Tools: Q-tips, alcohol, small screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver, time and patience.
External Speaker Stopped Working
If it stopped producing audio, or if intermittently it is working, try this:
Take a Q-tip and roll it between your fingers so that it is slightly larger than that hole. Soak it in alcohol,( not Tito’s or Jamison’s,) isopropyl alcohol. Swab the shit out of the opening. This is the speaker ground, and it is open to the clean environment of you dirt hauling tri-axel, the yards where you travel, and the environment in which you live.
You might need 2 or 3 Q-tips, (maybe 5). With a clean one, insert it all the way in and swirl it around. I know, “that’s what she said”. Keep doing this until the swab comes out clean. Let the alcohol evaporate and test it.
Receiving a Signal But No Audio
You see the meter responding to a signal, but you ain’t hearing shit out of the radio speaker. Take the bottom cover off. Now don’t get your panties in a bunch, it’s 4 or 5 screws. You can do it.
The center piece has to make contact to the back piece. When you insert an external speaker plug, the center piece will break contact to the back piece, and route the audio from the radio to the external. This is where it gets a little tricky, but totally doable. Slightly, really fuking slightly, push down on the center piece and see if you can clean between it and the back piece. Sometimes getting a little alcohol in between will work. You can insert the external speaker plug halfway to clean the gap.
Then take a tiny screwdriver, or something else firm and stiff, (I’m not talking about you), and pull UP on the center piece delicately.
We are trying to make sure the center piece top side is making contact with the back piece bottom side. This contact feeds the audio to the internal speaker.
While there, check that 2 pin plug that the speaker plug is fully seated.
Mic Not Working
If it is sometimes working, this is worth a try: Looking closely at the plug you can see the metal contacts. Again, Q-tip and alcohol, BUT, make the swab really small, you don’t want to get the cotton fibers caught in the plug. It’s a mudder fuker to get out. Maybe just use the stem of the swab and clean diligently.
Once clean, take a small screwdriver and try to SLIGHTLY compress the metal contacts. Even if they end up being out of round, they’ll reshape when plugged into the radio and make positive contact.
I’m Transmitting, But I Ain’t Talkin.
This one is going to need a tiny phillips. On the plug, remove the 2 hold down clamp screws then the small plug screw. With a very slight twist, delicately remove the plug from the housing.
Check that all the wires are connected to the pins. Pin 2 usually has a white audio wire on it, and it likes to break off. Solder it back on. Don’t bring it to me to do! If you have a piece of shit cobra mic and you want me to repair it, throw it the fuk out. It’s a piece of shit. You do it, For the record, all modern 4-pin mic plugs are wired the same.
1-ground, 2-audio, 3-transmit, 4-receive. Most big radios don’t even need pin 4.
Not Getting Out or Receiving, But Not All the Time.
Most likely a loose coax connection. If you have a setup that has the screw on PL 259, I call it a failure point. Not that’s it’s bad, it’s just another thing to loosen up. HAND TIGHT ONLY, NOT TRUCK DRIVER TIGHT. The specs on these terminals is inch pounds, so don’t be an animal. If you have a 90 on the radio, check that for tightness. Check both ends of the coax to make sure they are connected before you call me.
On the radio end take a deep ¾” socket and hand tighten the nut on the SO-239, nothing more than hand tight. Again with the Q-tips. Clean the center female contact, it shouldn’t be too dirty, but what the hell, you’re there, clean it. Now if you look closely at the female contact, it has splits in it. Just like with the mic plug, see if you can SLIGHT compress the contact area to make positive contact when the coax gets inserted.
Uncle Jeb’s Shitty Tune Up
Since you have the bottom cover off, take a look at the back center of the board. See those? No they aren’t springs, they are inductors and part of a filtering system to prevent harmonics getting transmitted.
If someone spreads them out, it equivalent to bending the needle on your boost gauge, you ain’t done shit!
Your radio operates in the 27 MHz range, call it the fundamental frequency. The second harmonic is 54 MHz, the 3rd harmonic is 81 MHz (just keep adding 27). When Uncle Jeb spreads them out to make the meter swing like the dickens, he’s jerking you off. It’s not more power; it’s harmonics tickling the meter and you haven’t gained shit. If he tells you “Lookie what it got”, yeah, it’s a hand job and its false power.
Take a dual final radio like a Connex 3300 or a Galaxy 33. They’ll do 42 watts, unclipped, with clean audio all day long. Spreading the coils and clip the audio limiter (R 249 or TR 32) might get you 48 to 52 watts, but it’s shit watts. Don’t be a needle swing guy, you’ll just be fooling yourself.