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For those
of you using this radio on SSB
or CW in the weak-signal part of
the bands, you probably already
noticed that the receiver needs
some help. The overall
sensitivity is too low, making
the need for preamplifiers
obvious.
Actually, the radio has enough
sensitivity built into it
already; there are modern
GaAsFETs ahead of the mixers on
every band, including 23 CM. The
factory alignment of the radio
does not exploit it's full
capabilities. This is a common
phenomenon of almost all
multimode VHF/UHF radios,
including those made by Kenwood,
Yaesu and others. One might
think this may be part of the
way they market their
preamplifiers, but that is only
my own speculation.
The adjustments described below
will bring the overall
sensitivity of the radio up to
par, and will eliminate the need
for external preamplifiers. An
external preamplifier may still
help if your feedline is lossy;
in this case, you may still
benefit from a mast-mounted one.
After I made these adjustments,
I found that my limitation was
external noise and not the
sensitivity of the radio. This
was even the case on 23cm; in
fact, it now hears almost as
well as the transverter I
usually use on this band, which
has an excellent front-end.
No magic
here; all you will be doing is
turning up the I.F. gain on each
band, which is set lower at the
factory. The service manual
contains pictures and
descriptions of the trimmer
resistors to adjust, and can be
downloaded
here:
It's big (over 12mb), so it will
take a little while to download.
If you don't want the entire
manual, the 4 pictures you need
to see are here:
144-R547,
144-R360-R857,
430-R61,
and
UX-910
Note: use a small insulated
alignment stick to make these
adjustments. The controls are
tiny, and if shorted to ground
or to another component, will
damage the circuit. The first
control is especially
susceptible, as it is very close
to a coil shield.
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Turn
off the radio and remove the
top and bottom covers. If
you have the UX-910 module
installed, remove it in
order to make the 144 and
430 band adjustments
possible. It's easy, there
are just 4 screws holding it
in place, and 3 connectors
to unplug. Set it aside
until you are ready to make
the 23cm adjustments.
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Turn
the radio on.
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Refer
to page 5-5 of the service
manual, and find R547 and
R360. Adjust these controls
for max receiver gain on 144
(main band). Then switch 144
to the sub band and adjust
R857 for max receiver gain
on the sub band.
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Switch
430 to the main band and
refer to page 5-7. Adjust
R61 for max receiver gain on
430.
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Turn
the radio off.
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Reinstall the UX-910 23cm
module. Remove the cover
plate on the UX-910 and set
it aside.
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Turn
the radio on.
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Set
the main band to 1296.1 Mhz
USB, and connect a proper
dummy load to the antenna
terminal. Refer to page 5-19
and adjust R224 for max
gain. On my unit, I was
actually able to adjust the
gain too high, as the
s-meter was reading about s3
on background noise. I
backed off the gain until
the meter dropped just below
s1, you may have to do the
same.
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This
last adjustment is for the
overall transmitter gain on
1296, and I adjusted this
because I found that I did
not have sufficient ALC
action when on SSB, even
with the mic gain all the
way up. I turned up R83 to
correct this...you may or
may not need to do the same.
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Turn
off the radio, reinstall the
UX-910 cover and the top and
bottom covers of the radio.
All done!
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