios are made to last,,smt is going nowhere fast with these new rigs,,even ranger/rci need to step up the pace,,there receivers cant compare with the older dual conversion stuff..nope

577-Jersey
Click to expand...
Well I don't know where this thread is going so steer me the right way. I finally broke down and bought a new radio, that is CB radio. Uniden 980ssb because I saw a video of opening the clairfier. I was told it was the new style but no it's the original. Some one point me in the direction of information on opening the clairfier on this one. Docwho3350
 
Surface Mount Devices are not problem with modern Black Box Radio's and CB Radio's!!! The quality of the parts and the circuit design is to blame. The biggest issue if the ceramic and crystal filters that are too cheap, to wide and have sloppy slotting. The 54Mhz traps are poorly designed and executed. The detection diode design is cheap and lacks selectivity by design. Noisy sloppy oscillators.

The best chassis in CB radio history are usually agreed to be the early Uniden 858uPd chassis! If you look at older radio's that have fantastic receive and rejection from the factory they always have great mechanical filters or fairly expensive multi-pole crystal filtering. They have very good 54Mhz traps and all the of the parts in the unit were of much higher quality than the parts used today.

The only thing SMT/SMD does is prevent a lot of modification and almost guarantee's that those that try will ruin the radio because the have no clue what their doing and they do not have hot air rework stations!

The upside of SMT/SMD is that it is more resistant to vibration and stray rf. You can have a great design that is far more compact as well.

In fact as if the filters where not cheap enough and wide enough idiots doing HIFI mods and the like make them wider and make the skirt less steep but this also make the receive wider and loses and makes it terrible for rejection.

If idiots would stop buying craptastic radio's from Galaxy, Ranger, Connex and the like and demanded more from Uniden, Cobra, President and the like it would change. OEM's never give the customer what they want until sales decline and the customers demand changes. So as long as we have Rednecks willing to by garbage radio's nothing will change! As long as we have these same people that are ignorant of how a radio should work and what is good for propagation they will likewise spawn a market place full of butchers doing worthless destructive modifications. It is priceless when they same people blame SMT/SMD for all that is wrong with the hobby. LOL SMT/SMD does not seem to have negatively affected amateur radio's!

The Icom IC7851 has a List Price of $16,000.00 and Market Price of $13,499.00 and I would bet it is almost entirely surface mount inside. That is just one example they are many more. There is equal blame between OEM's and Customer Base for allowing what has happened!
 
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I did not say you specifically said Lesscomm craked it that was the title of the video!

I would not call it a channel board the entire circuit board for the control face is replaced as is the display. It is not at all like other mod's for radio's.

Lesscomm has some designs that are pure trash and have no reliability at all and they are designed to fail! Some are spectral very dirty as well.

When you look at what it takes to radically increase the bandwidth on modern designs with modern coding and eproms that are not up to the task of being moded by design it is not like doing a channel kit for an old Cobra or Uniden or an Export of the past. If you gave the kit to the average "cb hack" claiming to be a technician they could not install it and make it work correctly. Instead of modifying something like a Uniden 980 cost wise it makes far more sense to get something like an RCI2950 or a President Lincoln II or an AT-6666 etc.....It is almost always stupid to modify a CB for more bandwidth unless you are able to properly do the work yourself. Just look at the stupid hi prices Lesscomm charges to put lipstick and a silk purse on a pig. No amount of math makes his creations a "Good Deal"!!! To be very honest that is a stupid old fashioned way of thinking that cost more and results in an inferior product compared to just buying a decent Chinese export radio and putting a well designed and built amp behind it. Unless your idea of performance includes chrome and nitro nobs as part of the performance of the radio it is stupid to go the Lesscomm route. For the record it is not just Lesscomm either anything like what he does is more of the same!

Old CB's are at their best when you let them be old CB's and do not attempt to make them into something they where never meant to be! I love old CB's and they are at their best when not modded. Nothing lowers the value of an old radio to me than it being modified.

I like Mark1990 and Mike of Mikes Radio Repair but I would never pay to have a CB radio like the Uniden 980 modified it makes no sense compared to just buying a Galaxy, RCI, President Lincoln II, AT-6666 etc....Not only is the bandwidth better but the total cost is far lower and the outcome is better. Strapping an RCI amp board to one or a RMItaly amp or RF limited amp to them or inside of them again makes no sense! Cost versus performance just is not sound math or a sound investment! You are always better off with a separate amp than a radio with an amp built into it.
 
From one of Mark’s videos I got the impression he doesn’t particularly care for the 980. He just took it on as a personal challenge when others said it couldn’t be done. Contact info, purchase price etc. seems to be all on the down low. It’s obvious to me that he’s not in it to make a killing, only to support a few friends and to cover expenses. I’ll change my opinion on that mater when I see a full blown web site like LessComm's.
 
Onelasttime said:
Surface Mount Devices are not problem with modern Black Box Radio's and CB Radio's!!! The quality of the parts and the circuit design is to blame. The biggest issue if the ceramic and crystal filters that are too cheap, to wide and have sloppy slotting. The 54Mhz traps are poorly designed and executed. The detection diode design is cheap and lacks selectivity by design. Noisy sloppy oscillators.

The best chassis in CB radio history are usually agreed to be the early Uniden 858uPd chassis! If you look at older radio's that have fantastic receive and rejection from the factory they always have great mechanical filters or fairly expensive multi-pole crystal filtering. They have very good 54Mhz traps and all the of the parts in the unit were of much higher quality than the parts used today.

The only thing SMT/SMD does is prevent a lot of modification and almost guarantee's that those that try will ruin the radio because the have no clue what their doing and they do not have hot air rework stations!

The upside of SMT/SMD is that it is more resistant to vibration and stray rf. You can have a great design that is far more compact as well.

In fact as if the filters where not cheap enough and wide enough idiots doing HIFI mods and the like make them wider and make the skirt less steep but this also make the receive wider and loses and makes it terrible for rejection.

If idiots would stop buying craptastic radio's from Galaxy, Ranger, Connex and the like and demanded more from Uniden, Cobra, President and the like it would change. OEM's never give the customer what they want until sales decline and the customers demand changes. So as long as we have Rednecks willing to by garbage radio's nothing will change! As long as we have these same people that are ignorant of how a radio should work and what is good for propagation they will likewise spawn a market place full of butchers doing worthless destructive modifications. It is priceless when they same people blame SMT/SMD for all that is wrong with the hobby. LOL SMT/SMD does not seem to have negatively affected amateur radio's!

The Icom IC7851 has a List Price of $16,000.00 and Market Price of $13,499.00 and I would bet it is almost entirely surface mount inside. That is just one example they are many more. There is equal blame between OEM's and Customer Base for allowing what has happened!
Click to expand...

(y)(y)
 

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