27.005 28.045*
5 27.015 28.055
6 27.025 28.065*
7 27.035 28.075*
8 27.055 28.095
9 27.065 28. 105
10 27.075 28.115
11 27.085 28.125
12 27.105 28.145
13 27.115 28.155
1. 27. 125 28. 165
15 27.135 28. 175
16 27. 155 28.195
17 27. 165 28.205"
18 27.175 28.215"
19 27. 185 28.225*
20 27.205 28.245 *
21 27.215 28.255*
22 27.225 28.265*
23 27.255 28.295*
A Legal Alternative
fut ure. Now is the t ime to
drag out t hat old 11 meter rig
and convert it to 10 met ers
on crystal controlled channels
t hat could become standard
all over the country.
The first thing t hat has t o
be done to make the whole
F
or some time now, there
has been an ever-grow-
ing concern over the outcome
of the ten meter band. The
ham use of the band has
dropped over the past several
years due to sunspot activity
to a point where other ser-
vices, mainly Citizens Band,
feel that the frequencies
could be put to better use. I
remember when 1 used to
work into Europe daily with
five Watts and a dipole on CW
and AM, and even into ZL
and VK land after I got up a
3 element "plumber 's de-
light " beam.
The sunspot cycle, though
probably not as good as t he
one back in the late 1940' s, is
about to open t he band up
again. Many groups are pres-
ently getting ready for better
act ivity on ten with the estab-
lishment of nets and even
new repeaters.
The above is the whole
idea behind this article: an
easy way to get back on 10
meters with low power with
a small outlay of cash.
When the FCC announced
that they were increasing the
Citi zens Band from 23 chan-
nels to the current 40 chan-
nels effective January 1,
1977, the prices started to
drop on the 23 channel units.
If indications here apply to
t he country as a whole, a lot
of hams started picking up
these cheap rigs with the idea
of first going on CB in their
cars to keep track of t raffi c,
and secondly, someday con-
verting the CB rig for use on
other bands, namely 10
meters.
Also, there seems t o be a
large influx of former CBers
giving up the ranks of CB and
going on to amateur radio.
Over 80% of the new hams in
the Mobile, Alabama, area are
former CBers who wanted to
get away from the QRM on
11 meters. Most of these
former CBers stil l have their
old CB rigs stored away in
their junk boxes. They have
picked up the ham habit of
never throwing away any-
thing that might be usable
some time in the far distant
106
28 .505 MHz Output Used To Show Example of Crystal Frequency
Transmit Crystal Frequency Transceive Crystal Frequency
(Both Transmit and Recetvel
PART II
ORIGINAL CRYSTAL FREQUENCIES FOR CB OPERATION
Fig. 2. NOTE: With this many different i-f combinations being
used, it is necessary that exact specifications of the transceiver
to be converted are known.
F 28 .505 MHz F 501 0 23.495 MHz
1- 14.25250 MHz F + 50 10 33.51 5 MHz
.
3 9.5016667 MHz F -l 0000 18.505 MHz
.z,
4 7.126250 MHz F + 5995 34.500 MHz
F + 6200 34.705 MHz
F + 10635 39.140 MHz
F -456
12.52450 MHz
.E..!pll
12.41 833 MHz
F - 10700
3 5.935 MHz
Receiye Crystal Frequency
F - 265 28.240 MHz F 455 28 .050 MHz
F + 455 28.960 MHz F 1365 27.140 MHz
F + 1650 30.155 MHz F- 1650 26.855 MHz
F + 1680 30.185 MHz F - 1750 26.755 MHz
F - 1755 26.750 MHz F2310 26. 195 MHz
F - 3580 24.925 MHz F + 4000 32.505 MHz
F + 4300 32.805 MHz F + 4224 32.730 MHz
F - 4455 24.050 MHz F 5500 23.005 MHz
F + 6000 34.505 MHz F 6000 22.505 MHz
F 6500 22.005 MHz F + 6685 35.190 MHz
F + 7500 36.005 MHz F + 8000 36.505 MHz
F - 10000 18.505 MHz F + 10700 39.205 MHz
F - 20635 7.870 MHz F 23505 5.000 MHz
31955 - F 3.450 MHz F - 455
2 14 .025 MHz
f + 455
2 14.480 MHz F - 4 55
3 9.350 MHz
F - 455
4 7.0125 MHz F + 1650
2 15.0775 MHz
F + 1640
3 10.048333 MHz
quency. This t ype of trans-
ceiver can be modified for use
on 10 meters, but the ex
pense would probabl y be
more t han buying or buil ding
a si mple 10 meter transmitter
and simple conve rter for use
with an existing receiver. The
possibility of building a si m-
ple VFO to replace the
crystals in t he t ransmitter and
receiver sections of t his type
of transceiver would solve the
problem of the large numbers
of crystals needed.
Th er e are two ot her
Channel Numbers
123-4
5-67-8
9-10-11-12
13-141 516
17-18-1920
2122-23
1-4
5-8
9-12
13-16
17-20
21-23
1-4
5-8
9-12
13-16
17-20
21-23
1-4
5-8
9-12
13-16
1720
21-23
1-4
5-8
9-12
1316
17-20
21-23
See Note 1
See Note 2
See Note 3
See Note 4
See Note 4
See Note 3
See Note 2
See Note 1
See Note 1
See Note 2
See Note 3
See Note 4
See Note 1
See Note 2
See Note 3
See Note 4
See Note 1
See Note 2
See Note 3
See Not e 4
See Note 1
See Note 2
See Note 3
See Note 4
Transmit (TX}
Heceive (AX)
See Note 4
See Note 3
See Note 2
See Note 1
LS8
A M and USB
AX Oscillator
All Frequencies
23.290
23.340
23.390
23.440
23.490
23.540
37 .600
37 .650
37.700
37.750
37.800
37.850
11.705
11.755
11.805
11.855
11.905
11 .955
8. 159
8. 209
8.259
8.309
8.359
8.409
11.740
11 .790
11.840
11.890
11.940
11.990
14.950
14.960
14.970
14.990
10.595
10.615
10.625
10.635
7.4585
7.4685
7.4785
7.4985
7.46 15
7.47 15
7.4815
7.501 5
11.0035
11.01 35
11.0235
11.0435
7.4225
7.4325
7.4425
7.4625
11.275
11.730
10.140
10.160
10.1 70
10.1 80
7.8015
7.7985
7.3435
7.8025
Crystal Frequency
(MHz)
(USB)
A
o
H (LSB)
E
8
F
c
G
K
L
J
M
o
N
Crystal
are fairl y broad. To fulfil l the
requirement of being channel
selectable without being tun-
able by t he operator, most
CB ri gs on t he market t oday
wi ll give close to 4 Watts
out put at both ext remes of
frequency, t hat is, at chan-
nell and channel 23.
Afte r revi ewing t he crystal
requirements of over 1200
different CB t ransceivers, I
was able t o arrive at the
common configurat ion for
both transmit and receive
crystal s. Every tr ansceiver re-
viewed fell into one of t he
configurat ions shown in Fig.
2, where " F" indicates t he
output frequency desired.
The frequency combina-
tions shown in Fi g. 2 are for
CB tr ansceivers t hat use a
single crystal for each trans-
mit channel and anot her
crystal fo r each received fre-
must be a block of channels
t hat t hey can use when t hey
convert a CB rig to CWopera-
t ion. There is unwritten use
of SSB only on t he low fre-
quency end of t he 10 meter
phone band, so t he SS B CB
rigs that are converted should
have a block and, of course,
the bulk of t he converted CB
rigs, being inexpensive AM
rigs, wil l need t hei r channel
allocations. Fi g. 1 lists all
three of the groups of 23
channels that could be used.
The very nat ure of the
basic CB transceiver makes
this ty pe unit one of t he
simplest to convert t o t en
meter operation. In the case
of other types of low power
surplus equipment that has
been avai lable in the past, t he
tunab le stages have been fair-
ly narrow, but in t he case of
t he CB rig, the t uned stages
107
PART III
CONVERSION FACTORS FOR 10 METER OPERATION
Fig. 3. NOTES: 1 = Channels 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, and 21, 2 = Channels 2, 6, 70, 14, 18, and 22. 3 =
Channels 3, 7, 1" 15, and 79. 4 = Channels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 23.
PART I
See Part III for Crystal Formula
Manufacturer Model Numbers Shift Tx/RX Main OSC
B & K (Cobra) 19,21&29 L F A
B & K (Cobra) 130,1 31 & 132 LSB N H C
USB N I C
8 & K (cobra! 138 & 139 0 J D
8 & K (Cobra) 132A & 1328 LSB N H C
USB N I C
Pace 123A M G B
Pace (SS81 10008, l000M 0 K
,
Pace CB 143, CB-144 M G B
Midland 13-8808, 13885 LSB N H C
USB N I C
Midland 13-895 0 J 0
Realist ic TAC-238, TRC-40, TRC-49 M G B
Roby n T1238 L F A
Robyn T123C, K-123 M G B
AMGTVII
Royce 1-602 M G B
L"'1 0.235 MHl TX L"'9.735 MHl TX L"'9.535 MHz TX
L"'10.690 MHz AX L-10.190 MHz AX L=9.990 MHz AX
(Frequency groups A & F remain the same)
TX '" 38240 - Freq. of l ow end.
AX " 38240 - Freq. of l ow end + 455 kHz
H=8498.5 kHz H=899.5 kHz H"'9198.5 kHz
(Frequency groups N & C remain the same)
H '" Low end frequency minus 19506.5 kHz
1=8501 .5 kHl 1"9001. 5 kHz 1=9201.5 kHz
(Frequency groups N & C remain the same)
0 '" Lowend f requency minus 19162.5 kHz
B-38640 kHz 0 =39140 kHz 8'"39340 kHz
(Fr equency groups M & G remain the same)
+ 1040 kHz + 1540 kHz + 1740 kHz
The above is t he frequency " 8" must be raised f or
each frequency group f or operat ion in the 10 meter
band.
0 "8842.5 kHz 0 =9342.5 kHz 0=9542.5 kHz
{ Fr equency groups K & E remain the same}
0 = Low end frequency minus 19162.5 kHz
1000B, or the Pace 10QOM
should prove fi ne choices for
conversion to 10 meter SSB.
In each of t hese, t he origi nal
7.8025 MHz crystal is the
only crystal that needs to be
changed. It seems logical t hat
a multiple deck crystal
switch/socket package could
be used. This arrangement
would allow several 23 chan-
nel arrangements over t he 10
me ter SSB segment. For ex-
ample: Selection of the lower
end frequencies of 28503
kHz, 28505 kHz, 28507 kHz,
and 2851 0 kHz would require
only 4 crystal s for a total of
92 channels betwee n 28503
kHz and 28800 kHz.
There are several linear
amplifiers on t he mar ket to-
day which are smaller t han
most CB t ransceivers and
have output of 50 to 100
Watts. Of cou rse, most of
these units are rated as 3 to
30 MHz " ham" amplifiers
which act ually only work
well between 26 and 30 MHz.
These small amplifiers could
be used to increase the mo-
bile or fixed capability of the
con verted transceiver.
The final t ype of CB trans-
ceiver that can be modi fied
for 10 meters is the PLL
type. These are more expen-
sive t han t he ot her t wo types
for several reasons. The PLL
is the easiest t o modify by
the CBer for operat ion on
frequencies ot her than the 23
or 40 channels for which the
uni t was built. This type of
unit is th e easiest for the
manufacturer to convert t o
40 channel operat ion. This
ease is, of course, t he major
reason that t his ty pe of trans-
ceiver lends itself to mod ifi ca-
tion t o the 10 meter ham
band.
I have selected 8 different
models of PLL t ransceivers
that are avai lable to show
what can be done to modify
this type of t ransceiver for 10
meter use. Fi g. 4 lists t he PL L
transceivers and the crystals
that are presently used for
generation of t he necessary
signals for 11 meter CB oper-
at ion.
By referring t o t he original
frequ encies of th e CB t rans-
(see Fig. 1)
28.705 MHl
The crystal combinat ions
listed in Fig. 3 are exampl es
of some that will be encoun-
tered when trying to shift an
eleven meter CB transceiver
to the 10 meter band. I have
found that the simplest way
to calculate the frequencies
needed is to use only channel
1 to determine a si mple for-
mula. Once a formula is ob-
tained, each crystal frequency
can be found. The best way
to select which oscill ator you
want t o shift is to select t he
one that requires the least
number of crystal s to make
up the greatest number of
frequenci es.
The Cobra 138, Cobra
139, Midland 13-895, Pace
plete schematic and parts li st
for the unit from the manu-
facturer or one of the CB
service type books on the
market listing your t rans-
ceiver. Though the synthe-
sized t ype is cheaper to mod-
ify than the type using crys-
tals for each frequency, there
could be problems in obt ain-
ing the necessary informati on
to determine the crystals
needed.
In Fig. 3, I have listed
several of the more common
synthesized units available
and crystal data necessary to
convert the uni ts to 10
meters. Fig. 3 is divided into
3 parts for ease of under-
standing.
Low"t Frequency for Channell
28.005 MHz 28.505 MHz
MG B
OK '
N H C LS8
L F A
N I C US8/AM
From Part I
Key Letter Sequence
groups of transceivers avail-
able on the market at th e
present that could be mod-
ified. First of these is t he
synthesi zed uni ts which use
combinations of a small num-
ber of crystals to obtain all of
the transmit and receive fre-
quencies desired. The second
class of transceiver avail able is
the phase locked loop or
PLL type that uses very few
crystals and digital frequency
generation to obtain the fre-
quenci es needed.
The combinations used for
the synthesi zed units are al-
most without limit. When
converting a transceiver of
this t ype, it would be of
necessity t o obtain a com-
lOB
celvers as listed in Fig. 1,
various shifts in osci llator fre-
quencies Can be obtai ned.
The intent of this article is
not to give a step-by-step
conversion of CB transceivers
t o 10 meters, but instead
only t o tell what can be done
wi t h the available units on
t he market.
ln t he case of the PLL
t ranscei ver, it will become a
matter of experimentation to
determine the exact fre-
quencies needed. I recom-
mend that anyone attempting
to convert a PLL transceiver
become very famil iar with
PLL ci rcuits in general. In the
type of transcei ver requiring
o nly crystal changes t o
change the out put frequency,
Manufacturer
Pace
Teaberry
Teaberry
Standard
SBE
Palomar
Royce
Real istic
Model
CB166
Stal ker One
Stalker Two
Hor i zon 29
SBE26CB
Digicom 100
' 601
TRC57
Crystal Frequency
10.240 MHz
44.73 MHz
13.1325 MHz
7.8025 MHz
7.7975 MHz
10.00 MHz
Same as the Stal ker One
10.24 MHz
5.575 MHz
10.240 MHz
12.803 MHz
12.800 MHz
10.7 MHz
10.697 MHz
Ie 14 MHz
10.695 MHz
36.38 MHz
13. 1325 MHz
44.73 MHz
7.8025 MHz
7.7975 MHz
10.000 MHz
Ag. 4.
Oscillator Use
All Frequencies - Reference
AM OSC - RX
SS8 esc - RX
USB Carrier OSC
LSB Carrier OSC
REF esc
REF esc
Transmit
All Frequencies - Ref erence
USB REF esc
AM!LS8 REF esc
AM!LS8 Carrier esc
LSB Carri er esc
REF esc
10 MHz OSC
37 MHz OSC
13 MHz OSC
AM RX OSC
LSB OSC
USB esc
PLL REF esc
the processes are simple. In
the case of the PLL circuit,
the problems that can be en-
countered in digital develop-
ment of the frequencies
needed are best solved by the
more expert in the ham
ranks. The conversi on of a
PLL transceiver is not a pr o-
ject that should be tackled by
the new ham or one with
little or no knowl edge of
soli d state devices.
There are several th ings
that must be taken into ac-
count before you attempt
conversion of any CB trans'
ceiver for operation on the 10
meter band. Mainly these can
be grouped into a few simple
questions:
1. How much do I want
to spend if I have t o buy a
new or used CB transceiver?
2. Does the CB transceiver
I presentl y have lend itself to
easy and cheap conversion?
3. How much electronics
knowledge do I have to solve
the problems I will encou n-
ter?
4. Do I feel that 10
meters is worth all the effort
to convert a C8 rig to that
band?
If all of these quest ions
can be answered in such a
way to indicate that your
nex t project is to be the
conversi on of a CB trans-
ceiver for 10 meters, then get
started before the band starts
to open up for some rare
OX. -
Harry J. MilJer
991 42nd St.
Sarasota FL 33580
Save
Your Old Speakers
how to remove the beehive
wallop. In effect, you are
recentering a misaligned voice
coil. Result is usually a dear-
up of the rattle. -
where the scratch was heard.
Don't get over-ambitious with
pounding. A few li ghter raps
are far better than one hefty
- -
Then use a heavy rubber mal-
let to st rike the magnet end a
sharp blow or two at a point
directl y opposi te t o point
I
n the old days, service
techni cians did a lot of
speaker cone recentering to
clear up annoying ratt les,
which was at th e ti me a tedi-
ous but possible job.
Current speakers generally
make speakers throw-away,
due t o t hei r modern design,
so they' re " go or no go"
devices. There is, however, a
possible cure if the rattle is
due t o an off-eenter voice coil
and it 's a fast repair.
Remove the speaker. Hold
it close to your ear and
gentl y, with fingerti ps, alter-
natel y press and release t he
cone about an inch from the
rim toward the voice coil and
listen for scratchy sound.
Rotate the speaker while do-
ing this. If the speaker is
capable of this fast cure, you
will find the noise li mi ted to
one point on the circumfer-
ence. Carefully note that
point. Lay speaker on a solid
flat surface, with magnet up.
109
- - part II : conversion data
A Legal Alternative
Tobie 1. Frequency coverage of the $29.95 OX transceiver.
t wice the pr ice. There are 2
ICs, 12 diodes, and 15 t ransis-
tors in a double conversion
receiver and AM transmitter
configurat ion. The manufac-
t urer claims 0.5 microvolt
sensitivity at a 10 dB signal
plus noise to noise rat io. Pow-
er out put from the 2SC799 rf
amplifi er is listed at 4 Wat ts
and the spec sheet advert ises
90% modulation. Loaded, the
transmitter draws 1.4 Amps
at up to 13.8 vol ts (easi ly
obtainable from the cigarette
lighter in your car or from a
small ac supply). The rig has a
built-i n squelch circui t, but is
not equipped wit h an rf
tuning indicator or receiver
Smerer.
When the Citizens Band
was created in t he 1950' s, the
early rigs used 23 pairs of
crystals to t une bot h transmit
and receive on all 23 chan-
nels. Converting one of those
rigs t o 10 phone would cost a
small fortune t o crystal up,
but I was prepared to pay it
until Norm Lefcourt W61RT
mentioned that th e newer CB
rigs use crvstal plex, replacing
the old 46 crystals wi t h 14
new crystals and still covering
all 23 channels. Norm point-
ed out t hat by replacing the
six master oscillator rocks, I
could cover 23 frequencies
simplex on t he 10 meter band
wit h just a littl e tweaking of a
few L/C circuits. W6I RT,
WA6QPL, K6JUA, ot hers and
1 al l started working on the
conversion. K6HY, K6LJL
and WB6QKF helped with
advice.
It sounds pretty easy, but
there was a probl em - de-
ciding on which f requencies
on 10 phone t o use. The
phone portion of t he band is
gigant ic when compared to
the other HF bands, and we
wanted to pick a segment
where t here would be some
activi ty . We didn't want to
cause difficulties for other
services, yet at the same ti me
we wanted to stay near t he
low end so t hat retuni ng from
the CB frequencies would not
require a rewinding of coils.
Afte r an awful lot of discus-
sing on the landline and t wo
meter FM, we decided to stay
away from both the very top
end of the 10 phone segment
(because of OSCAR) and
from t he very bottom end,
too (because of the SSB DX
activity just above 28.5) . We
finall y settled on a starti ng
frequency of 28.76 MHz for
channel one, with the other
22 channels t uning upward
from there. The decision was
based on two practical con-
siderations: First, the pres-
39.495
39. 645
39.595
39.545
39.395
39.445
Mater Qs.cillator
Frequency
28.76
28.77
28.78
28.80
28 .81
28.82
28.83
28.85
28.86
28.87
28.88
28.90
28.91
28.92
28.93
28.95
28.96
28.97
28.98
29.00
29.01
29.02
29.05
Freque ncy IMHz)
- -
1
2
3
5
6
7
8
10
11
12
13
,.
15
16
17
18
" 20
21
22
23
10 Meter Cha nnel
t he FCC approved 40 channel
C8 for use after January 1,
1977. When a lot of manu-
facturers started dumping
their older model 23 channel
sets on t he market at bargain
prices, I got reinterested in
recycling a CB radio up onto
10 phone. 1 watched the ads
and fi nally bought a J. C.
Pen ney t ransceiver model
981 6201. It is a quali ty piece
of gear that usually sell s for
H
OW about a brand new
DX t ransceiver that's
rock stable, plugs into your
cigarette lighter, and tunes 23
frequenci es on 10 phone for
less than $30? Of course,
there are a couple of draw-
backs - power output 4
Watts, and an emission type
the sideband guys call An-
cient Modul ation - but those
probl ems are hardly worth
menti oning. Just ask any old-
timer who worked the peak
of the '46-'48 sunspot cycle.
You can do wonders wit h just
a few Watts on 10 phone, and
the technical specs on the
$29.95 transceiver make it a
superior performer t o what
was avai lable in 1946.
For several years, I' ve been
watching the want ads and
goi ng to swap meets in search
of the perfect junk C8 rig. I
had plans for picking up one
for just a few dollars, chang-
ing a few crystals and -
presto - getting on ten phone
quick and dirty. I never really
found what I wanted for a
cheap enough pri ce (CB SSB
was always too expcnsivel]
and I soon lost interest. And
besides, I was busy getting
onto two meter FM, plus I
didn't want to give up work-
ing the low bands on CW or
SSB. All of that was before
Alan S. Kaul W6RCL
9731 ~ d Avenue
Chatsworrh CA 91311
CB to 10
162
"
(f)
e
"
" "
cr
-'- -'-
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'''''
F . ..
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-
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TOI0 6l!1 _.
(III lSZUj ...,
lSZ" ' I ><l
5\O"C"
L040
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os
39.395 MHz
IE..... TO 39.645 MHz
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1S20" 011
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101110 ....,
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\-
ence of the "10-10 club" net
on 28.8 (our channel 4) could
telt us very quickl y when the
band is open, and second,
because many home QTH rigs
only t une a si ngle 500 kHz
portion of t he 10 meter band,
choosing a frequency outside
t hat segment would mean
having t o do without a very
important piece of test gear -
the stat ion receiver.
The first 23 CB channels
start at 26.965 and end at
27.255. Channels 1, 2, and 3
are 10 kHz apart. but there
are 20 kHz between channels
3 and 4. Channel s 4, 5, 6, and
7 are ten kHz apart, but
between 7 and 8 there is
another jump of 20 kHz. The
cycle keeps repeating itself
every fourth channel until
channel 22, which is 10 kHz
higher than channel 21 but
30 kHz lower t han 23.
The J. C. Penney rig that I
bought and W61RT's Pub-
licom #1 use six master oscil-
lat or crys tals (37. 600,
37.650, 37.700, 37.750,
37.800, and 37.850), four
transmit crystals (10. 635.
10.625,10.615, and 10.595),
and four receive (10. 180,
10.170,10.160, and 10.1 4Q).
On transmi t. t he ri g mixes the
master oscillator wit h the
t ransmit crystal (37. 600 rni-
nus 10.635 is 26.965 - CB
channel one). On receive, the
receive cr yst als arc the first if
conversion frequency and the
second i-f operates at 455
kHz. Image problems are mi n-
imized by the double conver-
sion i-ts.
The Conversion
To begin with, you need
new master oscillator crystals.
The J. c. Penney rig uses six
- if you want to be able to
tune all 23 channels on 10
phone, you have to replace all
six. If you only want four
frequencies, replace only one
master oscillator crystal; if
you want to tune eight, reo
place two , etc. Not all of t he
crvstalplex rigs use the same
master oscillator frequencies
- some operate in t he 16
MHz range - so be sure to
check t he freque ncies in your
rig before you go out and buy
new rocks. Both Norm and I
are just replacing t wo master
oscillator crystals to see how
the eight channels work. But.
eventually, we both plan to
be out fi tted wi t h al l six
crystals and full 23 channel
10 meter coverage. Our new
cha n nel designat ions and
crystal freq uencies are spelled
out in Table 1. Those are the
frequencies we are using
(along with about 30 other
guys in Southern California).
When you crystal up. use the
same frequencies so we'll all
have someone else to talk to.
We will cont inue the CB
channel designations (that
saves changing the dial) so
that our lowest frequency is
channel one and our highest
is channel 23.
After changing crystals
(and a word of warning the re
most master oscillator
crystals arc wire type and
must be soldered in; BE
CARE FUll ), hook t he rig up
to a 12 V dc supply and a
suitable dummy load ante n-
na. We found t he receiver
sections worked well enough
so that t uni ng up only re-
qui red peaking the rf and fi rst
mixer stage coi ls for maxi-
mum band noise. Transmit-
ting is a li ttle more compli-
cated. but not impossible. If
you don' t have a voltme ter ,
use some kind of relative
power output indicator (an
swr bridge, a li ght bulb, etc.).
Peak t he coils in t he transmit
stage starti ng with t he master
oscillator. You don 't have to
peak the coil for the t ransmit
crystals, because they sti ll put
out in the 10.600 MHz range.
Peak each succeeding output
stage for maximum indicator
reading. If you have a volt-
meter. connect it to the out-
put of the transmit driver
stage, then peak the lower
stages for maximum reading.
Then peak the final with
some kind of power output
indicator. The funny thing
about the CB rigs we bought
is that t hey all came wi th full
and complete tu nc-up in-
struct ions even t hough
CBers aren' t supposed to even
touc h them with a screw-
dri ver.
Ante nnas: Most of the CB
radios are designed for 50
Ohm out put and most of the
CB antennas sold are vertical-
163
Iy polarized. Polari zati on
probably won't make any dif-
ference on the real long haul
ski p, bu t for working ground
wave wit h others in your
area, it makes more sense to
install a vertical antenna.
That 's what the mobiles are
using anyway, and a rooftop
groundplane for the home
QTH is only 8 feet tal l. After
seei ng what some of t hose
vo-vos on 11 meters are us-
ing, I would say it won't t ake
an awful lot to be able to get
out.
The $29.95 transceiver is a
good club project. If you
can't find one on t he market,
hit the swap meets and check
the ads in t he local papers;
you may even be able to get a
better price by buyi ng one
from a disgruntled CBer who
gave up trying to punch
through the QRM. If you are
big on modifi cations, I' d li ke
to hear about them (or see
them in print in case I want
t o try one of them). Here are
a few I have in mind: A small
VFQ that will fi t inside the
t ransceiver case and plug into
o ne of the master oscillator
crystal sockets; a low cost
linear amplifier capable of 15
to 20 Watts output ; an alter-
nate conversion for six meters
or one for the low po wer OX
guys who want to work 15
CW; a slider for receiver
and/ or transmitter offset tun-
ing; a BFO; a sideband adapt-
er; or maybe a t ransceivlng
conver ter to ot her bands.
Loo k for me on 10 phone.
I' ll be listeni ng on channel 4
28.80 MHz. If I hook up
wit h somebody, I' ll QSY up
or down to cont inue the con-
tact. If 28.80 is busy, I'll
hang out on channel 3
(28.78). How about you? If
we all use the same "chan-
nels," it'll make it a lot easier
to work 10 phone. If you
hear me on though, don't give
me any of t hat " ... Breaker,
Breaker, t his is your old good
buddy , got time for a 10-7
...?" baloney. I heard all of
that I could stand whil e I was
wai t ing for my crystals to
arr ive!!! -
Feat ures:
164
PRINTED CIRCUIT
BYTESIZE CIRCUIT BOARD
BLANKS, POSITIVE ACTING PHOTO
RESIST, CARBIDE DRILL BITS, SNAP
IN CIRCUIT BOARD SPACERS AND
CARD PULLERS, DRILL/MILLS,
PROTOTYPE BOARDS, W. H. BRADY
& DATAK DRAFTING ARTWORK,
MATTE FILM, PRECISION GRIDS,
BUBBLE ETCHERS. PC DESOLDER-
ING TOOLS, POSITIVE ACTING
DIAZO FILM, PRECOATED CIRCUIT
BOARDS, SILVER PLAnNGPOWDER,
W1RE WRAP TOOLS
SEND STAMP & ADDRESS FOR FL YER
TRUMBULL CO.
833 Balra Dr., EI Cerrito, CA 94530
NEW!
A $29.95
DVM Kit.
Than k1 to a product breakthrough, digital
voltmeters are available at a bargai n price.
What IIU! vou wai ti ng for?
1 ) Ul ea new Mot orola 3'10 dillt
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Gary McClellan and Co. Box 2085
1 001 H", y .
Gl0 La H.bra CA 9 0631
- - part III: converting the TRC-47
CB to 10
Marthew T. Lewis VE7CHl
Operations Department
TRIUMF - UBC
4004 Wesbrook Mall
Vancouver Be V6T I W5
Grp AlGrp Bt 10.500 10.510 10.520 10.540
16.46 5 26.9650 1 26.975-02 26. 985-03 27.005-04
16.515 27. 015-05 27.025-06 27. 0 3507 27.055-08
16.565 27.065-09 27.075-10 27.085-11 2 7.105-1 2
16.6 15 2 7.1 15-13 2 7.1 25-14 27. 135-15 27. 155 16
16.665 27. 165-17 27.175-18 27. 185-19 27.20520
16.71 5 27.215-21 27.225-22 27.235-
0
27.255-23
Table 1.
only 6 gro up A and 4 group B
crystals, and 2 i-f crystals.
Table 2 is an example from
a Sanyo TA-923 which I st ill
use on 11 meters.
In this type of radio, one
crystal from group A and one
from group B are used for
both transmit and receive and
are mixed to form a product
in the 38 MHz range which is
run through a bandpass filter
at this frequency.
An example for channel
09 (27.065 MH,): Grp A =
23.390; Grp B = 14.950; A +
B= 38.340 MHz.
On transmit th is 38.34
MHz is mi xed wit h 11 .275 to
get t he operating frequency
of 27 .065, run through a
bandpass filter at 27 MHz,
amplified, and modulated. On
receive, t he 38.34 is injec ted
into the first mixer to get (he
Rx first i-f at 11.275, which
is then mixed with the
11 .730 to get the second i-f
of 455 kHz. Simple, isn't it?
All t hat has to be done here is
to lower the 11 MHz crystals
by t he amount you want to
go up in operating frequency.
For example, to make chan-
nel 09 come out on 28.800
lower them by 1.735 MHz
making the Tx i-f = 9.540
MHz and the Rx i-f crystal =
9.995 MHz, ret une t he appro-
priate coi ls, and you're o n the
air on ten.
Now, down to t he real
nitty-gritty of one that I have
had on the air on SSB for
several mon ths no w, in use
both at home and in the car.
The one I picked is a Radio
Shack TRC-47, about the
same size as an Icom IC-22. It
has a very good crystal filter
centered at 11.2735 MHz
which gives about 50 dB
unwanted sideband suppres-
sion. The TRC-48 uses t he
same filter and osci llator PC
board, so conversion data for
it is identical to t he TRC-47.
The TRC-48 is slightly lar ger
and fancier (i t has an "5"
meter , PA, and swltc hable
noise blanker) and more
expensive. They arc both
rated at 4 Watts r f out put o n
AM and 12 Watts PEP o n
SSB. I am getting 10 Watts
PEP out of mine on 28.600
char t of t he common hetero-
dy ne scheme and channel
frequen ci e s. Noti ce the
10-1 0-20-10 kHz spaci ng of
t he channels.
Note the channel marked
** is indicated by the dot o n
the di al bet ween 22 and 23
and on some radios can be
had by just installing a
jumper or clipping one. Some
other radios would require
major mechanical modifica-
tions to the channel switch to
get it.
When you decide what
frequencies on ten meters
you want, on t he 10- 10-20-10
spacing pattern, just subtract
26.965 from t he lowest one
and add this result to t he
frequency of eac h crystal in
group A, o rder the new
crysta ls from your favorite
purveyor of qu artz, wait for
t he post office , wait fo r t he
post office some more, and,
when they come, get out the
old t rusty soldering iron and
swizzle sticks, and soon you'll
be on ten.
Now, for t he 12 crystal
rigs. These are cheaper to
convert, as only 2 have to be
changed. The receivers in
t hese are usually better
because t hey are dual conver-
sion. T he hete rodyning
scheme here is simi lar to the
14 cr ystal type but t here are
16. 515, 16.565, 16.61 5,
16.665, 16.715; group Bt -
10. 500, 10.510, 10.520,
10.540 ; gro up Br - 10.9 55,
10.965, 10.975,10.995.
In operation, o ne crys tal
from group A is used, and
one from group Bt on trans-
mit and one from Br on
receive. For example, on
channel 1 (26.965 MHz) on
transmit, 16.46 5 and 10.500
are mixed to get the operat-
ing frequency, and on receive
16.465 and 10.955 are mixed
to get 27.420 MHz, which
conveniently just happens to
be 455 kHz above the operat-
ing frequency of 26.965. So
if we add 1.73 5 MHz to each
crystal in grou p A, we can get
freque ncies in th e range of
28.700 to 28.990 MHz, wit h
channel 9 working out to
28.800, t he AM calling fre-
quency. How about that ?
So, wit h a 14 crystal AM
rig, all that has to be done t o
put it on ten is to change six
crystals and retune some
coi ls. With mini mal test
equipment, a VTVM, signal
generator (that old VFO), a
wattmeter or swr bridge,
and a dummy load, t he whole
job can be done in under one
hour.
The most di fficul t part of
the lob is fi guring out what
crystals to order. Table 1 is a
W
it h the slowdown in
t he CB boom an d t he
recen t expansion to 40 chan-
ne ls , the CB eq uipment
man u factu rers have been
caught off guard wit h t hou-
sands of 23 channel radios in
warehouses. These are being
dumped on the market at
very low prices. I've seen
advertisements as lo w as
$39.95 for a 23 channel AM
rig. A very good one can be
had for well under $100.00.
Most of these radios are
very easily converted to ten
meters at a cost of under
forty dollars.
First , for those of you not
familiar with t he way these
crystal synthesized rigs oper-
ate, a few basics, t hen I will
go into spec ific detail s of t he
conversion of a Radi o Shack
TRC4 7, a very common AM
& SSB rig.
There are t wo basic 23
channel synt hesizer schemes,
the 14 crystal and the 12
crystal. First the 14 crystal
type, the more common.
The 14 crystal radios
usually have a single conver-
sion receiver with an i-f of
455 kHz. The crystals are in
three groups which I will call
group A, group Bt, and Br. In
my example, I will use the
fo llowing crystal f re-
quencies: group A - 16.465,
se
service manual ! This will tell
you all you ever wan ted to
know, but were afraid to ask.
For the Rad io Shack radios,
it can be o rdered fr om the
store (t hey're everywhere just
like MacDonald' s) if t hey
don't have an extra o ne in
stock. It ' s well worth t he two
bucks. Most radios have a
schematic diagram in the
owner's manual, an d some
even have o ne glued insi de
the t op cover. This may be all
you need, but t he service
manual gives complete align-
me nt informat ion and a
descript ion of ci rcuit opera-
tion which can help a lot .
Step 3 : Plotting and Schem-
ing - just what has to be
done?
Whi ch crystals t o chan ge?
De t e r mi ne the type of
synt hesizer and do the ar it h
meti c. If you have trouble,
write me enclosing a copy of
t he schemat ic and exist ing
crystal frequencies and one
SASE, and I will be glad to
help you. Next, order the
new crystals and wait, and
wait.
What about t uning on
SSB? All the SSB rigs have a
clarifi er co nt rol which will
move the recei ver + o r - about
1 kHz. On man y of t he r igs it
al so moves the transmitter
t he same amount. Don 't
worry if it doesn 't move the
Tx; it ' s easy t o f ix it so it
will. What a bout movi ng
mor e than 1 kHz? If you
can' t fi gure it out, ask one of
t he unscrupulous CB service-
men who advert ize in t he
personal column of t he local
newspaper how t o put in a
slider. This will give you
about a 20 kHz spread o n
each channel. Follow all
signal paths o n the schematic
so you can fi gure out which
ci rcuits will need retuning.
23 .480 23.530 23.580
14.9 50
14.947
Ax 2nd mixer tor AM only 11.730
23.540 23.490
Step 6 : Operating it, CO CO
10 CO 10 CQ 10-10, etc.
Generall y accepted calling
frequencies are 28.600 USB
and 28.800 AM, and activity
seems to be centered about
these, but it's best to check
with a local who is active on
ten t o make sure fi rst. There
may be a local net or cl ub
using some o ther frequency
Step 5: The Smoke Test
Get in contact wit h a local
ham who can work ten me-
t ers, and arrange a sked to
make sure that it is worki ng
on the frequency you think it
is, and whil e he is trans-
mitting o n a known fre-
quency, make sure you can
tune him in wher e you think
he should be. Then and only
then, try out t he transmitter
to see if he can hear you.
Also have hi m t unc up and
down the band to make sure
you are o nly t ransmitti ng in
one place and t he radio has
reasonably good audio quali-
ty. If you wan t t o use an
external speaker on it , be
careful how far you advan ce
the au dio gain, as t hese rigs
have muc h more audio t han
you will probably ever need
on receive, as the Rx au dio
out put is also the AM modu-
lator. It will give you up t o 5
Watts of audio, enough to
wake the silent keys. They
usually have resistors in series
with the internal speaker to
prevent the voice coi l from
smo king at an early age.
t o and can use a spectr um
ana lyzer, as t his will affect
dri ve level and bias and will
affect intermodulation distor-
ti on just as much if not mo re
than it will affect power out-
put. The ext ra one or t wo dB
you can get , just isn't wor th
the t rouble.
23.440
14.990
23.390
14.970
Tabl e 2.
23.430
14.9 30
14.927
11.2 72
Table 3.
23.380
14.920
14.917
BFO 1:
Step 4 : The Mod Squad At-
tacks
For the TRC-47 (and -48),
which uses sort of a cross
bet ween the 12 and 14
crystal synt hes izers, the exist-
ing crystals are shown in
Tabl e 3.
In t his scheme, o ne crystal
from group A is always used,
o ne from grou p Bu for AM
and USB, and one from group
B1 for LSB only. The 11.275
is used for AM Tx and for
USB. The 1l .272 is used for
LSB, and the 11 .7 30 fo r AM
Rx only.
Chan ge the group A
crystals t o : 24.865, 24 .91 5,
24.965, 25.015, 25.065, and
25. 115 MHz. The clari fi er
control is a fairly large vari-
able capaci t or of t wo sec-
ti ons, wit h a fixed capacitor
in parallel wi t h each section.
Clip these t wo fixed capaci -
tors out of the ci rcuit . This
now gives you more range on
the clarifier, about 1 t o +4
kHz. See ing as how no body
uses LSB on te n meters,
remove the two resistors (1
K) which bias the di odes fo r
swi tching t he BFO crystals
and sho rt t he diode for the
USB BFO crystal (11.275).
By doing t his, when you
move t he mode switch to
LSB the radio stays on USB,
but you get a down ward f re-
quency shift of about 3 kl-lz,
You now have two 5 kHz
wide bands wit h a 2 kHz
overlap for each of the 23
channels. Now retune the
bandpass filt ers at 38 and 27
MHz t o 39.6 and 28.6 MHz,
pea k the receiver front end,
peak t he tran smitter driver
and final coils. Do not adjust
any of the pots in the trans-
mitter unl ess you have access
23. 340
14.960
23.330
14.91 0
14.907
11.275
23.290
14.950
11. 275
11.730
Group A:
Group ac:
Group B1 :
BFO u :
Group A:
Group B:
Tx l-f:
Rx i -f :
MHz. That ' s only 10 d B
down from t he typi cal SSB
exc iter which has at best 100
Watts out put, most of them
more like 70 or 80 on ten
meters. So what if I' m 1 o r 2
"S" units down; it makes up
for all the mobile noise from
my own and ot her cars o n the
road. If I can hear t hem in
t he car, I can work t hem.
Now, how t o do it to it.
Step 1: Getting the radio -
new or used?
If you have a bit of test
equi pment you can probably
get a better deal on a used
radio, but check it out first!
Check rf output on AM. If
below 2.5 W or above 5.5 W
when operated on 13.5 V dc
or the ac line if a base station,
forget it an d go on to the
next o ne. On SSB the output
should indicate 8-16 Watts
when you wh ist le into the
mike. Check out the recei ver
on an antenna. Find a few .
strong local signals and make
sure they disappear when
switching to the next channel
on eit her side. They should
be way down when swi tchi ng
side bands if SSB.
Next, take the covers off
and have a good look inside
for modifications. If you see
any, put t he covers back on
and forget it , unless it is qui te
obvious that t he mods wi ll
not affec t o perat ion of t he
radio in t he manner in which
it was designed to o perate. As
far as dust, dir t , and smudges
go, they can easily be cleaned
up, so don' t let t hat bo t her
you. Loo k fo r ads in the
newspaper or in the local
wee kly Buy and Sell. Bargain
over price as most sellers are
not fir m on as king pr ice, and,
after all , it's a buyer's market
now for 23 channel radios,
es pecially for SSB. Make a
call to the local police t o
ma ke sure it's not hot. For a
new radio, shop around at a
few stores. Again, it's a
buyers market, and eve n at
the chain stores you ca n get
quite a good deal. So make an
offer; t hey might just ta ke it.
Step 2 : Figuring it out
If at all possible, get the
99
that you may want. On many
of these radios the squelch
control works very well, SO
it's easy to monitor a specific
frequency for calls, and have
t hings quiet when there is no
signal present, just like two
meter FM. Local coverage,
both mobile and fixed, see ms
to be about the same as two
meter simplex operat ion, but
more fun when it opens up,
which is getting to be more
often now that the sunspot
cycle is on t he upswing again.
Some Notes on Antennae for
Ten .
For mobile operation I use
one of the four foot long top
loaded fiberglass whi ps wi t h
12 turns removed fro m the
top of the coil. This makes it
resonate nicely at about 28.6
MHz. It' s only about 1.5 dB
down from a ful l quarter
wave, and it' s a lot easier to
fit into the garage.
At home I use a Radio
Shack 5/8 wave ground plane
for 11m wit h the capacity hat
removed, but everything else
exactly as it comes out of the
box and assembled fo llowing
the directions. Removing t he
top hat (3 wires) makes it
resonate at about 28. 5 MHz
wit h an swr of less than
1.4:1, not bad for an antenna
which takes only about 15
minutes t o assemble and
erect.
What About Crystals ?
They can be had from any
of the manufact urers adver-
tising in the magazine else-
whe re, or you just may have
some in your junk box.
Canadians can order from
Lesmith Ltd., PO Box 703,
Oakvill e, Ont., at a price of
six dollars per cr ystal. De-
livery of crystals should take
4-6 weeks.
Best of luc k, and hope t o
hear you on ten. If you have
any t ro uble be sure and drop
me a line, and I will try to
help you out,
100
NEW!
A $29.95
DVM Ki t .
Thanks t o a product brea kthrough, d igital
voltmeten are avai lable at a bargain price .
What are you waiting f or?
1) Uleo new Motoroll 3.... dilit
Features: DVM chi p.
2) Aut ozero. l ut opolar1t y with
minu..
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) Ove.....ol taae NO
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Add $1 .50 for POOSl' 91. CA rl'Side nts Idd
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Gary McClell an and Co. Box 2085
Gl0
1001 W.lmperiaJ Hwy .
L. H..brll CA 9063 1
POSITIVE RESIST
catbide bifl
w.h. btadg i dafal<
IX PCatfwotk 2X
BUBBLE ETCHERS
SEND STAMP & ADDRESS
LABEL FOR FLYER VIA FIRST
CLASS MAIL
TRUMBULL COMPANY
833 Halra Dr. EI Cerrito, Ca. 94530
CB to I
- - part IV: Johnson 123A mod
Tom Goldsmi t h WB4EQU
49 MemOliaJ Parkway NW
For! Walton Beach FL 32548
David F . Norman
6 22 W. Sunset Blvd.
Fori Walton Beach FL 32548
~ q T. No, it's not another ca. It's a hot little TO meter
conversion.
if t he unit chosen for conver-
sian is more exot ic and costs
more to begin with, the total
price can be much higher.
Our primary reason fo r
choosing the 123A over ot her
models was si mple ... we
had an extra one gathering
dust on the she! f. We could
have used pract icall y any un it
on t he market, and so can
the real izatlon t hat many
under priced CB units were
made ava ilable when th e CB
manufacturers began dump-
ing 23 channel units to ma ke
room for the 40 channel
models. An amateur with
only basic skills should be
able to buy and convert a 23
channel CB unit to 10 meters
for less than $80 - of course,
Fig. 2. The crystal bank PCB should be removed for easy
access to the crystals.
t uni ng, we ran a performance
check on t his unit. Radio
freq uency output exceeded
3. 5 Watts and receiver se nsi-
t ivi ty was on the order of 0 .5
microvolts for 10 dB signal
plus noise/noise. That ain't
bad. Wit h the comi ng increase
in sunspot activity, conver-
sions such as t his shoul d be
good for some very interest-
ing l ow power DX.
The idea was spar ked by
A
s any fool can plainly
see , the tr ansceiver
shown i n Fig. 1 is a very
common, midpriced CB unit.
Right ? Wrong. This part icular
E. F. Johnson Messenger
123A started out t hat way,
but a few simple modifica-
tions have turned it into a 23
channel, crystal controlled 10
meter amateur r ig.
Wh en we were fi nis hed
wit h the modificat ion and
101
Fig. 3. Interior shot of the' 23A showing the transmitter strip
at the top.
Fig. 4. Detail o f the oscillator synthesizer mixer tuning
adjustments and test points.
you. Howe ver, let's go
through this particular co n-
version step-by-step, since
most conversions will differ
only in minor details. If you
follow what we did here, you
should have no trouble with
other makes or models.
The 123A is a single-
conversion synt hesized uni t
using a channel frequency
minus 455 kHz input to t he
receiver mixer. This is accom-
plished by mixing the output
from a high frequency oscil-
lator with that of a low fre-
quency oscillator and using
the difference frequency.
For example, when the
unit is t uned to CBchannel l
(26.965 MH, I, t he high
frequency oscillator operates
at 32.700 MHz. The low
freq uency oscillator on chan-
nell operates at 6.190 MHz.
The difference frequency is
26.510 MHz, which is 0.455
MHz below the channel
freque ncy.
When the unit is switched
to the tra nsmit mode - st ill
on channel 1 - the high
f reque ncy oscillator con-
t inues to operate at 32.700
MHz, but the low frequency
oscillator has a 5.735 MHz
crystal switched into the
circuit and the 6. 190 MHz
crystal is switched out. Th is
new difference frequency -
26.965 MHz (same as the
channel frequency) IS
simulta neously switc hed to
t he tra ns mitter st rip, and t he
receiver is muted.
While the 123A is a 23
channel unit and only uses 14
' 02
crys tals in all , each cryst al
must cont rol several channels.
If you start at the lower end
of the band (channell) and
change channels all the way
to the top (channel 23), you
will find t hat t he high fre-
quency crystals are switched
after four consecutive chan-
nel s and the low fr equency
crystals are swit ched for each
channel and re peat every
fo urth channel. Table 1
should make t hat clearer.
We decided that since we
had to start somewhere, a
frequency jump of exactly 2
MHz woul d simplify matters,
so that is what we used. It
would have been as good
from an operating sta ndpo int
to shift the low frequency
crystals, but for economy we
decided that it made much
more sense t o change only six
crystals rather than eight.
(Another reason to use t he
higher oscillator for changes
is t hat low frequency oscil-
lators are somet imes pretty
narr ow bande d. We didn't
want to have t o change any
t uni ng component s if we
didn ' t have t o do so.)
By referring to Table 1,
you can see that to raise
receiver and transmitter
frequencies 2 MHz, you
simply raise the high fr e-
quency oscillator 2 MHz. The
new di fference frequencies
(28. 965, etc.) fall int o the 10
meter phone band.
We or dered the new
crystals and put the unit back
on the shelf until they ar-
rived. When they finally got
in after several weeks, we
took t he unit out of t he case
and began t he conversion.
Removing the crystal bank
it surrounds the channel
selector switch - in t he 123A
is a relatively simple matter
of t aking off the front panel
kno bs, the four screws which
secure the front panel t o t he
chassis, and t he two t iny
bolts whi ch fasten t he crystal
bank t o t he channel selector
switch. In Fig. 2 you can see
one of the nuts which holds
the crystal bank located at
t he left center of the picture.
When t he fiber PCB which
holds t he crystals is loose, it
is a si mple matter to remove
the high fre quency oscill at or
crystals and replace the m
with the new crys tals. Use a
good clean iron for t he job in
order to minimize damage to
the PCB.
When all of t he new
crystals are soldered in place
and the leads trimmed, reas-
semble the whole mess a nd
you are ready to start tuning.
Tuning can be very simple
if you have the right equip-
ment. If you don' t , we would
suggest that you borrow it. In
this case the right equipment
is a diddlestick and an rf
VTVM.
Look at Fig. 3. Slightly to
the right and below center
you can see two tiny t rans-
formers. Below them you will
see one marc. The lower
tra nsformer sitti ng all by
itself is T7. Tr ansfor mer T7
tunes t he output of the high
frequency oscillator.
Fig. 4 is an expanded view
of T7 and its associated
components. Just to the right
of T8 and T9 is transistor
Q14, the synthesizer mixer.
The output from the high
frequency oscillator is
coupled through T7 t o the
emitter of Q14. Wit h t he unit
in the receive mode, connect
the rf probe to the emitter of
QI4 and tunc T7 for rruxi-
mum. The reading ..hould be
somewhere bet ween 0.5 and
1.0 volt.. rms of rf. After you
have tuned T7 for maximum,
switch through all of the
channels. If you are measur-
ing the right out put, after
every four channels the redd-
ing will mome ntarily dip as
you switch in another crystal.
When you t urn the channel
selector to the blank space
between channels 22 and 23,
the reading should go to zilch
In this unit, as in many
others, the channel selector
switch has a cutout 10 pre-
vent operation in this posi-
tion. ( It used to be called
channel 22a, 27.235 Mll z,
which was illegal under the
old CB rules.)
After you are satisfied that
the oscillator is working
properly, move the rf probe
to t he diodes to the left of
the filter capacitor directly
above T7. The cathodes of
these two diodes arc con-
nected, and t his is your next
test point . Tunc T8 and T9
for maximum at this point.
You may have to go back and
touch up T7 as you load it by
tuning T8 and T9.
Table 1. Sy nthesizer scheme. If 2 MHz is added to each frequency in the HF Crystal column,
the Receive output and Transmitter output also increase by 2 MHz. NOTE: All frequencies in
MHz.
RECEI VE RECEIVE TRANSMIT TRA NSMI T
CHANNEL HF CRYSTAL LF CRYSTAL OUTPUT L F CRYSTAL OUTPUT
1 32.700 6 .190 26.510 5.735 26.965
2 32.700 6 .1BO 26.520 5.725 26.975
3 32.700 6 .170 26.530 5. 715 26.985
4 32.700 6 .150 26.550 5 .695 27.005
5 32.750 6 .190 26.560 5 .735 27.015
6 32.750 6 .180 26.570 5.725 27.025
7 32.750 6.170 26.580 5.715 27.035
6 32.750 6.150 26.600 5.695 27.055
9 32.800 6 .190 26.610 5.735 27.065
10 32.800 6 .180 26.620 5 .725 27.075
11 32.800 6 .170 26.630 5.715 27.085
12 32.800 6 .150 26.650 5.695 27.105
13 32.850 6 .190 26.660 5.735 27.115
14 32.850 6 .180 26.670 5.725 27.125
15 32.850 6 .170 26.680 5.715 27.135
16 32.850 6 .150 26.700 5.695 27. 155
17 32.900 6 .190 26.7 10 5.735 27.165
18 32.900 6 .180 26.720 5.725 27.175
19 32.900 6.170 26.730 5.715 27.1 85
20 32.900 6.150 26.750 5.695 27.205
21 32.950 6 .190 26.760 5.735 27.215
22 32.950 6.180 26.770 5.725 27.225
23 32.950 6 .150 26.800 5.695 27.255
it to the
t une for
or S-meter
I f you get something
between 0.3 and 0.5 volts rf
at t his test po int , it is down-
hill all the way from here. If
not, go back and start over
agai n at T7.
In Fig. 3 you can see two
small transformers above the
channel sel ector. These arc
TlO and T11. To tune them,
connect the rf probe to the
collector of rf pre-driver Q1 5
(in Fig. 3 Q15 is obscured by
t he mike cord, but it is the
first transistor in t he t rans-
mi ller strip and is close to
TlO{fn. When the probe is
connected, connect a dummy
load to the rf out put of the
unit and key the mike. The rf
output measured on the col-
lect or of Q15 shoul d be
several volts. If you have it,
move t he probe t o the next
transistor in the transmitter
strip and tune each stage for
maximum before going on to
the next. By this t ime, you
should have a Watt or two of
rf at the t ransmitter ' s ou tput,
and you can complete tuning
wit h a watt meter if you have
one - and you either do or
have a fr iend who docs.
Before you do any receiver
tun ing, compl ete the trans-
miner tuning. When yo u arc
fini shed, you sho uld have 3.0
Watts or more at 13.6 vol ts
dc input. Tr ansformers
T10{fll may need to be
stagger-tuned to opti mize
output on all channels. All
other tran smitter tuning
shoul d be done at or near the
center of the band (channel
12 or 13 ). After you have
max imum output, whistle int o
t he mike. The wattmeter will
probably kick do wn. If you
have t uned to max imum, you
may be showing as much as
5.0 Watts of out put. The
123A wi ll usual ly not mod-
ul ate that much power ful ly
and transmitter tuning sho uld
be touched up a little.
Between the rf final ampli-
fier and t he output conncc-
tion you can see two t uning
coils. After the uni t has been
tuned to ma ximum, insert a
diddlestick into the coil
nearest the final amplifier.
Using shor t whist les, t ur n the
slug cloc kwise int o the coil
until the wattmeter begins to
kick up slightly on t he peaks.
Then go to the last t uning
coil and retune it for maxi-
mum out put . Do t his back
and for t h unt il you have the
max imum output which will
all ow the wattmeter to sho w
a slight kick upwards on
peaks. If t his point happens
to be in excess of 5 Watts,
fine . If it is less - and it
probably wi ll be - tha t's
okay too. In any event, that
point is where the unit should
operate for cleanest, best
modulated output.
Now you are ready to tune
the receiver section. Assum-
ing that t he uni t was working
properl y on CB freque ncies,
you have only two minor
ad justments t o make.
Look at Fig. 3 again.
Direct ly below and parallel t o
the transmitter st rip is the
recei ver rf and i-f stri p. Don't
d isturb a ny adjustments
except t hose of the t wo ca ns
closest to the rear of t he
chassi s. The can sitti ng by
itself near the modulation
transformer is T1, the re-
ceiver rf input t uning. The
next can in the li ne is the
mixer input tuning, T2. There
are two easy ways of tuning
t hese t wo cans.
If you have a sta ble signal
sour ce and can be certain that
it is on frequency, set it for
29.085 MHz (new channel
11 10m), couple
transce iver and
maximum output
reading.
The other way is to con-
nect the unit t o an antenna
which exhibits a low vswr on
10 meters and t une for maxi-
mum noise. Normal precau-
tions agai nst tuning to an
image frequency should be
observed. As a general rule, if
you tune to the first peak
t hat you come to from t he
original posi tions, you wil l be
right on the money t he first
time. Measure the output
frequencies with a counter,
check it out with a friend
across town, and you are on
the air. Total t ime involved?
A couple of hours.
In our protot ype unit , we
not iced only one unusual
item. On channel a-l Om (you
have to call them somet hi ng),
we have a relat ivel y st rong
rece ived signal present even
when the antenna is not
connected. Since we have 22
other channel s to use, we
decided to forget it and not
go looking for spurs. The
same problem mayor may
not show up on your conver-
sron.
As ment ioned before, we
c hos e t hi s unit simply
because wc had it. If you
have anot her make or model ,
your conver sion may be a
littl e harder. If the crystals
are of the plug-in t ype, the
conversion may be easier.
When you begin to tune the
uni t, take it one step at t he
ti me. Few if any CB un its will
operate at a new freq uency
wit hout careful ret uni ng.
The 2 MHz jump seems to
be a good idea to us. Chen-
neli zat ion mean s t hat mobile
operation is simple and fiddle-
proof. As a suggest ion, it
seems t o us t hat channel
1-10m (29.965 MHz) would
be a good calli ng channel. If
everyone who makes a +2
MHz conversion monitors this
channel as the band opens
this summer and fall, there
should be a good chance of
making contacts. If everyone
jumps around all over t he
band, t he chances go way
down. Be seeing you on 10.
103
Tommy M. Murphy K5UKH
Route 1, Box 310A
Ethel MS 39067
- - part V:
,
converting the Hv-Gain 670B
CB to 10
I felt that 6 channels were
enough to start off wi th. The
other channels will no longer
transmit after the coils have
been retuned, thus any
possibility of transmission of
unwanted frequencies will be
avoided in case the channel
selector happens to get off on
a channel that is not set up
on 10 meters.
In order to make it simple
to keep track of what fre-
quencies are combining to
form the desired frequencies,
I made up a chart gi ving all of
the frequencies involved.
When you order a crystal,
be sure and give all the in-
schematic has a chart that
shows the crystals requi red to
synthesize the uni t. What you
want to do is to change the
smallest number of crystals
possibl e due to the cost
factor. I decided to use the 4
crystals in the 14 MHz oscil
late r section and leave the 23
MHz section alone as it
contains 6 crystals. It may be
possible to change only the
offset osci llator crystals , in
this case, 11.275 and 11 .730
MHz. I did not tr y this as I
believed that the coils in the
front end of the receiver and
in the transmitter would
probably tune the proper
range without modification.
This proved correct. The i-f
section mayor may not tune.
I'll leave that to someone else
to try together with the
chance of blowing the price
of a couple of crystals.
The crystal needed for the
Hy-Gain is determined as
follows: Channel 1 is to be
29.000 MHz. The 23 MHz
osci ll ator fr equency is sub-
tracted from 29.000 MHz.
Then the offset oscill ator
frequency of 11.730 MHz is
added to that figure giving
the required frequency, in
this case 17.440 MHz.
With one crystal then, I set
my radio up on 6 channels
which came out this way:
Channel l 29.000 MHz
Channel 5 29.050 MHz
Channel 9 29.100 MHz
Channel 13 29.150 MHz
Channel 18 29.210 MHz
Channel 22 29.260 MHz
better than the older types
that use one crystal for
transmit and one for receive.
Wi t h the newer units you get
a lot more useable channels
for a lot less cost.
Looking at the schematic
that came with the radio, I
located the bandswitch and
the oscillator crystals were
next to it. The Hy-Gai n
,
itself very handil y to con-
version to the 10 meter ham
band. The Hv-range I is a 23
channel, synthesized, 4 Watt
output, AM radio. If you
choose another type radio
make sure you get one that
uses crystals, not phase
locked loop. The newer types
with the synt hesizer lend
th emselves to conversion
Channe l 11 Meter, 10 ~ r 23MHz Old 14 MHz N_17 MHz
,
1 26.9 65 29.000 23.290 14.950 17.440
2 26.975 29.010 23.290 14.9 60 17.450
3 26.985 29.020 23.290 14.970 17.460
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large size . The cryst a l sock-
e t allowed easy crys t a l
changes to c heck t he band-
widt h of o peration fo r a
s ing le vco-t uned cir cui t
se tt ing.
In o rder to unso lder t he
12.320 crystal. the bottom
of the doghouse has to be
unsoldered from the sides.
A so ld er wick was used
with a 45-Watt so ldering
iron to remove t he so lder
bonds . It was easier to un-
solde r the c irc u it bo ard
ends of t he t hree dogho use
posts t o gain e asy access t o
t he botto m cove r t han to
unscrew the t hree d og-
house flange attachment
screws. These soft metal
screws were ce mented in
place and I st ripped the
Phill ips head slo t s while at-
t empti ng to remove them.
After t he c rysta l and
so cket were added, the
doghou se was set in pl ace
and one post was soldered
to the PC board. The dog-
house a s sembl y wa s
pressed into the bottom
lent in thei r st ate ment and
so lut io n to the co nvers io n
problem. Fortunately, the
Sears rig has an a lmost
ident ical Pll circ ui t to the
rig in Refe rence 1.
Fig. 2 shows the Sears
mode l 3826 bloc k d iagra m;
the key to th e co nversio n is
the vcxo. Q701 . The vcxo's
third ha rmonic is mixed
with the vco (Q70n fre-
quency in Q703, is filtered
by l PF1, and is fed into the
Pll co nt rolle r. For channel
1, thi s freq ue ncy is 1.28
MHz. In this Pll , t he vco
will automatically seek the
c o rr ec t f requency to
achieve a 1.28 MHz d iffer-
ence wit h the vcxo ref er-
e nce os cilla tor.
In order to move the rig' s
operation into the 'tO me-
t er ba nd , the X701 fre-
que ncy h a s t o be in-
creased. For example, to
move the CB cha nne l 1 op-
erat ing fr e q ue nc y fr o m
26.%5 to 28.510, t he vco
has to be increased by
1.54 5 MHz . To achieve
t his, the X701 frequency
shou ld be increased from
12.320 to 12.835 MHz. This
increase of .515 Hz is o ne
t hird t he vco frequency in-
crease req u ired. The rea-
so n for o nly t he 1/3 in-
crease is t hat t he 3rd har-
monic is mixed with t he
vco .
So much for theory; now
le t' s d iscuss the act ual con-
version detail s. A 13-MHz
HC-1 8/U-style crystal was
pu rc hased at a local su r-
pl us parts ho use t o get the
rig t uned to the 10-met er
band. With t hi s crysta l,
channel 1 is 29.005 MHz . It
was decided to tune the re-
ceiver and transmitter to
c ha nne l 1 while hoping
that the tuned c ircu it ry
was broadbanded enough
to cove r 40 c h a nne l s
a bove, as we ll as be low,
29.005 MHz. As it turns
out , t his was a good choice
of a tune-up freque ncy.
Th e crystal and socket
(shown in Fig. 1) a re taped
to the outside of the metal
doghouse because of its
Sellentythree, March 7980 59
* YOU ASKED FOR IT *
A COMPLETE REPEATER STARRING
THE MARK 3C SUPERCONTROLLER
R702 and short out R711 ,
which connects t he bottom
end of t he fine-tune con-
trol, RV701, to ground. Di s-
connect t he red wi re from
the top end of the f ine-tune
cont rol. Connect th e t op
end of t hi s cont rol to a
regu lated voltage source
t hat is always present f or
all ope rat ional modes such
as regul at or bu s BB. This
bu s can be f ound i n many
pl aces on the circu it board.
The extra set of wi res
comi ng out of t he tran s-
ceiver to th e bottom l eft of
Fig. l is t he 12-vol t control
for a rel ay that switc hes i n
an BO-Walt, soli d-state l in-
ear on t ransmi t. It should
be menti oned that Amer i-
can Cryst al Supply Co. has
a conversi on ki t whi ch ex-
pands the number of chan-
nel s.
When th e band is open,
CW signa ls are heard very
low i n the background.
Thi s occurs beca use t he
i mage rejection is not quit e
as good as with you r T5-520
or FT-l0l rigs. This back-
ground act iv it y IS muc h
l ess objec t i onable t ha n
noi se. With the rank s of
QRP r ig owners growi ng,
one onl y has to menti on
duri ng t he QSO t hat he/she
is running QRP and you
wi ll be su rpr ised at th e Wl
or W 2 break ing i n to ask
det ail s of your rig
For t he price, t he sat is-
f act ion of successf u l l y
completi ng your own con-
version, sha ri ng your con-
ver sion det ail s wi th ot hers,
and regul arl y di scovering a
OX stat ion on one or more
of your 40 channels and
work ing him sti rs t he i magi-
nation and br ings back the
pl easure of hamming wi th
an excel lent l ow-cost rig.
Thi s, to me, i s wel l wort h it
i n t his age of one grand
ham rigs.
References
1. Welsh, "CB to 10-Part XII:
Convert a Kraco PlL Rig," 73
MagaZi ne, Oct ober, 1978, pp.
254-255.
2. Cann, "CB to to- Part XVI: A
CW Conversion," 73 MagaZine,
January, 1979, pp. 5657.
f ine-tu ne oscillator brought
him in nicely. He was most
interested in this converted
rig for a bl ind ham ac-
quaintance of his. I happil y
gave him al l the info I had
on t he rig and its conver-
sion.
Before the band di ed
abrupt l y at 7:45 prn. many
st at ions were heard while
t he set was checked wi t h
ot her crysta ls. The l owest
12-MHz rock I had brought
the operat ing f requency
down to 28.255 wi th t he
same vco setti ng as f or
29.005. When I shut off the
l ight in the shac k and se-
cured for t he ni ght, I had
th e same good feel i ng I fel t
on t hat spr ing morni ng i n
t he earl y f i fti es.
O t her i m p ro v em en t s
have al so been i mple-
men te d The b etween -
channel ope ration conver-
sion i s the simplest of al l
th e cha nges. First, repl ace
X702 (LSB Ref. Os c. crystal)
with a crystal Ident i cal
wi th th e X701 t hat was pre-
viously replaced. X702 can
be netted 5 kHz away from
X701 wi th CT702. Next,
power will be appli ed t o
0 220 t hrough R236 when
t he mode swi tc h is in the
LSH posit ion. Thi s diode
will keep the USB-AM off -
set crys ta l , X201 , switc hed
on for al l modes. The l SH
positi on becomes a second
set o f US H freq uen c i es
placed between those set
by X701 i n t he USB-AM po-
siti on. The tot al f requency
c hange by the fine tu ne
will be approx imate ly 5
kH z. Cut the green wire
comi ng out of t he plug on
the left side of the mode
selector switch about one
i nch from the plug. (This
swi tch can be seen i n Fig 1
to the ri ght o f the referen ce
osci l l ator doghou se.) Str ip
a quarter-in ch of th e plug
end of the green wi re and
connect it to t he or ange
wi re terminal next to i t i n-
side th e pl ug.
The next change t o im-
plement i s fine-tune track -
ine on transmit Remove
ANDNOW.-.. __....bulllln _
Reeelo4r __ 0.25 UV
Super cnap .udlo
Tnl"'lller output m
PlUS Q9lI<>NI_
Pow. .mpliflen lplc;ll your I..... )
Sub-.udlbl. to...
.Control_ ..
MARK 3CR REPEATER
144-220 ' 14(/$ Introductory pne..
crophone. The wattmeter
read 7.5 Wat ts. With the
three-foot piece of wir e
connected to the antenna
jack, a beat not e was heard
i n the spea ker, indi cating
an AM signal. WIth t he
mode switch i n AM, I H7XJJ
was heard ! Shades of the
" 48" sunspot peak: " Al l you
need i s a piece of wir e
hanging out of the win-
do w ! " Prob abl y, if the
t hree- foot wire w as
matc hed, I would have
t ried to an swer hI SCQ; in-
stead, I not-so-ca l mly con-
nected up to a two-el ement
beam DX fever was com-
mg on.
He came back wi t h a Sib
signal on an FT-l0l . He was
running 15-W att s output.
This was beginn i ng to f eel
l i ke that one spri ng morn-
i ng 25 years ago! The next
contact was wit h a Wl in
Boston on AM. I thought I
would try sideband. Bingo!
A WB4 in Sout h Caroli na
was heard . Ad just i ng the
ALL the ........ IN"',. make
.... rt 3C thIo -.........., IIoelMor In repMler
AuII:lJ*_
FI_IHI_
Aulodllll
Functlotll
.'3MorM_V-
Cullom !IIII m_v-
[);lIil.ll..... dKOCI1"O
Mlcropr oc-... cont ",1
"'ARK 3-C CONTIlOllER $886.
for receiver adjustment.
Next, an i nl i ne, inexpen-
sive CB powerlvswr meter
and dummy load were at-
tac hed to t he rf output
co nnector. Transf or mers
were peaked wit h th e r ig in
t he AM posi t ion on chan-
nel l f or max rf output i n
t he foll owing order: T703,
704, 402, 403, 404, 408, 407,
and 405. The reason for t his
broken sequence is t hat
T405 was not easily 10-.
cated Although the trans-
f ormer numbers are si lk -
screen pr inted on t he top
of the PC board, the parts
are t ightly pack aged, mak-
i ng identi f icati on diff icult
wi t hout bright lighting. The
numbers are more easi ly
read if a fl ashl ight is used
t o locate and decipher
t hem.
By the time T405 was
peaked, the power out put
read 5 Watts. Not bad.
Wi th t he mode switch i n
the USB position, a whist le
was directed i nto t he rni-
C'-lor write lor 1,..lflcatIonI
MICRO CONTROL SPECIALITIES (S17) 372-34U
23 Elm ,..-It, Orowelllnd, .... 01134
60 Seventy-three, March 1980
Charles W. Hoppesch WA4UUV
270 Surfspray Drive
Merritt Island FL 32952
CB to 10
- part XXIV: Penney's SSB rig
Fig, 1. Component location diagram.
".
70 0
,..
@J
Yt t \ /"0''-..........
'"'
'"'
0
[;]0
[nO'
0 0
"0'
@)l
eHO'O
0
H'
H OI
0
'"
RT101 eno,
TPS O
0
OC O
'"'
RTlo, T20'
0 00 .""
0
0 0
T. 04
n 03
0 H OI T;l0l
0
0 0
0
RHO'
o
OT
403
RTIG<
0
OT404il
TPIO
HO, o TP9
P
0
RH 0 2
0
HOG T;l0'
OORTO'
P
0
rrcr
"cE
T407
0
OH06
W
a nt a 10-meter rig
that is chea p, easy
to use, and pr ovides up to
l.7-MHz coverage? If so,
read on and see how you
can cha nge a 4o-cha nnel
SSB CB into a convenient
mobi le package for just a
few bucks and an hour' s
time.
The l .C. Pe nney Model
no. 6246 (catalog #981-8378)
a nd t he Sears Roadtalker 40
(934.38260700) are 40-chan-
nel AM/SSB t ransceivers us-
ing the same phase locked
loop (PLl) ci rcuitry. The l.C.
Penney model has an excel -
le nt instruction manual
whic h contai ns a good ex-
planat ion of how PLl cir-
c uits work, as wel l as al ign-
ment instructions. By a ll
means, t ry to obtain t his
ma nua l if you don't already
have it . The methods de-
scribed for these sets can be
applied to other Sears and
J .C. Penney sets with similar
circuits. You'll have to do
some figuring, though,
because of some circuit
cha nges and a different
schematic numbering sys-
t em. The fo llowing conver-
sion inst ructions incl ude
ho w to c ha nge the 40
AM/USB c hannels to ten
meters, three ways to dou-
ble t he nu mber of channels
avai lable, a nd t wo ways to
cha nge t he fin e-t uni ng con-
trol to swing the t ra ns mit
frequency as well as t he
receive frequency.
How To Sta rt the
Conversion
Frequency Selection
1. Select the start ing fre-
quency for t he port ion of
t he band you wish t o use.
My select ion was 28.510
MHz beca use I int e nded to
work sideband and as
much OX as possi ble.
2. De rive t he new AM!
USB local-oscillator crystal
(X701) f req ue ncy. To the
frequency you have cho-
sen, add 11 .275, subtract
1.28, and divide by 3. Ex-
ample: (28,510+ 11.275-
1.28)/3 = 12.835 MHz.
3. Replace X701, This
crystal is located in a metal
box behind the channel
switch {see Fig.l). It will be
necessary to remove the
three screws securing it to
the ma in PCB and then to
unsolder the sides of the
box from t he bottom of the
box. This is no problem
with the aid of a solder
wick, Remove the local
oscillator board from the
can a nd re pl ace X701 with
the new crystal.
PLL Adjustments
1. Refer to Fig. 1 for com-
ponent locations. A fre-
quency counter and oscil -
loscope will make the job
easier if problems develop,
but if you don't have t hese
instruments, don't worry.
Wit h the set tuned to chan-
nel 18, adjust T702 to ob-
tain a dc voltage across
TP5 and TP6 (ground) of 3.0
0.1 V and proceed to
Transmitter Alignment in-
structions. below.
2. If you want to be more
scientific and check things
as you go a long, or if step
one d idn't work, get out
your freq uency counter
and p roceed with step
t hree.
3. Check the freque ncy
of the ne w c rystal by
measu ring it between t he
top of trimmer CT702 and
t he crystal box. It should
be about 12,835 MHz .
4, Check the frequency
100 73 Magazine. Apri l, 1980
T1 0 ,
SO.Of R ""RE
ONE . ,N 00"" " F" QY
P 'N ., USEO
m
RG174A
n 41 c
OtOl
to obtain 20-kHz channel
" ,
Fig 3. Mod 8 - How to ob-
tain a 5-to-15-H/z swing:
(a) before modification; (b)
after modification.
control near t he socket
which plugs i nto the main
PCB, Tape the end going to
t he socket. Solder the other
end to the f oil side of the
PCB to the R237 termi nation
nearest t he edge of the PCB.
This is a +B-V dc source
which is on duri ng both
t ransmit and receive.
Mod B- How to Obtain a
+ 5-to-15-k Hz Swing
Refer to Fig. 3.
1. Remove C741, t he
22-pF capacitor in parallel
with CT701.
2. Run a 4" length of
coax (RC-174 /A) fr o m
where C741 was connected
(center lead to hol e nearest
crystal) through a hol e i n
t he side of t he oscil lator
can. Solder t he shield to
Fig, 4. Modifications to /(701
spacmg.
by vary ing the voltage
across varactor D702 by
means of potentiometer
RV701, A + 8-V dc poten-
tial is applied to RV701
(fine-tuning control) only
du ri ng receive. Dur ing
transmit, + 8 V de is ap-
plied to the v a r ac tor
through a fixed resistance.
R702 . This modification
simply supplies + 8 V dc
cont i nuously to RV701, t hus
enabling it to function on
t ransmit as well as receive.
1. Cl ip t he wire origi nat-
ing from t he local oscil lator
board which terminat es at
G752 and R702. Tape both
ends,
2. Cli p t he wire from ter-
mi nal 1 of t he fi ne-tuning
,,'
1 1
Q
_ n ol _ n Ol
-
Rrc<
, ,
,
; i
0701 'ITo> ,
-
Rlfrc,
,
,
, ,
,
o1ol
1 1
I
_ n ol .... X70l
l(;
-
f-
R70l
"
I-
, ,
,
,
,
i
,ro,
"701 ,
".TO'
,
,
, ,
,
0 70 <
,
'"
Fig. 2. Mod A- varacror circuit modification: (a) before
modification; (b) after modificarion.
the function switch in SSB-
USB, hold your mike next
to the sfdetone of your
kever. use the marker tone
f rom you HF receiver, or,
if you're really we ll
equipped, use an audio fre-
quency generator and key
the rig. Readjust T703,
T704. and T401 -T408 for
maximum power output.
3. Check the set's output
on each channel. On side-
band. mine was about 7
Watts. If t he output f all s
off toO Watts at either end,
readjust T702 very slightly
t o lock the PLL.
Modifi cati ons to the
Fine-Tuning Cont rol
This rig has an RIT but is
fixed on transmit. The RJT
has a range of + 2 kHz. The
Mod A changes, bel ow, will
enable t he t ransmit fre-
quency to also be shifted
+ 2 kHz. Mod B wi ll give a
swing of + 5 k Hz to +15
kHz.
Mod A - Varac tor Circuit
Ref er to Fig. 2 This CB rig
is destaned to provide a
+ 2-kHz swing on receive
from the output of the
local-oscillator circuitry by
unplugging from the board
t he white wire leading to
t he main printed ci rcuit
board, This is one of a pair,
t he other one being whi te
with a str ipe. This i s t he
output from the t riple t.
and the f requency output
at this poi nt shou ld be
about 38.505 MHz. Plug
t he white wi re back on t he
board te rmi nal,
5. Connect an osci llo-
scope to TP3 and TP4
(ground) and ad j ust T701
for maximum amplitude.
b. Now, with the set
tuned to channel 18, adjust
T702 f or a de output of 3,0
+0 ,1 V across 1P5 and TP6
(ground).
7. Measure the f requen-
cy across t he collector of
Q708 and any of the metal
shiel ds on t he foil side of
the board. The frequency
should be about 39.995
M Hz for channel 18 if you
used an X701 frequency of
12.835 M Hz (X701 x 3 +
1.49). This compl etes PLL
adjustments and checks.
Transmitter Alignment
1 . A l ignment o f t he
t ransmitter section is ac-
complished by attaching
an antenna to t he rig (a
104" piece of wir e), and,
with the help of your HF '
SSB recei ver tuned for
about 28720 M Hz, keying
the rig (AM, channel18) and
listening for a weak heter-
odyne whistle. Adjust T703
and T704 f or maximum
def lection of you r HF
recei ver' s S-meter. After
this step, place a watt-
meter and dummy load on
the rig and key t he set
agai n. If no output is seen,
go back to t he wire anten-
na and adjust T401 and
T402 for maximum Smeter
readi ng, again using your
HF SSB receiver to detect
t he peak output posit ion.
Once an output i s seen on
th e wattmeter, final adj ust-
men t of T401 -T408 can be
made.
2. Tu rn RT40 2 fu lly
cou nter clock w ise. W it h
73 Magazine . April,1980 101
Fig. 6. LSB oscillator crystal modification for 40 more: (a)
before; (b) af ter.
2. Run another wire from
t he switch to t he co mmon
leg of the channel se lector
switc h. Try the foil side of
the board where R722 is at-
tached nearest to the chan-
nel switch. With thi s switc h
in the on posit ion, each
channe l will be 640 kHz
higher in frequency than it
was originally.
Note o n the Program-
mable Freq uency Divider :
Pins 9-15 on IC701 are the
i np ut s to th is de vi ce.
Ene rgiz ing pin 15 adds 10
kHz to the base frequency.
Pi n 14 adds 20 kHz, pin
13 -40 kt-l z, pin 12- 80
kHz, pin 11 -160 kHz, pin
10 -320 kHz, a nd pin 9 -
640 kHz. Thus, if channel l
is 28.505 MHz, energizing
pins 15 a nd 11 will yiel d a
frequency of 28.505 + .010
+ .1 60 = 28 &75 MH z .
Some hams have replaced
the c ha nnel SWitc h with
seven small switches and
" program in" the desired
frequency. This 1(701 chip
is available from New-
Tone Electronics Interna-
tio na l, PO Box 1738,
Bloomfiel d N] 07003, for
under $10. Sylvania 's ECC
1255 does not wo rk . and
t he Ie from Sears of l.C.
Penney listed for around
$40 when I checked ,
Met hod C
Change the l SB local-os-
cillator crystal for 40 more.
Refer to Fig. 6,
1. Select the portion of
the band you wi sh to cover.
Using the lowest frequen-
c y, calculat e the lSB
crysta l frequency by using
the formula in ste p 2 of the
co nve rs io n instruct ions .
Example: Add itional band-
widt h desired, 28.960-29.400
MHz . (28 .960 + 11 .275 -
1.28Y3 = 12.985 MHz.
2. Install t he new crystal
in pl ace of X702.
3, Cut t he red/black wire
attached to P2 nea r t he
plug e nd.
4, Cut the wire to Pl
about V. " from t he plug,
5. Re mo ve C742 and
( T702, and tie bot h crys-
tal s into the fine-tuning
swing of about 8 kHz.
The amo unt of swing ob-
tainable is now cont rolled
by the capaci tance of t he
RG-174/A cable. Removing
the shield from t he cable
from t he end nearest the
va riable ca pacitor will in-
crease the swing up to a
maximum of + 15 kHz.
How To In cr e a se the
Number of Channels/Band.
width
Below are three ways to
increase t he bandwidth of
your t ransceiver. One in-
volves using t he LSB sec-
tion and t he other two
make use of unused pi n 9
of 1(701. (Be caref ul. t hat' s
a $40.00 chip.)
Method A
This modificatio n chang-
es the channel spaci ng
from 10 kHz to 20 kHz ,
t hus al most doubling the
bandwidth available. My
ri g covers 28.500 to 29.400
MHz.
1. Cut foil as shown in
Fi g. 4(a) a nd (b). This is
do ne easily with a Dremel
tool. Sand t he varnish from
the foi l and sol der wire
bri dges, as shown in Fig.
4(c)
2. Perform t he Mod B
swing, using the inst ruc-
tions to obtain a swing of
12 kHz. This will provide
enough swing to cover t he
gaps between most of t he
cha nne ls.
Method B
Pin 9 of IC701 can also
be used to jump each c ha n-
ne l 0.640 MHz up from its
original frequency, so that
28.510MHz becomes 29.150
MHz when thi s pin is ac-
tivated. If the rig will tune
28.510--28.950 with pin 9
switc hed off, it wil l tune
29.150-29.550 MHz with the
pin switc hed on.
Ref er to Fig. 5.
1. Run a wire from un-
used pin 9 of t he program-
mable divide r to a front-
pa nel- rn ount ed s witc h.
(Suggest ion: Remove wires
fr om t he AN l switc h,
sol de r t hem toget her, and
use t he ANl switc h.)
l
1
urea
0.02
1
_ " 00
Mod A, step 2, except tape
both ends .
5. Remove t he fine-t un-
ing po t from the front
pa ne l. Be careful-t he
channel indi cator di al is at-
tached to the shaft with a
screw. Place ta pe over the
contacts and stick it out of
t he way inside the set, o r
di p a ll wires and use t he
potentiometer for another
pro ject.
6. Install a 5-50--pF(nomi-
na il va ria ble ca pac ito r
where the RV701 cont rol
was located. Co nnect the
inner coax lead to the in-
su la t ed sect ion of the
capaci to r. The shi eld is not
connected to the ca pac-
itor.
7. Adjus t C1701 so that
t he swing o bta ined with
the panel-mo unted capac-
itor is about + 5 kHz. To
obtain a gre ater degree of
swi ng, remove CT701 from
the board. This will yield a
,.,
IC ' 0 1
,.,
" ,
,-"-tUt tI:
: 5 700 ,
... _-_ ..
IC ' 0 '
" .
; 510' , AOO
,
L . . ,
$. 'TcM
.,
0205
) I
HOI
I
---11'
.,
..
./$4
...
-
,
.
..
I
' 20 1
I
--J,
"
"'* OIOOE$
coo
/"
...
Fig. 5. 640-k Hz jump modi-
fica tion: (a) before; (b) after.
t he inside of the can.
3. Cl ip t he wire de-
scribed in Mod A. step 1,
and tape both ends.
4. Clip the wire as In
102 73 Magazine . April , 1980
1508 Mc Ki nney Houston. leoas 77002 <7131 6580268
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HAIOLO C. NOWlAND PHONE (313) 2851782
wnXH
T201 , and T102-T1 06 so
that the out put is max-
imum on channel 20 with
the set on a convenient AM
signa l.
2. With the set on chan-
nel 20 and a convenient
SSB stat ion or signal. ad-
just T201 , T202, and n03
for maximum output.
Concl usi on
On-t he-air tests from the
car have been great. Al -
most any st at io n heard can
be worked if t he "biggies"
don't pil e on. Mobi le con-
ta ct s into Europe are
routi ne f rom t his QTH, and
with t he rig hooked to t he
trlbander at t he ho use, Asia
and Aust ralia are no prob-
lem. Si gnal report s general -
ly run .5 by 5 to 5 by 8, whic h
is solid copy on 10 meters.
The receiver is decent and
is well ba lanced wit h t he
t ra nsmitter's abilities. Al l
i n all, the r ig is easy to con-
vert and performs very
wel l. _
I
Electronics Supply, Inc. ..- 45
'CO
,
,
,
,
,
,
I
.,
Fig. 7. Adding diodes for
conversion of LSB to USB.
cap ac i t or wit h a short
jumper fr om the crysta l
side of where (T702 was
to the coax going t o the air-
variable cap acitor.
6. Pl ac e di odes in seri es
with the wires and recon-
nect both diodes as shown
i n Fig. 7.
This modif ica t ion shoul d
give you 1.7 MHz coverage
of t he band, assumi ng al l
t he sta ges are b r oad
enough.
Get on with the Best!
Receiver Alignment
1 . Ad just T705, Tl01,
Order Your Collins KWM,380
NOW!
and receive FREE
ONE of the following
(+ old pricing, deposit only required)
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2) 2 Fil t ers, your choice - $96,00 ea,
3) Blower Kit - $195.00
v" Reaoe, SetV,ee-see page IgS
73 Magazine" April, 1980 103
Don Norman AFaB
41991 Emerson Court
Elyria OH 44035
CD to 10
- part xxv: using those surplus
40-channel boards
T
he Po ly Pa ks fl yer
aroused my curiosity
with t he ad for " A 4Q-
channel CB board com-
plete with channel selector
for only $1 4.88." 1 and in a
reasonable time UPS deliv-
ered what proved to be a
rather so phist ic at ed 40-
cha nne l PU CB set minus
the case, speaker, micro-
phone, and volume and
sq ue lch controls.
A litt le exami nat ion and
resea rch revealed t hat t his
is a ve ry ve rsat il e pr int ed
board, used in severa l Hy-
Ca in uni ts a nd severa l
Kraco mode ls. What appear
to be missing parts are de-
libe rate omissions. These
parts are ones that funct ion
in so me other unit than that
for which this board wa s in-
tended ,
With a little work and in-
genu ity, this board can be
turned into a fully-func-
t ioning a nd i ll e ga l CB
transceiver, and, with a lit -
tle more work, it can be-
come a neat lQ-meter rig.
All part numbers are silk-
screened o n the board. and
all wiring is attached to
nu mbered wire-wrap posts
or to numbered holes in t he
board. My wiri ng inst ruc-
t ions wi ll denote wire-wrap
post s with a " P" and a
number and board holes
wit h an " H" and a nu mber.
Only t he hoard mount-
58 73 Magazine . June, 1980
ing screws, t he heat sink'S,
t he an ten na connector
shield. and t he two di sc
capaci tors on t he bottom
of the board go to chassis
ground. All other ground-
ing points are attached to
one of the board grounds,
Cl, C2. C3. or C4. Board
grounds will be " BC" and
cha ssis grounds "CC." Got
it? Heat up t he iron and go!
Wiring
Solder a red lead for
.+ 12 V to Hl . Solder a
bl ack lead for - 12 V to
H2. Wire the center pin of
an a ntenna connector to
P58 and t he shiel d to CC.
Attach the leads of the two
di sc caps o n t he bottom of
t he board to CG. Ins tall a
jumper from P9 to P20.
Wire a power on-off switch
between P20 and P25. Wire
an o ute r lug of a 15k
squelch pot to P7 and the
ot her two lugs to BG. Wire
an outer lug of a SOk volume
co ntrol to P19. Wire the
center lug to P21 and the re-
mai ning lug to BC.
Wire t he + terminal of a
Q-l -mA S/rf meter to H34
and the - terminal to BG.
Wire one speake r lead to
P23 and attach t he ot he r
speake r le ad to BG tempor-
a rily. In actual o peration.
the speaker lead is ro uted
to BG t hrough the PTT
switch on t he microphone .
A 5OQ-Ohm dynamic mike
is used . This mike has a
DPDT PTT switc h t hat
opens t he speaker lead as it
grounds the PTT line. This
is necessary since t he mod-
ulat ion transformer is also
used as the audio output
t ransformer, and an un-
earthly howl results if the
speaker is no t disabled.
This mike audio line goes
to P22, t he PTT line to P13.
and t he neut ra l to BC.
Tune-Up
Tuning up the rece ive re-
q uires a signa l ge nera tor. a
VTVM, and a littl e pati en ce.
The first step is to set t he
voltage o n t he Pl l. Check
you r wi ring a last time, ap-
ply power, and check for
smo ke. If everythi ng is OK.
t urn ing the vol ume and
sq ue lc h cont rols sho uld
produce noi se in t he speak-
er. Squelch range can be
set with the on-board pot,
RV101 . Attach a VTVM
probe to the end of Rl13
nea rest n Ol a nd the
ground to BC.
What we' re looking for
here is 1.5 V on channel l .
Since t he swi tch is not
marked. we have no idea
whe re channel l is, so tu ne
Tl 01 for 1.5 V on t he
VTVM and then rotate t he
c ha nnel selector cl ock-
wise . The volt age should
ri se and abrupt ly drop. The
voltage drop indi cates t hat
you have just gone from
channel 40 to channe f T.
Reset T101 for 1.5 V and
remove t he VTVM,
Feed a 455-kHz signal
through a 01 capacitor to
the emitter of Q116. and
tune TlO9, n08, and Tl07
for highest reading on the
S/rf meter . The S-meter
ra nge may be adjusted
wit h t he on-board pot,
TV1 03. Feed a 10.7-MHz
signal through a .01 cap to
the base of Ql 15 and tune
n 06 and 11 12 for the high-
est S-meter reading. Set the
cha nnel selector to chan-
nel 1 3 a nd f e e d a
27,115-MHl signa l into the
antenna connector. Tune
nos and T1 04 for highest
S-meter reading. You now
can attach an antenna and
check for " Big 1().4s" and
other esotenca amongst
the local Cood Budd ies.
Set the channel selector
to channel 13. attach a
1Q-Watt dummy load, key
the mike o r ground the PTT
line. and adjust 1103. 1104.
T102. Tl03.l106.l109,and
11 10 fo r the highest S/rf
met er read ing. Rf -rneter
range may be adjusted
wit h the o n-boa rd pot,
RV104
10-Meter Conversion
Getting t he rig on 10 in-
volves replacing cryst al
Xl01 and retuning the PU.
t he t ransmitter. and the
$8.95
PA-19
WlDEBAND rREAMrLlFIER
'.
'A
'At ' 0
OUT.UT
AEH Af OOCE LO_ N SS
"
IIOl TaGf COIOTAOILED
.AfOUl":'
' RHII,IE.. C,
DE TECTOIO . "nA 05c," a TOA
'.
'0. ... . R
,
7 " .
... "
C(ll)NH A
the progra mma ble counter
divides by 91. Si nce the out-
put of t he counter must be
10 kHz (the same as FR), the
input to the counter is 910
kHz . The crystal oscillator
is fixed at a freq uency of
33.8575 MHz. Therefore,
the vco output frequency is
34.7675 MHz, or 910 kHz
higher. For transmitting, the
34.7675 MHz is mixed with
7.8025 MHz to get t he
26.965-MHz channel 1 out-
put. For receiving, the in-
co ming 26.965 MHz is
mixed with th e 34.7675
MHz to get the difference
frequency of 7.8025 MHz,
which is the rece ive r i-f.
To change channels, the
pr ogrammabl e cou nt e r
di visor mu st be cha nged.
Since the output of the
counte r is a lways 10 kHz,
the channe l sepa ration will
be 10 kHz. For example, for
c hanne l 2 operation, t he
p rog ra mmable co unte r
divides by 92. This for ces
the input of t he counter to
be 920 kHz; thus t he output
of t he vco must be 34.7775
MHz, or 920 kHz greater
than the crysta l osci llator.
This raises the operating
frequency to 26.975 MHz ,
or an increase of 10 kHz.
The control input to the
prog rammable cou nter
must be a binary-coded
deci mal (BCD) value equal
73 Magazine. JuIY,1980 109
' 0 l a
.",
'"
\osc,uaToA
'0. ...
.....S[
l"
'Ola
' ;' OHECTOA
," fA
10 . .. .
1I(K. a .... a&Lf
COUIOnA
I.O'One<:
. . r
,
" ' BCO ,... UT"
I
Ie e o , ".UT c c
,
0 , I
c c c
,
c
, OEc, .. aL
A' OUT.UT
H 16T' .. .. '
9' 0 . .. , ec
CO.
"""-u<O
, .. . oT
.aSS
.... EA CONTIIQllfO
<llUII
OSClllATOII
CIIYSTaL
OSC.. L"OIl
3' n", _
The output frequency of
the c ircuit shown in Fig. 2 is
N time s FR. or Fa = NFR
The counter di vides Fa by
N, FOI N = NFRI N = FR.
Therefore, the two inputs to
the phase detector a re t he
same frequency just as they
were in the previous expla-
nation. In all othe r respects,
the two phase-locked loops
are the same. By adding the
divide-bv-N counter in the
feedback loop, the phase-
locked loop is made mu ch
more versatile. For a given
ref erence frequency, t he
out put can be any multiple
withi n reason. Also, if Ncan
be changed, then the out-
put ca n be cha nged, in
steps equal to FR. For a
more detailed explanation
of Pll theory, see refer-
ences 1 and 2.
The phase-locked loop
for t hese three rigs is a bit
more compli cated . The
block di agram for this Pl l
is shown in Fig. 3.
The frequencies shown
are generated for USB
channel 1 operation on the
CB band . The operation of
this phase-l ocked loop is as
follows . The 10.24-MHz
output of the reference os-
cillator is divided by 1024
to give a reference fre-
quency of 10 kHz into the
phase detector. For channel
1 operat ion in the CBband,
Fig. 3. Bl ock d iagram of the Midland 79--893, President
Grant, and Cobra 138XLR phase-l ocked l oop.
automati c load cont rol a nd
pruning the output coils. I
was able to inc rease the
output power to 10 Watts.
Understanding the Phase-
locked Loop Circuit
To understand how thi s
conversion works. you mu st
first under sta nd how a
phase-locked loop frequen-
cy synthesizer works. Fig. 1
is a block diagram of a sim-
ple phase-locked loop. Two
frequencies enter the phase
detector: the reference fre-
quency, FR. and the out put
frequency, FQ. The output
of the phase detector is the
sum (FR + Fa) a nd d if-
ference (F R- Fa) of the two
inputs. When t he two input
frequenci es are equal. FR
- Fa = 0 and the output
of the phase detector con-
tains a dc component. The
low-pass filter rejects the
sum frequency and passes
the dc compone nt. The dc
component in turn controls
t he vo l t a ge- c o nt ro ll e d
oscill ator (vco) output fre-
quency to keep it the sa me
as the input frequency, FR
For examp le. if Fa t ries to
inc rease above FR, the dc
component cha nges in such
a way as to decrease Fa; if
Fa tries to decrease below
FR, the dc component
cha nges in such a way as to
increase FQ. The preceding
expl anation is for a very
simple phase-locked loop
where Fa =FR. lf you need
Fa to be greater than FR,
t he n the circuit of Fi g. 2 can
be used.
wanted to QSY up 10 kHz
to avoid QRM, but I didn't
know whether I was going
up 10 kHz or 20 kHz. Worse
yet, I could go down 20 kHz
when switching from chan-
nel 23 to cha nnel 24. I made
up a chart of frequencies
vs. cha nnels. but it was di f-
ficult to read while driving
along the freeway at 55.
Clearly, there had to be a
better way. and I think I
found it. By replacing the
4O-channel selector switch
with a binary-coded deci-
ma l (BCD) thumbwheel
switch, the above problems
were e liminated and, as a
bonus. if the crystal fre-
quencies are se lected ri ght,
the switch reads out the ac-
tual operating freque ncy.
Another change I made
was to replace a zener-
diode voltage-regulator cir-
cuit with a 723 voltage reg-
ulator. This was to prevent
a slight frequency shift
caused by the input voltage
changing. This change was
made only on the Midland,
as the other two ri gs did not
exhibit t he pr obl em. It
would be a good idea to
check your rig out in your
ca r to see if you have a
problem before maki ng this
change. It may not be need-
ed.
The last change I made
was to inc rease the output
power. After about ten
months of operati ng on 10
mete rs, I found the output
power to be less t han 5
Watts. By di sabling the
Photo B. This shows the placement of the 723 voltage regulator in the Midland.
Fig. 4. BCD-to-dec ima l conversion for 1 digit.
o c
" .
,
"
2' 2'
"
PO wER Of' ~
" .
,
,
ACW",- \IO. LlI " .
, ,..
" .
, , ,..
c c c o o e
0 ._ o.a
"'
0 0
o .,
c
"
,
c o e
, ,,
o.a
"
'"
c
,
,
, , ,
..
... r.a
o , 0 .0 a
o
,
o
"
,
c.e
0._
"
"
O' 0
,
,
,
'"
c c o o e
... o a
c r
" .
,
,
OECIMAL
COOE
o o o e
.. .c a
"
,..
, .,
e
EOUIVALENT
c c oe
...
"
"
, ..
,
,
c .. I.-
"
"
,,,
,
,
c c c
'"
0.4 ca o r
..,
c
.,
c c
"
0 ._ o.z
"
.. ,
, .,
,
4lL OTHER VALUES ARE F O R O O E ~
DIVISOR
" '00
326
for channel 1 through BCD
135 for cha nne l 40. The se-
lector switch ski ps over
BCD 94. 99. 104, 109. and
114. It al so skips over BCD
118 and 119, but it t he n re-
inserts t hem after BCD 120.
A close examination of a
frequency a llocation chart
for t he CB band will show
whic h fr eq uenci e s t hese
represent.
To get all t he frequency
channe ls, and to get t hem
in t he correct order, I re-
pl aced t he 4D-channel se-
lector switch with a 3-digit
BCD thumbwheel swi tc h.
The switc hes I selected are
back- lighted, whic h is very
handy for night o pe ration. I
bo ught my switc hes from
MHz El ectr onics, 2111 W.
Camelback Road, Phoenix
AZ 85015, They sol d fo r
$2.00 a sect ion, at t he time,
and you wi ll need 3 sec-
tions. The lamps are +5 V,
so wi re t hem in se ries and
use + 12 V fo r lamp excita-
tio n. Make sure t he switch-
es you use are of t he 10-
posit io n BCD type.
These ri gs st art at BCD 91
fo r t he lowest cha nnel, but
t he re is no reason why you
have to start there, In fact,
if you start at BCD 50 fo r
28.50 MHz, t hen the BCD
switch will read t he actual
operat ing frequency. The
right-hand switc h changes
t he o pe rating freq uency in
1D-k Hz ste ps from 0 to 90
kHz; t he midd le switch
changes t he operati ng fre-
quency in 1OQ-kHz steps
from 0 to 900 kHz; the left-
ha nd switch changes t he
c.
INPUT
0001 =91
o 0 0 0 = 100
0 1 10 =326
1 0 0 1
o 0 0 0
o 0 1 0
o 0
o ,
1 ,
UPD858C
MSD '" MOST SIGNIFICANT DIGIT
LSD ", LEAST SIGNIFICANT DIGIT
MSD L SD
~ - , ,
22 ar 20 rs
" " "
"
"
" ae
,.
20 2C
"
2A ,. ,e
" "
'"
conversion, you will need a
copy of t he maintenance
manua l or Sa ms Photo-
fect'" for your rig. The Sams
Photofact for each of the
three rigs is avail able.
Fig. 6(a). Original regulat or
circuit.
t
" ''f{
' ..
,"
.-
'"
.-
II. " 1110 "
'"'
-
,
".
.-
..,
,
.00' ._
.-
'''0''
.....OUTS A"[ 00" T><[ TO-5
'"
Fig, 6(b). The 723 regulat or circui t.
pre settable c ha nne l 9
switc h. The frequenc y
range of the newer Gra nt
ca n not be extended be-
cause the PLL IC has built-i n
sa feguards to prevent this. I
can not be certain that the
manufa cturer will not
change the other rigs in the
same way. Make sure the
rig you get for conve rsion
uses a UPD858 in the phase-
locked loop.
Circuit Details of the
Changes
Before attempting this
a lmost the same.
The Midland a lso ha s an
e ncl ose d metal box t o
shield the Pll circuitry,
whereas the other two have
only a metal st rip on the PC
board for a shield. The front
panels a nd swi tc hes a re
al so different for all three
of the rigs. The Midland was
t he only rig modified to put
the switch on the fron t
panel. On the ot her two
rigs, t he switch was mount-
ed external to the rig. If you
have a Grant or 138XLR and
wish to mount the switch on
the front panel , be sure the
swi tch clears everything
before cutting any holes. I
ha ve not done thi s a nd do
not know if it will fit, but
there should be no prob-
lem.
After I had converted the
Gra nt, I found that the new-
er Grants on the market do
not use the UPD858 IC in
the phase-locked loop. This
new model can be ident i-
fied by the fact t hat it has a
o pe ra t ing freq uency in
1.OoMHz steps from 28 MHz
to 29 MHz. The left-hand
switch is restr icted to t his
range because t hat is all
that is needed for f Orneter
operation. In fact, all the
even number pos itions on
the left-hand switch will
give an operating freque n-
cy from 28.0 MHz to 28.99
MHz and all the odd num-
ber pos itions will give an
operating frequency from
29.00 MHz to 29.99 MHz.
This is because only t he
least si gnificant bit of t his
switch is wired up.
To cha nge in 5-kHz steps,
a two-pos ition switch is re-
quired to switch between
t he two crystal oscil lators.
Since there will be no LSB
operation after t he ri g is
modif ied, you can use the
mode swi tch to give t he
5-kHz steps. After the con-
version, the AM position
wi ll give AM operation in
100kHz steps. The USB posi-
tion wi ll give USBoperation
in 1Q.kHz steps and the LSB
pos ition will give USB op-
eration in 1D-kHz steps, but
5 kHz below the USB fre-
quencies.
To ac comp lis h t hi s,
change t he LSB crystal to
11 .934167 MHz, change the
USB crysta l to 11 .935833
MHz, and the AM crystal to
11.933333 MHz. The crystal
oscillators are followed by
a frequency tr tpler.
The Differences in the Rigs
The ci rcuit boards for all
three of these rigs are made
by t he Uniden Company.
The PC board layout is iden-
tical for t he Preside nt Grant
and the Cobra 138XLR, but
they may not use t he same
components. The Midland
ha s a different PC board
layout, but t he sc hematics
for the three rigs are ide nti-
cal except for a few minor
differences. The compo-
nent reference des ignators
fo r the Grant a nd t he
138XLR are the same, but in
the Midland t hey are num-
be red diffe rently even
though t he sche mat ics are
73 Magazine JuIY, 1980 111
Photo D, Arrows point to the two coils (L28 and L29) in the President Grant in which the
turns were spread apart. /n the Midland, the turns of L5 and L6 should be spread in the
same wa y.
Fig. 7. Cr vstst-oscntesor schematic.
fo r the lSB position,
11.935833 MHz for t he USB
posit io n, and 11 .933333
MHz for t he AM position.
The Midland uses solder
leads on the crystals,
whereas the ot he r two rigs
use plug-in crystals.
The crysta ls are avail able
from Jan Crystal Co.. 2400
Crystal Drive, Fort Myers Fl
33901. Order the CB-type
crystals with a tolerance of
+0.0025% . They were
priced at $3.50 each for
fewer than 10, or $3.25 each
for 10 or more, in the 1978
catalog numbered 21 .
O rde r t he HC-18-type
holder for the Midland
79-893 and the HC-2S-type
holder for the President
Grant and Cobra 138Xl R.
When ordering, incl ude the
following information on
the rig: manuf a c t urer ' s
name, model , crystal fre-
quency, holder type, and a
copy of Fig. 7 to ensure that
the crystal is cut properly.
Note that the Sams
Photofect for Midland uses
the same refe rence desig-
nators for parts inside the
Pll and pa rts on the chas-
sis. To avoid the confusion
of this duplication, the
Midland maintena nce man-
ual adds SOD to each of the
reference designators in t he
phase-locked loop. I will
follow this practice also, so
each of t he parts refe rred to
in the phase-locked loop
will be numbered between
501 and 599.
The Pl. L is enclosed in-
side a shielded box which
must be removed from the
PC board before t he crys-
tals can be replaced. Mark
and remove the wires from
the shie lded box feed-
throughs . Unsolder the
shielded box tabs from the
bottom of the PC board.
The tabs must be complete-
ly clean of solder and flux
before the box can be re-
moved. Once the box is
free . the wires to the
4D-pos ition swi tch can be
disconnected from the
switch. Use t hese wires to
connect to the new switch.
Phase-Locked loop Change
To accompl ish t hese
changes, you will need new
crystals. The frequencies re-
quired are 11.934167 MHz
insulated with black e lectri-
cal tape.
Clarifier Change
Remove 024 (152473)
and save it for late r use. lift
t he end of R61 (1OD Ohms)
that connects to the + 9.2-V
bus that originates at 039.
Connect the loose end of
R61 to the +9.2-V bus that
originates at pin 6 of the
723 regulator just added. If
the regulator wasn't added,
connect the loose end of
R61 to the + 9.2-V bus t hat
originates at 032.
Output Power Change
Remove 033 (152473)
and save it for later use.
Spread the turns of l5 and
l6 apart. The spreading dis-
tance is not critical . Re-
move one turn from l7.
1--.' OUT
auencv of your rig does not
change with varying input
voltage in your instaJlation,
this change is not needed.
Remove 032 (CZ092) and
R106 (56-0hm, 1 W) shown
in Fig. 6(a). Add the 723 volt-
age-regulator circuit shown
in Fig. 6(b). Mount the parts
on a small piece of perfor-
ated epoxy board and at-
tach to the PC board with
short jumper wires . My reg-
ulator is suspended above
the chassis by the leads and
1 0000.'
r
r
'0 66 VDC.
' OC
'000, '
)lSC
" I
L,w,
" 00'
".
."
i :.e '
" .
0'.' ".
".
..
...
...
"
,.
I will first describe the
changes for the Midland,
then I will describe those
for the Grant and the
138XlR. The actual circuit
changes for all three rigs
are the same, but the man-
ner in which they are ac-
complished and the refer-
ence designators are differ-
ent for the Midland.
MIDLAND 79-893
CONVERSION
voltage Regulator Change
Note: If the operating fre-
112 73 Magazine ' July, 1980
TO ' 1, Oll
"
t he photograph of the front
of the rig (Photo A), you will
no ti ce some di ff erences
t ha t ha ve n't been ex-
plained. I will describe
these changes briefly but
will not go into detail since
they are not required to
make the ri g operate on 10
meters. They are easy to im-
plement if you wish to in-
corporate them.
There are t hree toggle
switches, one for tone, one
for CB/PA, and one for
noise blanker on or off . I
otOfuDn.1
1st."
csn
'"
IStH'
ca
".l
,
.RO.. ..
..,
m
S40'.u
Fig. 10. PLL wiring for AM_
73 Magazine. J uly, 1980 113
Fig. 9. PLL wiring for LSB.
."
AM Change
Ad d th e r e marni ng
152473 diode in se ries with
the blue wire going to C541
on the phase-locked loop
shield. Attach t he cathode
to C541 and the blue wire to
t he anode. Remove the
cat hode of 043 from S403A
and connect it to C541.
Connect a wire between II
and D43 anode as shown in
Fig. l0.
This completes the wir-
ing changes for the Mid-
land . However, if you st udy
Fig. 8. PLL-to-BCD swit ch wiring.
IIVSSCOCOO , .
.. ,
RIGHT
TO "t
,
' . CI" <;
..
0 ' SIOI TC"
"
8
I I
"
,
,
......
...::::::
/lCO S. Ilc..
"
UO SlCTIO..
"
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,
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,
,
types of SSB CB transceiv-
e rs, whether the y use crvs-
tal-plex or synt hesized c ir-
cuits f or frequency genera-
tion. Instead of having 23
(or 40) chan nels spread at
1D-kHz i ntervals, you' ll wi nd
up wit h 46 (or 80) chan-
nels at about a 5-kHz spac-
ing. And, if you modify the
Fig. 1.
-----j.
I -',
_ \1511 --. '
I \
I \,
i .
,
. ... I YS8
I
I
-
DES' RED I
lU I US8
I
n t he course of convert-
ing seve ra l diff er ent
types of SS B CB ri gs for
1D-meter amateur use, I' ve
come up with a simple, no-
cost modif icat ion whi ch
wil l double the number of
channels available on these
rigs. The idea seems to be
applicable to almost all
122 73 Magazine. July, 1980
-
Grunt
PO Box 6J8
W, Yarmouth MA 0]673
CB to 10
- part xxx: the Midland 13-866
Mo[ THOD " 2
"---. 000 "'PER
..... '1 LEAD
TO OSC
" 'UlI<OIl '"
_ODED TO
t ioning, back out the slug
on T6 until the c ucutt fires.
With TR6 oscill at ing. yo u
now ca n proceed with t he
tune-up pr oced ure
Connect a signal genera-
tor through a ,01-uF ca paci-
tor to the base of TR17.
Ground the generator to
c hass is ground, not the
case. With t he set on cha n-
ne l t S, (23 if you are insta ll -
ing the 15-MHz crystals as
well). inject a 29.11 5-MHz
signal with 1000 Hz, 30%
mod ulation (29.255 MHz
for channel 23). Adjust T1 2,
T13, T14, and 115 for max-
tmurn recei ver output.
Key the transmitt er into a
dummy load with a watt-
meter connected and tu ne
T1 t hrough 19 for maximum
rf output . The relative out-
put function of the S-mete r
may be used for th is init ial
tune-up. Then peak C24 and
l 5 for maximum power out-
put. At t his point , you
shou ld have about 2- to 2.5-
Watts o utput. The value of
the tank co ils in these sets
varies greatly. a nd it ma y be
found t hat maximum power
output occurs when the l S
slug IS all t he way out. If this
is the case, replace C22
(1SD-pF capacitor) With a
lQO-pF ce ramic di sc. This
will a ll ow the co il to tune
over its mid-range a nd in-
crease power output t o
about 5 to 6 Watts. Modula-
25.440. 25.490. 25.540
Changing these crystals is
simple r on an initial conver-
sia n because thei r fu n
damental range is only 8
MHz. a nd they a re fa r
easier to work wit h than
fundamental 16 MHz crys-
tals. In addition, it is possi-
ble to add 24 more chan-
nels to t he synt hes izer ci r-
cuit by use of a 4PDT
switc h and four more crys-
tal s. Frequencies needed
a re: 15.220. 15.230. 15.240.
a nd 15 250 MHz . which a re
stock items at most crysta l
houses, and range in price
from $3.50 to $6.00 each (so
sho p ar ound).
Act ivating the cha nnel
24 posit ion can be accom-
pl ished by lo ca t ing the
white wi re comi ng from the
selector switch and going to
TR6. Us ing a piece of
hookup wi re. as diagramed,
or a spare wiper from an old
rot a ry switch, so lde r it to
t his terminal in such a way
that it makes contact wit h
the switc h when the defeat
c ut in the switc h meets the
nor mal wiper . (Refer t o Fig.
1.)
Instal l t he new 25-MHz
crystal s in place of t he ones
removed from the c ircuit
board. Apply power to the
set, and wi t h a frequency
counte r check for oscil la-
tion at t he collector of TR6.
If t he oscillator is not func-
fRO..
c.. ..El
S IO I1C..
T SlOne"
ftlVE
nAC_
ORANGE
'0
TO ..
10 C!lYSTAl
load to request IS about 22
pF cut for third overtone
operat ion. There are two
met hods of approaching
t his chassis. but changing
t he 2J MHz c rystal s is
recommended . The for-
mula is simple: Jus! add 2
MHz to the exi st ing
crys ta ls,
The crystals required are:
25.290, 25 .340, 25 .390,
I
0
0
0
I
0
,
I I I I
LT
- 0
0
..,
Fig. 2. Adding 24 extra channels to the Midland
13-<J66.
Fig. 1. Two methods o f activating position 24 on the
channel selector.
T
he basic applications
of thi s conve rsio n will
apply to most CBchassis us-
ing the 23-MHz series of
crystal s. The chief d iffic ulty
wi th t his radi o, whic h uses
no crystal trimmers, i s to
f igure the pF load for the
crystal s needed. The load
of the circuit is about 58-60
pf , but since the crystals
are t hir d-overtone cut, t he
1"
..,
"
rc
I
lU" {R
L
C'. CU1 T
r
1# ......0 0"
, __L, .. rU __
t Ilt: {; JO/<-
,
,
,
"
R
ece nt ly increasing FM
acti vity on 10 meters
between 29.5 and 29.7
MHz has led me to in-
vestigate methods of get-
ti ng on t his i nteresting
42
Fig. 3. Typica/6-MHz vfo.
"
20 . '
)1
ranee at first and then in-
creasing them if necessary.
Examination of your partic-
ular vfo ci rcuit should
reveal where to attach t he
va ractor ci rcuit and rough-
ly how big C2 should be.
Refe rences 1 t hrough 4
show numerous different
types of osc illators and
simila r methods of FMing
th em. As a rough gu ide in
setti ng up your c ircuit,
determi ne how much dc
voltage is needed on t he
veractor to shift your osci l-
lator by plus and min us 5
kHz; you can check the fre-
quency shift using a receiv-
er with a bfo and an ac-
curately calibrated dial.
The value of de voltage
thus determined will then
be approx.imately the peak
leve l of a udio voltage
you'll need. One of the
nice t hings about FM is
t hat practica ll y no power
(only voltage) is necessary
for t he freque ncy modul e-
tor. I wound up with plenty
of deviation to spare.
Alt hough thi s la sh-up
worked on the fi rst tr y, who
would want a tape record-
e r patch cord hanging out
of t he bottom of t he ri g
permanent ly? So, a way of
43
L ,
210 . '
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a uD,O
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IDC B'aS
ADJUST!
".
BACKl
.M
---
m
---
---
2
1
co 1_
c
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t
<-
l
.'
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Fig. 4. Varactor frequency modulator circui t. Varactor part
numbers: 1. Motorola HEP-R2503 (20-pF nominaf capaci-
tance); 2. Motorola MV2205 or MV2209 (s wing 15 to 60
pFj; 3. Motorofa MV839; 4. Amperex H4A/l N4885.
receivers have "de-empha-
sis" circuits built in, which
roll off the audio frequen-
cy response at the high
end. Such a ci rcuit is in-
tended to complement
(cancel out) the opposite
kind of ci rcuit built into
FM t ra ns mitte rs, " p re-
emphas is," which boos ts
t he hi gher audio frequen-
cies . This scheme is used to
enhance t he overa ll signa l-
to-noise ratio of an FM sys-
tem by boosting t he highs
on transmi t and cutt ing
them on rece ive. I don't
pretend t hat a sufficient ly
small value of coupling
capacitor will produce ex-
actly the right amount of
pre-emphasis, but it does
the job and produces
pleasant audio quality on
FM receivers.
You'll also have to de-
cide what value to use for
capac itor C2 in Fig. 4. If
this capacitor is too small ,
you won' t be a ble to get
enough deviation; if it's too
large, you' ll have too mu ch
devia t io n, a nd it ma y
th row your vfo way out of
calibration and/or load it
down excessively. I would
sugges t starti ng out with
sma ll va lues of capaci-
va ra e tor ' s pu rpose has
nothing to do wit h modula-
tion, though, and is used for
shifting the vfo's frequency
by about 3 kHz to offset
SSB carrier-oscillator shift
when switching from USB
to lSB. The varactor al -
ready has some de bias
voltage on it, so let's see
what happens when an
audio voltage is also ap-
plied. Remember, t hough,
t hat this technique is ap-
plicable to many different
kinds of t ransmi tters or
t ransceive rs, old or new,
CW, AM, or SS B, since th ey
a ll have osc il lator(s) whic h
can be frequency modu-
lated. The basic ide a is to
get just a bit of audio-
modulated capacitance in-
to a suitable point of a
variable or crysta l-con-
trolled oscillator tank cir-
cuit in order to frequency-
modulate it. For example,
since almost all SSB rigs
use frequency heterodyn-
ing stages, conceivably any
oscillator in the chain (vfo
or crystal) could be FMed
by the va ractor ci rcuit. (If
you 're a Yaesu FT-101
owner, see Reference 5.)
Fig. 4 shows t he actual
va ractor freque ncy modu-
la to r ci rcuit used. Point Bis
where t he varactor ci rcuit
is connected to t he vfo of
Fig. 3. The audio signal is
applied at point A of the
va ractor ci rcuit, Fig. 4, as
before. For a source of
audio, I first used an inex-
pensive cassette tape re-
corder and microphone.
The recorder's speaker out-
put was connected to the
va raetor circuit at point A
of Fig. 4. It worked! How-
ever, t he first few QSOs
revealed that the audio
quality was bassy and muf-
fled. The audio coupling
capacitor, C3, then was
made smaller until accept-
able audio qua lity resulted;
the final value of C3 in my
particular applicat ion was
270 pF.
Actually, some of the
bassy audio quality res ults
from the fact that most FM
the power supply. Chang-
ing t he applied dc voltage
sh ifts t he varactor's
capacitance as pe r the
curve in Fig. 1.
Now, if the varactor cir-
cuit were connected to the
tuned lC circuit of an oscil-
lator, then the varactor's
changing capacitance
would shift the oscillator' s
frequency a ce rtain
amount, by addi ng or sub-
tract ing from t he total
tank ci rcuit capaci tance.
l et' s take t hi s idea one step
fur the r. Suppose t hat we
now apply an aud io (ac)
voltage to the va ractor ci r-
cu it at point A of Fig. 2,
through t he coupling ca-
pac itor, C3. The va ractor
would then cha nge its
capacitance in step wit h
the applied audio voltage.
With the varactor con-
nected to an oscillator's
tank circuit, the oscillator's
frequency would once
again be shifted, but thi s
time the frequency shift
would be in step wit h the
applied audio voltage .
Hence, we wou ld have fre-
que ncy modu lation of t he
osci llator.
You may wonder why we
cont inue to apply de volt-
age to t he varaetor a long
wit h t he audio voltage. A
look at Fig. 1 shows that
t he va ra e t or ' s vo ltage-
capacitance characteristic
is linear (straight) only in
the center of its curve.
That's the part of the curve
which we want to use for
our frequency modulation
scheme, swinging the var-
actor's capacitance up-
ward and downward from
the center of this linear
re gio n with our audio
(modulating) voltage, to
achieve linear frequency
mod ulation. The adj us t-
able dc bias is used to
pl ace us at t he cent er of
the linear portion of the
curve.
My pa rt icul ar rig a lready
has a va raetor in its vfo
tank ci rcui t (as shown in
Figs. 3 and 4), which is
typical of vfo circuits . The
FM signal is indistinguish-
able from the sidebands of
an AM signal. fM and AM
signa ls thus considered dif-
fer only in that the fM
sidebands and carrie r are
90 out of phase with one
another, whereas the AM
side band and carri er are in
phase with each other. fur-
ther, for narrowband fM,
both the first pair of fM
side bands and the AM side-
bands o ccupy approxi -
mately the same band-
width when using equal
modu lating signals. By re-
ceiving a n fM signal on a n
SSB receiver with its bfo
operating (vexalted-carrier"
reception), you can replace
the f M signal's 90 phase-
shift ed carrier with the bfo
carrier (which is not 90
shifted). This provides an
"equiva le nt" AM signa l for
our adjustment purposes!
What about the recep-
tion of FM signals? Slope-
detection in the AM mode
works OK on most receiv-
ers by tuning off to one
side of the FM signal; use
the broadcast se lectivity
available. Ironically, the
steeper the sides of the AM
receiver's se lect ivity char-
acteristics are, the harder it
is to slope-detect an fM
s ig na l. Unfo rtunately,
slope-detection doesn't
provide any of the fM re-
ception advantage s-
quieting and impul se noi se
rejection, for example. I
presently use two different
methods for true fM recep-
tion.
First method: The main
station receiver here is a
Hallicrafters SX-101A. This
receiver has a double-con-
version i-f strip, with a first
i-f frequency of 1650 kHz.
Also at hand is a Ham-
mar lund FM-50A VHf-FM
t ransceiver that has a
l65Q-kHz second i-f fre-
quency. To use the SX-
l Ol A as a tu neable front
end for the fM-50A's FM i-f
strip, make these changes:
f irst, remove the SX-101A's
second mixer tube (V5, a
6BA6) and insert a short
to 5 kHz deviation- so-
ca lle d na rrowband FM.
First, you can roughly se t
your deviation based on
signa l reports from other
FM operators. However,
since each FM recei ver will
have somewhat diff erent
t olerances t o over-de-
viated signa ls, you may get
inconsi stent observat ions.
Generally speaking, your
audio should sound about
as " loud" (have as much
deviation) as most other
FM signals on the air, but
no greater. Excessive de-
viat ion will sound gross ly
distorted and can cause
splatter.
For dev iat ion adju st-
ment purposes, you also
can use the fo llowing tech-
nique: Set FMdeviation us-
ing an SSB receiver, by tun-
ing the FM signa l for zero
beat, with no modulat ion
a pplied. Then, whi le li sten-
ing to the FM signal, modu-
late the FM transmitter
normally and advance its
deviation cont rol (micro-
phone gain) until the si gna l
thus received becomes
grossly distorted; back off
on the deviation control
unti l t he signa l becomes
clean agai n. Use the widest
ava ilable se lect ivity set-
ting on the SS Breceiver for
making th is adj ustment.
For example, a 5-k Hz-wide
receiver would indi cate
roughly the 5 kHz devia-
tion limit.
For practice, you might
try listening to FM signals
on the air , to get an idea of
what a narrowband FM sig-
nal sounds like on your par-
ticular SSB recei ver; a re-
peater output would prob-
ably be a good bet to be
properly adjusted. Note,
however, that an FM signal
thus detected will obvious-
ly not be demodulated
properly (it will probably
sou nd garbled), but the
onse t of distor tion caused
by excessive deviation wi ll
be clearly audible.
The theory behind this
technique is that the first
pair of FM sidebands of an
)
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o-
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TltTOII
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li kel y to be less t han the
rated CW input and equal
to the RTTY or SSTV rat-
ings, as we certain ly don't
want to overst ress the final
amplifier or power supply.
After tu ne-up, flip Sl to FM
and se t the microphone
gain for the desired
amount of deviation. I hap-
pen to use an outboard
s p e ec h processor (a f
compressor/cl ipper/low-
pass filter combination) in-
tended for SSB use on FM,
too-it keeps the average
deviation level (analogous
to modulation percentage)
high, prevents over-de-
viation, and crispens up the
audio somewhat.
Some questions remai n,
though, about the opera-
tion of an FM transmitter:
How much deviation is per-
missible, and how do you
correct ly ad just you r FM
trans mitter for it? Well ,
most FM activity is limited
7 t U STAL
Fig. 6.
..
-
COE VI4T+OOI
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Fig. 5. Typ ical speech amplifier circuit.
J --
.,'
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SO'UtH
7/8"
CJ CD c::J
14 2 1/2" .1
2. PCboard/oil diagram/ or vCXO mod. on board foil. score bt'twn ucrions ....ith an X-(leto
is commonly used), and a 10pF load capaci-
tance. Bothwere HC- IS/Vstyle holders with
wire leads from Marden Electronics Compa-
ny, Inc. (PH: SOO-222-6093) . Even with 5-
day .. rush shipping," the cost was pretty
reasonable, and I' ve had good luck with crys-
tals from them. As it turned out, under identi-
cal conditions. I got 300 Hz more swing from
the 10 pF crystal (3. 9 instead of 3.6 kHz) and.
since it would oscillate higher in frequency. I
could tune it above and below the desired
center frequency. With a 32 pF crystal, all or
most of my range would be belowthe desired
center frequency. .
The Varactor
I used a veractor diode in series with a .001
mF cap in place of where the trimmer cap
would go to make the oscillator vol tage-
tuned. A crystal will block DC, so the .001
mFcap may seemunnecessary, but I prefer to
use it anyway to prevent applying DCtuning
voltage to the crystal.
I tried several different varactor diodes in
the circuit to see which would give me the
most frequency swing over a 0.0-12.0 volt
range. and the best was the varactor diode
that was used to modulate the 1.7-I.S MHz
RF carrier of an old Radio Shack cordless
phone base unit.
Parts List
Voltage- Tuned Crystal Oscillator
MPfl02 FET
2N2222A NPN
MV-209 verecoe Diode
lN4148
10.32625 MHz Crystal,
10 pF Load Capacilance
10 ... H Coil
100 IolH Coil
0001 IolF CapaCItor
25 pF Capacitor
.01 IolF Capacitor
100 pF Capacitor
l 00kO 1/4 Watt Resistor
3900 V. Walt Resistor
47kO V. Watt Resistor
4.7kO V. Wall Resistor
4700 v. Watt Resistor
50110 Tuning
Potentiometer,
Linear Tapel"
One 2Vz - \. pece 01 pnnted
circuit board
Two2Vz' '4 ' pieces of double-sided
printed circuit board
Two .,. V.' pieces of printecl
circuit board
L1
L2,L3.l4
C1.C2
C3.C4
C5.C7
C6.C8
Rl ,R2
A3
A'
AS
A6
A7
0 '
02
0'
D2
XlAL
Crystals
I ordered two crystals of the same frequen-
cy-a 32 pF load capacitance (which is what
working right (the frequency swing that I
desired and sufficient output level ), I in-
stalled it in the rad io for the final test .
Figure 1 is the schematic of the VCXO
mod . Figure 2 shows the etching pattern of
the board. This can be " etched" wit h a ruler
and an x-aoo knife , or with a Dremel tool
with a broken drill bit used as a router (my
method) . Figure 3 shows the pans placement
on the board. Note that at the four sides of the
board are strips of PC board soldered to join
together the top and bottom ground planes of
the double-sided printed circuit board. Photo
A shows the completed oscillator-buffer in-
stalled in the converted CB transceiver . It
may be necessary to put electricaltape on the
bottom of the circuit board to prevent it from
shorting anything out.
It is always good to fi rst consult a reliable
reference book when you are setting out to
make a mod. Even if you don't find exactly
what you are looki ng for, you may find some-
thing that does most of what you want, there-
by making your j ob simpler. As my starting
point. I looked under " VXO circuits" in the
1987 ARRL Handbook . ( I believe that every-
one who experiments with RFcircuits should
own a recent copy of the ARRL Handbook . )
Included are "practical examples of crystal-
controlled oscillators that can be frequency
trimmed. "
SuPPLy
-'- ," .. , .+-L
u 01 :if- IOZ I
u ---, , CI
I, I
IQ. n l OO
i 1O.3lJOO
WIO U . ,O
a
lO u c oo
l lOSUOO
B
" =10uno
SIO SUOO
lO u no
"
10 1 0 s o 4.0 ' 0 eo 10 . 0 ' 0 100
''0 "
"""'W(; _'. Gll_nl
Figure 3. Parts ptocement for the VCXOmod.
44 73 Amateur Radio March, 1989
4. VCXOfrequency ou/pur versus
luning rtlnge. It is a wry linear function.
A Motorola MV-209 varactor diode turned
out to be almost as good. Thi s is rated to up to
30. 0 volts maximum. The diode is reverse-
biased in operation. As the tuning voltage
increases so does its capacitance, which in
turn decreases the oscillator' s frequency. If
you wish to go up in frequency as you turn the
fine-tuning (or clarifier) knob clockwise, you
must wire the potentiometer up so that as you
turn it the tuning voltage to the varactor diode
decreases.
I experimented with the value of Ll un-
til I got the most frequency swing with-
out losi ng the crystal stability (this is ob-
vious when monitoring the oscillator's output
with a frequency count er, as the oscillator
frequency will suddenly take off). Ll adds
about 400 to 500 Hz additional frequency
swmg.
The IN41 48 diode (02) limits the ampli-
tude of the RF at the gate of QI . While this
does decrease the output level of the oscilla-
tor, it allows approximately I kHz more
swing than without it (3.9 instead of 2.9
kHz).
Which Coil?
The coil ( U) in the source ci rcuit ofQI can
be anything from 100 to I m j-l . A 5600
resistor there in place of a coil will result inan
output with much less harmonic content
(great. if you are interested in only the crys-
tal ' s fundamental frequency). Any coil with-
in the above range will give a slightly better
frequency swing than the resistor .
Capacitors C3 and C4 are inseries with LI.
the crystal, C2. and the varactor tuning
diode . Since in a series circuit the total
capacitance will not be any larger than the
smallest capacitance, C3 and C4 should be as
large as possible, which allows the varectcr
diode to be the domi nant influence on the
frequency of the oscillator. The other limita-
tion on the values of C3 and C4 is that, since
any kind of trimmer capacitor across the
crystal would limit the frequency swing ofthe
oscillator . they together tune the crystal to the
desired center frequency . When using the
Colpitts crystal oscillator, I prefer to keep
both feedback capacitor values the same. al-
though many other places specify that the
"bottom" (source-ground) capaci tor be 3
times the value of the "top" (gate-source)
capacitor.
In Praise (If Buffers
I built a buffer stage to foll ow the oscilla-
tor. When working with oscillators for RF, I
recommend always building a buffer stage .
The cost of the extra transistor and pans is
next to nothing. and you can use the buffe r
stage to really build up the level of your signal
and also to filter out unwanted harmonics.
The buffer stage also serves as a constant load
forthe oscillator. This way, all the oscillator
has to do is oscillate. which is very important
if you are trying 10 optimize it for something,
such as for maximum frequency swing.
When I installed the oscillator in the radio. I
took out L4 and instead wired into the circui t
the tuned RF transformer for the offset oscil-
lator stage.
You can tune the buffer stage output by
adding a trimmer cap. CTRIM. from the col -
lector of Q2 to ground, which will resonate
with L4. The same thing could be done with a
tr immer cap from the drain ofQl to grou nd,
which will resonate with L3. At 12.0 volts,
QI draws less than 0.5 rnA. and Q2 draws 28
rnA.
The osctllatot's frequency output over the
voltage tuning range is quite linear, as the
chan (Figure 4) shows. Your "fine-ume" or
clarifier potentiometer must be a linear type.
however, as using an audio taper type will
cause all of your range to be alone end of the
dial.
Ultimately , with all of the experimenta-
tion. I was able to get 5.04 kHz of frequency
swing out of the oscillator at the crystal's
fundament al frequency.
Finis
During my convers ion and troubl eshoot ing
I tested the rig in the AM mode with the PIT
line keyed on and. with no modulation ap-
plied, measured all my frequencies on all my
channels. A 10 meter SSBon-the-air test with
my converted unit showed the conversion to
be working fine.
So, there it is- a fun and cheap way to get a
channelized CB on 10 meters. This band will
be hot over the next few years, so I hope this
mod will help you get in there and make good
useof it!fJI
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46 73 Amateur Radio - March. 1989
CI E
C1t,..,14nJ ,i Eire""...",
1176 u.. I,m s . OhIO -HII.
I ,un' ,,, K<'f " ..,.,j. Sc-nJ nw m, CIE ",l\0oi
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------. -. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dave Brown W9CGI
RR 5, ~ J9
Noblesvme IN 46060
CB to 6
- convert a 49-MHz HT into something
D
o you need an inex-
pensi ve means of
communications? Whether
you hunt, fish, put up anten-
nas, go to hamfests, or just
have a need now and then
for a wir el ess telephone, I
think I have jus t the an swer
for you.
If you have ever owned
o r listened to the "toy" vari-
ety l00-mW CB handle-
talkies, most of which were
o n channel 14, you prob-
ably will agree that they are
worthl ess for doing much of
anyt hing- incl ud ing mon-
itoring channel 14! Well ,
great new t hings have hap-
pened in the CB handie-
t alkie 49-MHz band.
I purchased from Radio
Shack a pai r of Archer
tra nsceivers, c a ta log
number 60-4001, with bat-
t eri es, for just under $1 7.
Tha t wa s ju st bef ore
Thanksgiving, 1978. While
these are not kW transmit-
ters (5O-mW rat ed, Y4 -mile
range), at least they are
cryst al cont ro ll e d! The
recei vers are not multi-co n-
ve rsio n mas te r p ieces
Isuperregenerative de te e-
148 73 MagaZine . June, 1980
tors), but they are more
than adequate. Now fo r the
bad news-and why I per-
sonali zed mine.
First of all, the unit has
no squelch. Being used to
the se re ne sile nc e o f
2-meter FM, the " blowing"
noi se cont inua lly grindi ng
fort h from t he speaker was
going t o dri ve me banan as.
Next, t o add to the noise
pr obl em, t he re i s no
volu me cont rol . e ither!
Somethi ng had t o change
and fa st. Adding a squelch
to , a radio that has only
three tr ansistors and draws
20 mA on receive seemed a
bit much t hen (but open to
future thought), so I ad d-
ed the next best thing-a
volume bont rol. Less noi se
is not no no ise, but it beats
bunche s of no ise hands
down. The next quest ion
was where to put it.
If you have not looked at
these littl e rigs, by all
means do so. They are
much sma ller (5 Y4" x 2-
11/1 6" x 1-5/8") and lighter
(0.39 Ibs/1 77 g) than t heir
o l de r , bu lk y, a nti q ue
cbuuns o n channel 14. Real
shirt-pocket radio is here !
They even use a 2 inch
speaker/mi c for reasonabl e
quali ty sound. Not hi-fl. but
nice. Small is nice-but
crowded. There just was not
anywhere t o put a shaft-
t ype volume cont rol. rnirii a-
t ure, su b- miniat u re, o r
otherwise. Therefore, the
fol lowing compromise en-
sued.
I did find a corner down
under t he battery and foam
rubber battery pad where 1
could hide a small screw-
driver-type, mul ti-turn pot.
If you use a Bourns t ri mpot,
model 3006p1501 (500
Ohm). a nd fol low the drill-
ing diagram in Fig. 1, it just
fit s nicely. St art the hol e
wit h a #50 or smaller bit and
fi nish very slowly wit h a #25
(or so) bit to just clear a
sma ll -blade sc rewdriver.
Use Eastman 910 adhe-
sive (very fe wd rops) to hol d
the pot down in the corner
as shown- flus h with the
case side, front, and bot-
t om. This wil l leave the
pot ' s bra ss adj ust men t
sc rew aligned in the hole
you d ri lled, sticki ng o ut
about half t he t hickness of
t he case. This is fa r enough
to reach easily fo r adj ust-
ment, but no t far enough to
bump out of adjustment.
Follow the instructions in
Fig. 1, and you will do just
fine. I modi fi ed this part of
two transceivers in exactly
an hour, incl ud ing time
spent figuring out a place t o
put the pot, how to route
wires, etc. The tr impot is a
mul t i-turn unit, so you have
a nice s low c hange in
volume until you reach the
level you want. Have a
friend move out about 100
feet with o ne uni t and
transmit t o you whi le you
ad just the pot. You wi ll be
quite surprised at how low
-
,
,
ca n' t find the loot to have a
hand ie-tal kie as well. I
hope thi s can be the
answer to your personal-
ized radio needs. Get a
pair, and get a friend on.
While on the 49-MHz CB
band, they have to use t he
bu ilt-in antenna (it is nice
and short). but once t he
HTs a re moved to 6 meters,
a S/8-wave length loaded
antenna, or even a one- or
two-stage t ru nk-mounted
PA, would be legal. Now
let' s see, where can I fit in
a not he r jack for the anten-
na connector?
If you need any help,
jus t se nd an SASE, but thi s
one is so simple it should
be all done and running
before you know it. The
.(c I ofOLE
. . G . \!
. "'HT
TO .... o
r " U TE " C
'OOL TO 0"00l.
"00 "... ...,;.
" AOE . _
...E ......,;.
REtoOvEO
A__ --++--I
st rengt h meter by holding
the radio very ste ady, and
backi ng off on l2 a bit to
get t he 840-kHz inc rease in
frequency. The FCC sure ly
was nice when it moved
the new CB HTs right next
door to 6 meters (chuckle!).
That' s it-one ad justment
and one new crystal of the
KSS-T8B type. I'm sure t hat
any of t he crystal manufac-
turers ca n fix you up if you
send t he old cryst al and the
schemat ic along.
The re are many like me
who have jumped at t he
new multi-mode sy nt he-
sized rigs for 2-meter home
u se , p robably wit h a
c rys t a l ri g for the c a r
(unless you drag one rig
back a nd forth), and just
speaker wire going to the
NC contacts (when no male
plug from t he earphone is
inserted) to complete the
s pe a ke r function . The
center pin gets the aud io
when the plug is inserted. A
new wir e goe s from where
t he pink wire was, near the
PTT swi tch, to the jack's
common switc hing pole
(not the cas e or ground) to
route audi o, du ring re-
ceive, f rom the area of t he
PTT switch to eithe r the
speake r or earphone. This
way t he speake r operates
normally until an earphone
is plugged in.
Another addit ion was a
ta b-type be lt hook to give
hand s-off listeni ng abil it y
whil e working on antennas
or trotti ng around ham-
fes ts. It really goes hand-in-
hand with the earphone
mo d if ic a ti on. Be ve ry
careful with the mounting
hardware a nd its place-
ment, or you will e it her
sho rt out or break the PC
board wit h the uni t a ll
closed up.
The re st of the mod ifica-
tions reall y make it a ham
rad io, if you so choose . I
am st ill wa it ing for the
proper c rystal to arrive to
complete this one myself .
A big (too big, physically)
crys tal wa s tried on 50.7
MHz in its huge can-ty pe
hol der (HC-6). The radio
t un ed right up using a field-
If t he code key on t he HT
really produced A1 tele-
graphy t here might be a
benefit to keeping its func-
tion as is, but A2 is what
t hey make do wit h. It may
teach a few kids the code,
but for just about anything
else, it is worthless. The key
is a simple SPST leaf switch
formed by a leaf contact in
the case and a contact on
the board. Fig. 1 includes in-
st ructions so you can free it
up from its tone function
and put it to good use: to
short out the volume-con-
trol pot you just installed.
Voila! We now have a push-
to-receive switch for full
rece iver volume, without
having to stand for the full -
volume racket a ll t he time!
While I was a t it, I added
an earphone jack for per-
sona l listening with t he
transceiver cli pped down
on my belt. This may be
tough unless you ha ve a
female c hass is-mount min-
iature phone plug close to
the size of mine. I stole
mine from an ol d pocket
BC-band rad io, so I can' t
really help you wit h part
numbers. A lot of t he
similar jacks I have seen in
stores are just too deep be-
hind the pa nel to fit. l ook
around, and you' re sure to
fi nd somethi ng if you want
the addition badly enough
(and I did!).
It is wi red wi th t he pink
(1) Remove battery.
(2) Remove back cover sc rew.
(3) Squeeze lop and bottom 10 remove back cover.
(4) Remove the one screw holding t he board in pl ace.
(5) Remove and keep the blue jumper, A-B.
(6) OrilllffiO hole next to A.
en Solder new 6" leads inl o A and B and dress toward t he battery
compartment .
(8) Remove t he brown lead at C and place i n A -fold over and
solder t o A.
(9) Cui and remove t he foi l shown.
(10) Use blue jumper from B to swi tch pad X.
(11) Glue the pol in place and connect it to the added leads.
Shorten tne leads as required. Connect so t hat resi st ance de-
creases with clockwise rot ation of the pot screw.
(12) Dress the foam and cardboard back over the pot connections.
(13) Check lor lead dress clearance, solder bridges, et c.
(14) Temporarily hook up battery and check outt ne unit.
(1 5) Reverse steps 1 through 4 to re-assemble.
(16) Push t he code butt on for full volume.
Fig. 1. Volume control and ousb-to-recei ve mods.
73 Magazine " June, 1980 149
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rad ios use a common
9-volt t ransistor radi o bat-
tery avai lable about any-
where. wh ich is nice, and
there are even 9-volt nicad
batteries around in the
same physical packages
now. (Now let 's see. if I
throw out t he radi o PC
board, I'll have room for
one more jack for the
charger l) Seriously. since
50.7 MHz was once more
or less a standard spot for
AM mobil e/port abl e o pera-
tions. I would like to sug-
gest we all meet there. It
would make it nice for
hamfests and some QRP
fun. Any takers?
Anot her ham friend of
mine and I have contem-
plated buying another pair
of HTs and using the tele-
scoping antenna as a
gamma-type rod bui lt right
o nto a 3-e lemen t yagi
antenna. We would keep
the regular cases as spares
for the first pair of radios.
and build some kind of
waterproof case (PVC tub-
ing wit h end caps?) around
t he rad io, mou nting the
whole thing ri ght on the an-
tenna. We would then add
a resistor and zener in
place of the battery and a
small set of reed re lays for
T-R switch-over. send ing
the audio, switch-over con-
trol , and power up and
down a rotor-type cable. I
really think this use meets
the lette r. but not t he spirit.
of t he FCC regulatio ns on
" b uilt-in" antennas. so the
FCC can rel ax!
We are going to 50]
MHz before we try this
pa rt. 50 mW-wow! Any-
one who can suggest a
means of A1 keying a one-
tr ansistor rig like this
would find his co mme nts
welcomed by me, and if
you decide to join us on
"flea-power" radio. by all
means drop me a lette r or
card so we can listen for
you. At least it shouldn't be
a dull year on 6 meters.
Vil VA E S U
-.
V
SERVICE DEPT.
CALL
8033667158
tf ilIICOM!
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2305 CHERRY ROAD
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73
THE
GISMO
'GANG
150 73 Magazine . June. 1980
-
JalTl'l> L. Pilttenon DAlC) KB';U
PO 80\ III
APO Nt 09130
CB to Six
Why stop at 10 meters? KB5LF's Hy-Cain conversion
will take you to VHF j ust as easily.
S
ev(.ral ye,H'> of convert- t le rig opt' rates beautifullv
mg ell sets to ten meters on six meters'
makes one reallv appreciate My objectives in writing
the built-in ability of these this article include:
lit tle rigs. Those oi us who al Offering specific mfor-
are operati ng t horn now on rnat ion to convert the Hv-
singl(' sideband or FM can Cain board to six meters.
attest to t hei r stabil ity, sensi- b) Giving enough genera l
tivitv. and clean output It information to allow you to
WiI<; for these reason... I be- begin converting the CB of
ge n evpenmenting with the your choice
possibility of converting a c) lncrvasing the use of
CB 10 six met e rs. Since I had our six-meter band.
several Hv-Cain boards on I must te ll you in t he be-
hand, that's whet I selected ginning t hat I wi ll not de-
for conversion scribe t he hookups required
My basic criteria tor a to make the board operate
successf ul conversion were: nor specifically detail FMing
a] Stmpttcuv-. The con- t he rig, I'll just refer you now
version should he no more to the many excel lent 73 ar-
difficult than to len meters. tic les that have det ailed thi s
b) QU<l lity-The receiver part of t he conversion. Your
should mai ntain Its original rnam obstacle to six-meter
sensuivitv/selectivitv. addi- operation is moving t he ra-
tionally. the transmitter out- dto from eleven meters AM
put should be very clean! to six meters AM. Sideband-
c) Cost -c l fi rmly believe et s. take not e - I'l l not
a conversion loses its appeal forget you, eit her, Your can-
when the price is too high or version may al so be surpns-
....-hen exot ic parts are used mglv simple.
and can't be easilv obtained Examine the basic block
Aftf'r the conversion \vas diagram of Fig 1. To move
completed, I lei I tbat the cri- any CB in frequency, t he
rena had been met The li t- master f requency source
22 73 Magazine February, 1985
Ivco. c rysta l synt hesizer)
must be made to operate at
a new frequency. We know
f rom our ten-meter conver-
sions t hat we must increase
the f requency. The question
is, how much' Keep in mind
t hat. generallv speaking. the
master frequency source
Ivco. synt hesizer) of most
CBs does not change fr e-
quency between t ransmit
and receive. If we can deter-
mine the correct vco fre-
quency to i nject into the
fi rst receive mixer. we wi ll
also haw found that this
same frequency is used for
t ransmit.
Refer agai n to Fig. 1.
1hree incoming frequenci es
are shown. The f ir st is an in-
coming original CHfrequen-
cy; t he second is a 1D-meter
FM frequency; the third is a
new f requency in the six-me-
ter band. Note also t hat
these frequenci es are in the
center of t heir respecti ve
bands, The f requencies gen-
erated by our master fre-
quency source that mixes
with the incoming signals is
also shown. Let ' s examine
how the master frequency is
determined.
If we examine Fig 1, we
see t hat a 27.185-MHI signal
is ampli fied by one or more
rf stages before it is mixed
with the master frequency,
Dur ing the mixing process,
t he first i-f fr equency is se-
lected. In our case. t he f irst
j.f f requency is 10 695 MHz.
In al most every case. t he re-
ceive-mixer ci rcui t ry sel ects
t he difference frequency.
Our equati on:
For t t -meter operat ion-
master frequency = incom-
ing frequency + first i-f fre-
quency = 27.185 MHz +
10.695 MH... = 37.880 MHz.
For 'l u meter operat ion-
master frequency = 29,600
M Hz + 10,695 M Hz =
40 295 MHz.
For e-rneter operation-
master frequency = 52.525
MHz + 10.695 M Hz =
63,220 MHz.
The equat ion in a differ-
ent iorm: master frequency
- incoming fr equency =
first i-f frequency,
If your particular radio
4 0
4 1.8 1<1....'
IF OlCTOR
ate properly in the 42-MHz MHz is selected by the use
range. I'll briefly describe its of the low-pass filter (Cl08,
operat ion and then recom- l101 , etc). A mixer buffer
mend a replacement for the (Ql 03) follows to ensure
origi nal crvst al. that the Pll02A does not
The 10.240-MHz oscilla- load the ci rcuitry and gives
tor i s fed into pin 3 of t he ad d i t i o nal gai n to the
Pll02A chip, It is internally 2.24-MHz signal .
divided by 1024 t o give us a Assumi ng the vee is oper-
reference frequency of 10 ati ng exact ly on 37.660
kHz. Thi s means that our MHz, a signal of 2.24 MHz
channel spaci ng will also be wi ll appear on pi n 2 of the
10 kHz. Notice al so that the Pll02A. If the programming
10.240-MHz signal is sent to pins (7 through 15) on the
t he receiver sect ion and Pl102A are set to divide by
mixed with the 10695-MHz 224. a l (}kHz signal (2.24
i-f. result ing in a second i-f MHz -;- 224 = .010 MHz)
frequency of 455 kHz (10.695 wi ll be generated. This is ex-
- 10.240 = 455 kHz). act ly the same frequency as
The vco f requency of t he ref erence, The system is
37,660 MHz (CB channell) is said t o be " phase-l ocked." If
fed to both the receiver and the vco t ries to change fre-
transmitter sect ions of the quency or programmi ng to
radi o. Si nce we are dealing the PU02A changes. t he f re-
with a Pl.L circui t, thi s fre- quencies generated internal
quency must be fed back to to pins 2 and 3 will no longer
the PlL02A chip and com- be identical . The PlL02A
pared with the reference tre- senses t hi s and changes its
quency (1 0 kHz) to see if any out put voltage across t he
change in frequency is need- varactor diode (0101) to
ed. Since t he PLL02A has an steer t he vco to a condition
upper li mi t (at pin 2) of ap- where again both signal s in-
proximately 3 MHz. some temal to pi ns 2 and 3 are 10
method of mixing the signal kHz. For you that expert-
down to less than 3 MHz is ment, I have found that by
needed. This is the reason changing crystal s and ret un-
why the 11 .8Q60.-MHz osctl- ing the vco coil (TlOl), I
lator/tripler is in t he ci rcuit. could lock the loop from
In Fig. 2 we see the about 28 to 48 MHz. Not
11.8066-MHz f requency be- bad for thi s li ttl e ci rcuit!
ing t ripled to 35.4198 MHz. 1 wanted the mid-band
The t ripl ing occurs withi n f req uency t o be 52.525
t he circuitry associated wit h MHz. one of t he simplex
Ql05. Thi s f requency i s call i ng frequenci es for 6 me-
mixed with the 37.660-MHz tcrs. I knew the vco would
signal from the vco. and the probably be capabl e of
difference frequency of 2.24 maintaining lock over a
73 Magazine February,1985 23
H
40
4 I ll 'OMM,
Fig. 1. Hy-Cain CB block diagram.
SP[ IeM. ..P
H IO
.....
u 60(>01'"
..
H . ""15)
age frequenc y and wi ll be
detected if all owed to enter
the mixer. Fortunatel y, the
designers incorporated the
proper circuit ry beginning at
the antenna input and i n the
rf ampl if ier stagets) to rej ect
t he image frequency. If you
desire, you can det ermine
t hat t he image frequency on
10 met ers falls withi n t he
e-rneter band.
The problem I had to
solve was on what frequen-
cy must the master frequen-
cy source operate to recei ve
a 52.525-MHz signal and
produce a 10.695-MHz out-
put. 1 rejected using the
63,220-MHz frequency as
described above. 1 elected
to run the master at 41 ,830
MHz. Again, t he difference
f requency (52.525 MHz -
41 830 MHz) gives us the re-
quired out put from the mix-
er. This mixing scheme is
cal led low-side inject ion be-
cause the frequency of the
master is lower t han t he in-
comi ng f requency, Using
41.830 MHz as t he master
f requency will allow the re-
ceiver t o al so detect a
31.135-MHz signal (the im-
age frequency) i f our tuned
circuit ry at the input will al -
low it to pass. We will cure
any image fr equency inter-
ference in this conversion.
The modification to 6 me-
ter sof the Hy-Gain vco i sex-
act l y l ike that required for
tometer operat ion (refer to
Fig. 2). Only the 11.8066-
MHz cryst al need be changed
and the vco retuned to oper-
uses a different i-f frequency
(10.7 MHz, 7,8 MHz, etc.I
change t he i-f frequency in
t he formul a and crank out
the new master frequency.
During t he change to 10 FM,
t he Hv-Catn's vco frequency
was i ncr eased about 2.5
MHz, an increase of approx-
imately 6%. This change is
not excessive, There is
enough adj ustment range in
the ci rcui try to handle t his
increase i n frequency. Ex-
amining the percent change
from 11 to 6 meters, we f ind
t hat increasing the vco fre-
quency from 37.880 MHz to
63.220 MHz i nvol ves in-
creasing the frequency ap-
proximately 25 MHz. The
percent change in frequen-
cy is approxi mately 67% .
This i s asking too much of
the ci rcuit ry. Without ma jor
modif icat ion to t he vco cir-
cuit ry, it will not operate in
t he 6O-MHz region ,
Any t ime two frequencies
are injected into a mixer,
many different frequencies
are produced in the output.
Of speci al importance are
t he sum and t he difference
frequencies. The tuned por-
t ion of t he mixer' s out put
will determi ne whi ch of
these two frequencies is em-
phasized, Asan example, us-
ing Fig, 1, 27.185 MHz and
37.880 MHz are injected i n-
to the first mixer. The sum of
t hese two frequencies is
65065 MHz. The difference
is 10,695 MHz, the frequen-
cy of interest. In our case,
the mixer select s the differ-
ence frequency. The reader
may verify the f requencies
used for 'l Omet er operat ion,
Note t hat in both 1(} and
ll -met er oper ation, the
master frequency i s higher
t han t he incomi ng frequen-
cy; hence t he term high-side
injection.
There is anot her frequen-
cy that will mix with t he
37.88(}MHz signal to pr o-
duce the 10.695-MHz out-
put. In this case, a 48.575-
MHz signal mixed with the
37 880-MHz signal will al so
p roduc e t he requir ed
10,695-MHz i-f out put. Thi s
frequency is cal led the im-
,
Fig 2. Hy-Gain PLL circuit e channell}
Fig. 3 also indi cates a
tuned-c ollector o ut pu t
which is coupl ed into the
base of Q115. t he first re-
ceive mi xer , Since the ca-
pacitor is inside t he can,
nos must be removed and
the capacitor leads clipped.
There is no need to remove
the capaci tor from its seat
inside the can. Just be sure
that the leads are trimmed
so they do not touch any-
t hing. Be caref ul unsolder-
mgt he can or you may dam-
age t he foil trace. Thi s is
good practice as thi s same
bit of surgery will be re-
quired a time or two in the
transmitter sect ion. Install
an 18-pF capacitor across
the primary terminal s on the
foi l side of t he board,
A basic tune-up can now
be accompli shed using the
recei ver alignment instruc-
tions suppli ed in the Photo-
fact . Don't expect the re-
ceiver to be extremely sensi-
tive, as we have not yet cor-
rected t he majori ty of the in-
put ci rcuit. You wil l get
enough signal through to
sat isfy yourself that the re-
ceiver is now on 6 met ers.
Don't f orget to use a mi d-
band f requency for the
al ignment.
The receiver conversion
for a different radi o will
cl osely parallel t hi s discus-
sion. A few t ips may save
you some t ime and effort:
a) Performance-test the
CIl prior to conversion, Re-
cord signal level s, Be sure
these' level s exist after the
converston .
b) You will have to grid-
dip the transformers to f ind
the correct value of capaci-
tance for resonance.
c) Examine the general
specif icat ions for t he tran-
sistors in t he front end of the
recei ver (Q114 and Q115
were questioned in thi s
case). Hy-Gain used two
transistors whi ch have a
large bandwidth (Ft) and
high cu rrent gain (hi ,,,," If you
wi ll look these up i n a t ran-
sistor manual. you wi l l see
what I mean, Examining sev-
eral CB schematics did not
nee
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,
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'"
Receiver Conversion
Once again referring to
Fig. 1, it is seen that once the
signal passes the f ir st mixer.
we are into the i-f f requen-
cies, I might as wel l tell you
now t hat no modi f icat ion s
are required beyond t he in-
put to t he fi rst mixer ! In sim-
ple l anguage. once t he de-
sired signal is into the f irst i-f
stage. the radio couldn't tell
you if t he original incoming
f requency were 27 MHz or
t he new 52-M Hz signal,
Fig 3 shows t he Hy-Cai n
input ci rcuit ry from the an-
tenna through the first and
only rf amplifier stage (mi-
nus a few parts). If you are
converting a different CB, it
wi ll probably surprise you to
f ind your i nput circuit ry
very simi lar t o the one
shown. Di sregard for now all
the component s f rom the
antenna connector through
l109. We will work with
t hese later. Our concern will
be with C154 and the coi l
which is t he pr imary of
t ransformer n04, A gri d-dip
meter wil l verify t hat t his
combination is resonant in
the 11-meter band. There is
enough tuning range in the
primary coil to tune 10 me-
ters, but not enough to tune
b meters. Changing C154
from 27 pF to 10 pF wil l let
t his combi nation reson ate in
t he 52-MHz region.
' n'
, '
, '
L _.
Tl OA
r- --,
, ,
When t he new crystal
(13.1066 M Hz) arrives. in-
st all it in place of the
11.8066 crystal and begi n
the vco alignment. Access
to a f requency counter and
a good osci lloscope are re-
quired for proper alignment .
I won' t detail t he vco ali gn-
ment procedure as this is
covered in t he Photofact
and in many of the articles
appearing i n 73. A few
words of caution may pre-
vent problems:
a) All osci ll ators must be
on f requency.
b) On some of the boards
there are two positions of
the vco coi l slug that will
gi ve you a 1.5-volt readi ng,
Only one i s correct . If
you've selected t he wrong
one. t he vco wi ll not t rack as
t he channels are advanced.
Other radios may exhibit
this same problem.
c) Ensure that the vco
does not change frequency
when the t ransmitter i s
keyed.
d) Ensure that 1111 is set
for maximum. Much of t he
performance depends on it .
One l ast word on Pl l ci r-
cuits may aid t hose of you
who will convert a different
radio. If you follow the low-
side-injection scheme. you
will keep the vco operat ing
near the original design f re-
quency. Thi s great ly simpl i-
fies t he conversion!
OO HO_
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no
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OSOLU.OII
54D--kHz range. Therefore. I
subt racted 270 kHz from
52.525 MHz to give a chan-
nel 1 frequency of 52.255
MHz (Pl l 02A set to divide
by 224). The high end f re-
quency woul d be at least
52.795 M Hz.
If channel 1 was to be
52.255 M Hz. my only prob-
lem was to decide what
cryst al frequency was nec-
essary such that when it is
fi rst t ripled and then sub-
t racted f rom t he vco fre-
q uency. the differe nce
would be 2,24 MHI. Using
ou r l ow-stde- tniec tion
scheme. 52.255 MHL minus
the vco frequency should
equal the 10.695 i-f frequen-
cy. With scr atc h paper
handy, a quick calculat ion
gives us a channel one vco
f requency of 41 .560 MHz. If
we now subt ract 2.24 M Hz
from 41 .560 MHz. we will
have the osci l lator frequen-
ev in tripled form, This sub-
traction yields 39.320 MHz.
Dividing this by 3 yi elds the
correct osci ll ator f requency
of 13.106{} M Hz. If you use
anot her division scheme or
elect to cover a different
portion of the band, all num-
bers must change accord-
ingl y. Any of the cryst al
manufacturer s can suppl y
you wi th the corr ect cryst al
if you specify t he makel
model of CB and t he oldl
new crystal frequencies.
24 73 Magazine . February, 1985
Fig. 3. Hy-Gain receiver front end,
..
TR. "S""TER
-
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(' ''' 8
CIS! cue
22<l or .. ,.. '20. _
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n C60Z '.1C' ''' II
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roo
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I" T2 5.' rn""
I) Additional filtering is
needed to doubly ensure a
clean output. A pi-filter will
now be installed going from
poi nt 5A on t he circuit
board to the antenna t ermi-
nal. Inst all an airwound coi l
similar in size to l116 be-
tween the board'S output
(SA) and the center of the an-
tenna connector. I used an
extra 1116 off a broken Hy-
Gain board and removed all
but 3 t urns. If you fabricate
your own coil, t he induc-
tance should st ill be .1 ul-i
Install two 25-pF caps. One
sho uld be installed from the
center of the antenna con-
nector to chassis ground.
The second cap should be
installed from either point
5A or 58 to chassis ground.
m) We are now almost
fini shed. Remove Q112 and
replace it with Q113. Obtain
a 25C1307 transistor to use
in the final . The original
Q1U (2SC1760) does not
have enough gain in t he
50-MHz range. If you are
converting a d ifferent CB,
be sure to check the perfor-
mance of the transistors, Af-
ter compl et ing the above
steps. your circuit should
look like Fig, 5. Notice I did
not show RU9, l105, l116,
l1 08, et c. These remain
unchanged!
You can now perform the
alignment of the transmitter
using the steps listed in the
Photofact . As other aut hors
have said, t he alignment of
l103, l 104, and T1 02 is
critical!
By using single-pole, sin-
gle-throw switches to pro-
gram pins 1 through 15 of
the Pll02A, you can expect
at least 1-MHz band cover-
age. My conversion gave me
about 1.1 MHz. but the rec-
ommended vo ltages were
not foll owed at t he edges of
t he band. The vco. however,
remained very st able over a
voltage range of .9 to 4.5
vo lts. Average t ran smitter
output averaged 3 Watts
ac ross t he band, and it s out-
put is very clean,
The standard FM tec h-
niques can now be applied
pedance match at the base
of Q112. Now we are ready
to modify the driver and fi-
nat circuitry.
Pe rfo rm the fo llowing
steps:
a) Remo ve R203 (560-
Ohm resistor).
b) Remove C149 (220 pF).
c) Remove l106.
d) Remove C153 (62 pF),
e) Install a 68 pF capaci-
tor in pl ace of C149 t hat you
have just removed.
f) Examine l106, We mu st
lower it s inductance by re-
movi ng 2 turns. It looks fac-
tory formed. and it is. locate
the low side of the coil. Us-
ing a sharp carpet knife or
simil ar instrument, you can
cut the wire leg loose. The
wire can t hen be unwound.
Remove 2 tu rns and form a
new leg for t he coil. As a
guide, t he reactance of the
co il should be 25 Ohms at
S2.5 MHz.
g) Remove C151 (100 pF)
and inst al l a 22o-pFcap in its
place.
h) Remove 11 09, Remove
enough t urns to give 33
Ohms of react ance at 52.5
MHz. Its inductance sho uld
be .1 uH.
i) Remove R13 2 (47 k
Ohms) and C152. Replace
C152 wit h a 15O-pF cap, Re-
place R1 32 with a 22-pFcap.
j) Remove l110 Remove
2 t urns. It should now have
.1 uH inductance. Reinst all
l110.
k) Remove C602 on the
foil side of t he board (if in-
st alled), It' s attac hed be-
tween board ground and the
antenna side of l11 0, Re-
place it with a 25-pF cap.
stdel of the board. Be sure to
keep the capac itor leads
very short. On this can you
may simply place the 3J..
pF capacitor in the C1 24
location.
b) Perform step 1 to L104.
Inst all a 15-pF capaci tor
across t he proper terminals
on the foil side of the board.
c) Perform st ep 1 to n02.
Install a 15-pF capacitor as
in steps 1 and 2.
d) Remove ( 141 (68 pF).
Repl ace C141 with a 39-pF
capacitor. This is required t o
enhance the imped ance
match into the base of
Q111 . Grid-dipping the sec-
ondary of n02 shows the
secondary reso nant in the
55-MHz regio n (with the
68-pF cap).
Next remove T1 03. If you
glance at the schemat ic. you
might wonder why. It would
appear that since resonating
capacitor C143 (100 pF) is ex-
ternal to the can. one might
just remove it and install a
25-pF cap in it s pl ace. This
will reso nate the can in the
52-MHz region; however.
the transformer turns ratio is
now wrong. Examining the
primary a nd seco nd a ry
windings of T103 revealed a
b-tum primary and a 1-t urn
secondary. I could have re-
wound T103, bu t I had no
wire t hat small. I used a
'A-inch coil form using an
B-turn primary and a 2-turn
secondary. Grid-dip the pri-
mary to find t he amount of
capacitance needed to reso-
nate at 52.5 MHz in t he mid-
dl e of the coils tuning range,
C146 (470 pF) is removed
next . This enhances the im-
..
r lLTEIl lOll S 52
''''( 11 OliO
Fig. 4. Hy-Cain transmitter block diagram.
Fig. 5. New driver/final circuitry (simplified).
S76&Q" M,
..., Stoll .....
."
OSCILL.f.TOR
Transmitter Conversion
Fig, 4 shows a block dia-
gram of the Hv-Ga tn t rans-
mitter sect ion. Al so shown
are the vco frequencies for
both an o riginal CBfrequen-
cy and a new b-meter fre-
quency. Since t he vco is al-
ready on frequency, a ll that
remains is to modify the cir-
cuitry fo llowing the mixer.
In the case of the CB fre-
quency generated (26.965
MHz). the filter (l 103. l104.
and T102) selects t he differ-
ence frequency (37.660 -
10.695 = 26.965 MHz). After
conversion. l1 03, l 104. and
T1 02 will select the sum fre-
quency (41.560 + 10 695=
52255 MHz)
Remove l103. l104. and
n02 one at a time. Remem-
ber which one goes where so
there is no confusion when
t hey are reinstalled. The fol-
lowing steps will allow these
cans to se le ct the sum
frequency:
a) Remove (124 (100 pF).
Remove the small capacitor
interna l to l 103. Reinstall
l 103 and solder a 33-pF ca-
pacitor across t he same pins
t he original capacitor was
across. on the bottom (foil
26 73 Magazine. February, 1985
reveal a problem here, but
it's worth checking.
d) Any time you modify
the capacitor values in a
tuned ci rcuit to change the
resonant f requency, t he val-
ue of capacitance fo und is
only approximate. You may
need to change the value
slightly in the actual circuit.
Thi s is due to the dynamic
loading effect when a circuit
is in operat ion.
; *, 21 ;
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II
SPOT
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BMi"lz
Fig. 1. Circuit d iagram of the converter transmitter us ing the 8 mhz osci llator-tripler and the
doubter stage. Coils L 1, L3. L4 were a lready in the set. L 2 was obtai ned from a n old TV
chassis. This circuit diagram may seem a b it incomplete. b ut since every CB set is different
t he c irc u it must be b road e no ugh to cover a ll models. As a resul t. some exper imentat ion w il i
be necessary to determine the p roper coils to be used .
transmitter conversion is now complete.
Tune Up
Procedure: I. Hook a No. 47 pilot lamp
on the antenna jack or terminals.
2. Set each coil for the approximate
frequency indicated on the circuit diagram.
3. Make sure the oscillator is functioning
properly. This can be determined by lis-
tening to the signal in a nearby receiver. If
there is a spot switch on the set it can be
used to list en to the oscillator in the
transceiver's receiver.
4. Put the rf probe of the vtvm on the
grid of the doubler stage, and tune Ll for
maximum rf indication on the meter (maxi-
mum pointer deflection). If an rf probe is
not available, put one end of a I N34 or an
equivalent diode on the end of the vtvm's de
probe, and touch the free end of the diode
t o the circuit to be measured.
5. Place the rf probe on the grid of the
final, and tune L2 for maximum rf indica-
tion.
6. Place the loading capacitor at mini-
mum capacitance, and tune the plate tuning
capacitor for maximum brilliance of the No.
47 pilot lamp previously hooked up. In-
crease the loading by increasing the capac-
itance of the loading capacitor, and then dip
the current using t he plate tuning capacitor.
7. If an overtone crystal is used instead of
the 8 mhz oscillator-tripier, the transmitter
should be tuned by resonating the oscillator
plate coil to 50 mhz. The rest of the tuning
is done as described above.
You now have a complete low power
station for six meters. All that remains to be
done is to hook up the antenna and a mike. I
might add that there is really no need to
have to switch the beam from t he big six
meter rig, t ha t is if you have one; the set got
out quite well on a simple dipole mounted
on a stick of board. The total cost of
converting the rig was nothing, as all the
necessary extra parts were available from t he
shack junk box. So if you want to have some
fun on the band which is becoming more
popular every day, t ry this simple con-
version; you' ll be glad you did!
. . . WB2FHW & WA2HNJ
oscillotortrnonitor
11'1 udi"l. hMl. ho lI'Io..ihor
th. RF oJ . ")1 cw tr....", itt.r fro",
10M. ho I k. (, 100kc to 1000Me.
u.i.., Otlly ... a" ,.ic...., . ..t.n....
un IN IJ-tritt.reel lor cod.
pr.me. 01' Ul. keti.., oJ ..lid
.t.tt. compo...nts .nd circ.. its .
.id. in tun;", .. , (, t .d;.. , RF
..a ll"or .r.4 power eire.. its.
,. tr.n.idor, 2 diode circ.. it,.
""'."." ton dj...t,. AA ,enc.n,
-" Id., a' .nt., {" ",. , nw c ...... . 1495c_ , leh,
i. 16 '.Ut. "'U"{" cl ., ppd ....a&c.n.
.....i..d . I..min.. m, 3." _ 2.3 _ 1.2" . e nd a d '-ck Ot' m.e.
US -.I. (, t ...,.nwM fw I )lM r . by mall onl y
Ja mes Research compa ny,dep't: A R-M
20 Willits Road , Glen Cove, NY 11542
V -I B R 0 P LEX
ENJOY EASY,
RESTFUL KEYING
520.95 t o 543.95
THE VIIROPLEX
CO. , INC.
833 Broadway,
N .Y. , N .Y. 10003
OCTOBER 1969
53
Raymond Barnum WA4MFT
Homer GA 30547
At Last!
A 10m Band Plan
Table 1. Channels 7 through 79 could be pre-empted for
emergency net traffic, should the need arise.
lar schematic and should give
t he same result, t hough I have
not tried it. If you have dif-
ficul ty, con tact another ham
who has had some successful
ex perience modifying com-
mercial gear. The detailed
con version of a variety of
t hese rigs is beyond t he scope
of th is art icle,
The purpose of t his art icle
is to propose a way in which
converted CBri gs can be used
on one of t he ham bands th at
is apparentl y under-used and
in danger of bei ng lost to
amateurs, The idea has po-
tent ial, but is obviously not
completely worked ou t If
you have objections to t his
proposal or suggestions on
how a better system can be
set up, by all means put t hem
on paper and send them to
either t he editor or myself.
Certainly t he establishment
of such a public service ori-
ented communications sys-
tem wou ld attract favorab le
press coverage and t he ama-
teur's use of the rf spectrum
would be given added justifi -
cation. -
CB radio
-'
Top chassis view. Note the locations of the additional i-f s tage 12BA6 and transformer TK. The 6AWB
was relocated on an aluminum plate in the upper right corner of the chassis where the ori ginal array of
receive/transmit crystal sockets and switch used to be.
kHz. This did the trick as the image was now
barely perceptible .
Figure 1B is a block diagram of the
converted Comstat 19. A 6U8 rf amplifier/
mixer replaces the original 6BZ6 . The input
and output tuned circuit s of the 6U8 are
stagger tuned to give a nat response between
50.0 and 5 1.0 MHz. The output of the 6U8
converter is 25 .825 MHz for a 50.0 MHz
signal and 26.325 MHz for a 51.0 MHz
signal. The 6GH8 injection oscillator tunes
24.175 t o 24.675 MHz to produce an i-f
freque ncy of 1650 kHz over the range of
50.0 to 5 1.0 MHz. Using a commo n injec-
tion oscillator for the first and second
convertors eliminates the necessity of adding
another tube. Note, however, that it only
takes a swing of 500 kHz of the oscillator to
tune 1 MHz of the six meter band .
Followi ng the 6GH8 second converter are
two 1650 kHz i-f amplifier st ages. The
12BA6 i-f amplifier was added to make up
for the gain lost when converting from the
455 kHz i-f frequency . The rest of the
receiver section is left unchanged .
MARCH 1974
The transmitter lineup is basically the
same , that is, an overtone oscillator (now
operat ing at 50 Mllz) followed by a rf
amplifier. The location of the transmitter
section was completely changed to accommo-
date shorter rf leads, better curren t paths,
and make room for the transmit /receive
relay and output tuned circuit .
Destruction
The first step in making the modificati on
is the removal of parts or sections of the
transceiver that will be changed . The follow-
ing list will serve as a guide for component
removals. However, it is recommended that
the original wiring diagram that came with
the transceiver as well as Figs. 2 and 3 be
studied thoroughly to make sure you under-
stand exactly what must be removed before
beginning.
Save all the components that are removed
as many of them will be reused .
Remove . . .
1. Both ends of all components mounted o n
the 6AW8 socket.
2. The 6AW8 socket.
63
Construction - Transmitter Section
I . Cut a piece of . I 6 cmthick aluminum to
cover the rect angular space left from the
removal of the crystal socket assembly.
Mount the transmi tt er components on the
plate as shown in the top view photograph.
Holes are drilled in the plate to mount it to
the chassis in the same position that was
Construction - Receiver Section
Refer to the photographs to help identify
the components and locations.
3. The PI -output coil, capaci tors and brack- I. Enlarge t he old 6BZ6 socket hol e to
et. acce pt a nine pin shield base socket for the
4 . The c rystal selec tor switch and crystal 6 U8. Orient the socket so that pins two and
socket assembly. three are closest to the antenna coax socket.
5. The wires to the front panel XTAL/TUNE Drill holes to mount L2 and L3. L2 should
switch. be mounted close to pin 2 and L3 close to
6. The front panel crystal socket s. pin 8 of the 6U8.
7. Both ends of all components mounted on 2. Make sure all underchassis components
the 6BZ6 socket up to the 10 IlF capacitor are moved out of the way before doing these
connected to pin 2 of the 6GII8. next steps.
8. The 6BZ6 socket. 3. Drill a hol e for a 7 pin socket between TI
9. All of the components in the receiver. and the front panel for the 12BA6 first i-f
oscillator tuned circuit up to the 20 j1F amplifier.
capacitor that goes to pin 9 of the 6GH8. 4. Drill a hole for the additional i-f trans-
The main tuning control "VCT" should be former "TX" between V4 and the front
left mounted . panel. This transformer is easiest mounted
10. i-f transformers TI and T2 should be by drilling one large hole and using the
removed and the inside form and windings special mounting plate supplied with the
discarded . The Miller transformers should be transformer.
inserted into the original cans and these in
turn remounted. The Miller transformers are
just the right size, can and all , to fit into the
original cans. For what it is worth this will
provide double shielding on these two trans-
formers.
Bottom chassis view. Note the rocanons ot (;2, C3, RY 1 and RFCI, 2 & .:s that are grouped around the
6AW8 socket near the len end of the chassis.
64 73 MAGAZINE
used t o mount the original crystal socket
assembly.
2. Mount the out put indicat o r meter on t he
front panel. When making the hole (where
the old external receiver-transmitt er socke ts
were mounted ) make sure it is high enough
to allo w the slide switch t o be reinstalled
below the met er.
Wiring
The heater circuits should be the first
circui ts rewired . It 's a lot easier t o do before
the bottom of the chassis gets cluttered wi th
circ uit components. The heater circuit
shown in Fig. 2 should be followed closely
since t he original wir ing did not fully agree
with the diagram supplied wit h the set.
The original winding on L5, L6 and L7
must be removed and rewound per Figs. 2
and 3.
The dc power source parts fo r the send!
receive relay are mounted o n spare t erminal
strip lugs in the power supply section of the
t ransceiver.
The converter oscillator injection signal is
coupled t o the 6U8 by soldering an insulat ed
piece of hookup wire to pin 9 and t wisti ng
the ot her end several times around pin 2 of
t he 6GH8.
The I M[2 resist or in series with the
spot switch limits the oscillat o r o ut put
preventing overloading the receiver while
spott ing. Diode DI allows voltage to be
applied to the oscillat or but not the ampli-
fier while spott ing.
The only real important thing to keep in
mind while doing the wiring is t o keep all rf
leads and bypass leads as short as possible.
Note that the secondary of TI which was
originally wired to V4 is rewired to the new
first i-f amplifier - the 12BA6.
Operation
Since most of the six meter activity in
this area is confined to the first I MHz of the
band and since only the receiver oscillator is
t uned it was decided t o limit the tuning
range from 50. 0 to 5 1.0 Mll z.
T I , TX, and T2 are tuned for maximum
response at the i-f frequency. L2, L3 and L5
are tuned for maximum even response be-
tween 50.0 and 51.0 MHz. It was found that
tuning L2 towards 50.0 MHz and L3
towards 5 1.0 MHz gave t he best uniform-
sta ble operation.
TO LI
FIG 3
.'
RYI- 2
I-
4 .1 1<
.00 '
, r r
.001
VI -S
TW 'Iz SAW8
RFC2
1i5I1H
r----- ---,-- H,- --,
:: !-- - - --'
1001<: RFC3 1 _
_ _
-
I,
SAWS
2
VI- A
,
2
_ L
"
----
T"
000
,
fry
001
t
OI
OFF 'i
sr
>
l
,
, -
( - '-\
\ V 1 I
, /
'--"
b
,.
>-
>-
>-
--... --.....
" '\ /' '\
- { V6 \ , V 4 \
J7 f:;_,_'_''f_/_'
,..
SGH8 SAQ15
ST8 S8JS SAWS PTT IN "" I C
Fig. 2. Transmitter, fil ament, control.
MARCH 1974 65
6BJ6
'"
LINE
--,
, ,
TX t /Y4 \
- -- I
\. \ I
r- , '
--'
00'
,
To'
' ')'h
12 BA6
s
Tt / : ::"" 2
r
lOOK
,
L <
.001 1
1
20K
'0
6 U8 -B
,
; ""
2"
6US-A
a
~ 4 ~
L ~ 2 ; : ~ 1
TO RYI -2
FIG 2
,
I 6GH8lV38
2.2K
IMEG
,.
-
1
L1' "
or
2.20
Fig. 3. Receiver. Resistors are in ohms, are %W, except: K=1000, M=Megohm. Capacitors are in
picofarads, decimal values are microfarads unless specified otherwise. Only parts not contained in the
original unit are listed. LI - 3 turns No. 22 insulated hook-up wire over the cold end of L2. L2 - 10
turns No. 32 enameled, close wound, % in. slug tuned form Miller No. 4500. L3 - 12 turns No. 32
enameled, close wound, %in. slug tuned form Miller No. 4500. L4 - 2 turns No. 22 insulated hook-up
wire over cold end of L3. L5 - 18 turns No.26 enameled, close wound, % in. slug tuned form (use
original form). L6 - 7 turns No. 26 enamel, close wound, J4 in. slug tuned form (use original form).
TI, T2, TX - 1650 kHz i-f transformer, Miller No. 1732. VCT - original main tuning capacitor.
CI - 5 to 25 fJJ.lF NPO Ceramic trimmer capacitor. LX - Original receiver oscillator plate coil - left
unchanged. TW - Twisted wire coupling capacitors.
The oscillator tuning range is set by
adjusting Cl and L6 . Increasing the value of
Cl will increase the tuning range obtainable
by "vcr" the main tuning control. Once
the tuning range has been set the dial can be
marked and calibrated . The old markings can
be removed by using a fine grade sandpaper.
The new markings, in 200 kHz increments,
were added using Datak dry transfer decals.
The transmitter output is peaked by
adjusting the slug in L7. The output circuit
is a conventional Pi-tank and is tuned for
maximum output indication on MI. If M1
needle pins a suit able dropping resistor can
be inserted between Ml and the 56K resis-
tor.
The neutralizing capacitor "TW" consists
of two pieces of insulated hook-up wire. The
end of one wire connects to pin 9 of the
6AW8. The end of the other wire connects
to the junction of RFC2 and L7. The free
ends of t hese two wires are twist ed together
enough to obtain stable amplifier operation.
Any excess wire must be trimmed off after
neutralizati on is completed . A final test for
stability can be made by removing the
crystal from the socket and running the
amplifier 25 pF capacitor thru its range. If
the amplifier goes into oscillation .t hen it is
not properly neutralized .
As a final t ouch, since the transceiver had
seen rough CB handling, the front panel was
repainted and lett ered using Datak lett ersets
making cont rol label changes as appropriate.
Although this conversion was made to a
Cornstat 19 the general principles can be
used on other CB transceivers. With a mini-
mum of cash outlay , depending on the size
of your junk box, you can end up with a
pretty good signal on six meters.
.. . W5QWY
66 73 MAGAZINE
Jim Kyle KSJKX/6
1851 Stanford Avenue
Sente SU50na, California
- r
A Quick and Simple
Mobile Rig
Conversion 0/ a Citizens Band Unit
D
ISCUSSION still rages about the Class D
citizens band, and since we ain't mad at
nobody we aren't taking any sides-but it's
true that many persons are getting an intro-
duction to radio communication through en
activity, and some of them are becomi ng hams.
Naturally, since ham-type operation is pro-
hibited on 27 mc, they find they have an item
of equipment which is unusable in their ham
efforts.
Change of subject brieflv. with sunspots
on the rapid wane and the low expected some
time early in 1964, the higher-frequency bands
are going to become as dead as the VHF
regions are now. The DX chasers are going
to be forced to come down to 40 and 80, thus
crowding the rag-chew gang and the mobiles
to other bands.
The conversion procedure described here
provides one answer to both the situations
mentioned above. For the CBer-turned-ham,
it ' s a way to use his existing equipment. For
the mobileer crowded off the high end of 75,
it's a fast way to get on another band which
won't be so crowded.
The starting point is a CB transceiver in
working order. 'Ve used an International
30
KB.1, but similar principles apply to all of
them and we'll take some time to show a few
direct applications to other rigs.
Like many other eB rigs, the KB-1 is a
superhet receiver combined with a 5-watt
plate-input transmitter. Power supply and
audio are shared by both tra nsmitter a nd re-
ceiver. The conversion to ham-band usage
consists of two steps: converting the receiver,
and converting the transmitter.
Before we start converting, though, let's
pick the band we're going to use. In this con-
version, we're moving to 20 meters, on t he
assumption that 20 will be dead for DX within
a year. Similar procedures would be used to
go to any other band desired.
The KB-1 receiver is a double conversion
type, with a crystal-controlled-converter as-
sembly feeding a tunable if strip. This part
of the conversion is simplicity itself, since
Internat ional makes converter boards for the
KB-1 covering 20, 15, 10, and 6 met er s i n
addition t o the OB board. Just get t he re-
pl acement board, remove the original ( un-
solderi ng seven connections), replace it with
the new one, and reconnect the seven leads.
Receiver conversion is now complete.
The transmitter board of the KB-1 consists
of one printed circuit board, bearing a crystal ,
two coils, some resistors a nd ca pacitors, and
a 6AUS tube. As shipped from t he factory,
t he board is pre-tuned for operation at crystal
frequency into a 52-ohm load at a power
input of 5 watts.
For most efficient operation, some surgery
was required on the 20-meter board installed
here. Values of two resistors a nd one capaci-
tor were changed, a nd three turns wer e re-
moved from the plate wi nding of coil L2.
Power output was raised from less t ha n a
watt to about 1.5 watts at the same input,
and linearity of modulation was increased
greatly. The changes are shown in detail on
the schematic diagram. Since they will prob-
73 MAGAZINE
"
,
--
--- ,
,
.. ..
...
lAu'
73 MAGAZINE