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Hawkei67
New member
Username: Hawkei67

Post Number: 1
Registered: 4-2016
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2016 - 7:38 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi all,
My handle is Hawkeye - 351 from the tarheel tobacco fields of the queen city NC.
I have been into radios ever since around 1992 or 93. I have been out of it since about 2001 or so and was thinking of giving it another go. When I used to be on it I was widely known in my area plus surrounding areas for mod work, repairs and computer designing of antennas. Since then I have had a major fall and cracked my back in several places. Soon after that I had a massive, massive heart attack and have forgotten most of what I knew about this stuff.

I just picked up 2 used and modded Cobra 148GTL Taiwan versions. One works fine I guess but the other just lights up and thats it. The one that works has a lot of white noise in the receive and the meter is stuck. The transmitter deadkeys 3.5 watts and swings 9 to 10 watts, LSB goes up to around 13 watts, USB does not work on receive or transmit (just a small hiss on receive and nothing on transmit). I popped the cover off to see what had been done to it and noticed that TR24 and TR32 had been removed, R124 and R126 had been replaced with 2.2k, R131 had been snipped, the clarifier had been strapped with a diode and a choke, the driver is the original 2SC2166 and the final is the original 2SC1969. I heard a lot about removing those 2 transistors as a bad thing and was curious as to what part number out of an old 68xl or the other 148gtl would be a better replacement or if I should just go back with the standard 2SC945AQ transistors that were in those spots? Also, should I replace those 2 resistors back or use different values? Should I resolder R131 back together? Are there any real mods that work for this old 148gtl? What about volting the final on this model, is it safe? If so then how is it done? Are there any receiver mods I can do to clean up the receive?

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