| Author |
Message |
    
Stumpjumper
| | Posted on Monday, January 27, 2003 - 8:36 pm: | 
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A buddy gave me a Cobra 19 plus to put in my Baja bug and it is drunk or something.
See I made a homemade antenna mount from an L bracket, I have coax cable for a magnetic antenna mount but I am not using a magnetic mount. I have the bottom of the antenna and the positive wire bolted to the L bracket, the other wire is grounded to the car. (this coax has 2 wires coming from one end.)
Anyway the radio picks up very good, and my buddy and I talked about 15 miles away but he says when I talk to him my voice is muffled and its like my nose is stopped up or something. I can hear him fine though. He came over and checked the SWRs and on channel 1 they were 3.5 and channel 40 they were 2.5, so we talked on 40 but had the same problem.
I really don't know how to describe this but you know how you talk into the CB and the needle jumps up and down when you talk? Well mine has a red bar that goes up and down, but when I talk a green bar only goes 1/4 the way up and stops, regardless of how loud I talk into the mic.
CAN SOMEONE OUT THERE TELL ME WHAT THE PROBLEM IS??? I hope I didn't confuse anyone! |
2600
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 3:30 am: |
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The problem is the radio... and the mike. If you look at the back of the mike it should have the word "electret" printed on there somewhere. This kind of mike tends to have too much bass response in the first place. I'll bet that the modulation limiter in the radio has been "clipped" to improve the wattmeter reading on transmit. What it DOESN'T improve is the clarity of the audio. And you are stuck with using the original electret-type mike, unless the radio is modified inside.
Providing a proper antenna with the SWR down to 1.5 or so might help, but probably only a little.
This model was supplied to Cobra by more than one factory. Even if you can find audio "improvement" directions for it, those may or may not be correct for the version you have.
That radio is a real BIC lighter, meant to be thrown out with a clear conscience when the time comes. Any real effort to improve it will usually cost as much or more than a radio that sounds better in the first place.
Every year, decent radios just keep getting cheaper. At the same time, the cost of opening one up and working on it just keeps going up.
73 |
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