Damn I love watching your videos lol it’s almost like I know you or something lol I’ve been working on radios since I was 16 (1986) and I still learn a lot from watching your videos take care! Peace ✌️ from ve3hip In Welland Ontario Canada 🇨🇦
Seen a lot of crazy mods do some crazy things. Good job at fixing that one up. Got a General AP Hill sitting on the bench at the moment with VCO issue.
Trouble with those xtal mods is that usually ssb or am is off depending upon the band, I prefer to change the PLL binary instead, as that eliminates that issue.
Are you talking about building a borad with extra binary adder's and such? That seems like a lot of work compared to a Captain Cave Man simple switch and crystals for 40 above and 40 bellow. I could see al that work if you where trying to get 300+ channels.
buckaroobonsi555 - yes it's more work, but the end result is better and can be properly aligned, without drift issues, I used to use EPROMs, now I use Arduino boards instead.
This is going to sound terrible since I was in first robotics for 4 years and took a year of programming and network security.That said I have never played around with Aduino!
Most people like Lester's Customs want like 100 dollars for the custom board - but with his they are direct plug and unplug no genius required to install the board.
Hello Mike. I have recently purchased a Uniden Washington and would love to send it to you so you could go through it and see what this radio needs. It does work and looks pretty good. How do I get in touch with you to do this? Thank you. Bryan
this has to be the first radio i've seen that the crystal addon was done good & worth keeping. tim at src has shown some pretty bad stuff of those that wasn't done properly was messing up the radio bad, not to mention the shotty work in the first place it was a surprise the radio had any receive / transmit at all.
18 volts is the idea voltage on a pumped up rig, this way you know you're going to get full illegal wattage out and the system will be able to handle it without voltage drops during long winded QSO's during DX....to your nextdoor neighbor! :) ~Jack, VEG
Awe yes, the obligatory noise maker....probably a screaming goat or something cool as such, you definitely wanna advertise when you're on to your closest neighbors in a five mile radius, that way the can stop their QSO and listen to (as they have no choice as you suck there needle backwards) your bedazzling omni-impotent jibber jabber, 42 roger-dee! ~Jack, VEG
I hate noise toys and any echo, reverb or delay that is noticeable. Echo, Reverb and Dealy are fine to add some warmth to an other wise sterile cold room but if you can hear them as effects it is too much! It is kind of compression if it is sucking and popping it is too much and you do not have your attack, decay, threshold set properly. I like the diversity of people and idea's on the CB but I do with it was a little better regulated. Not as regulated and sterile as amateur but better than the free for all chaos we see today. I wish their was not so much ignorant trashy bottom feeders on CB. It has nothing to do with income or social class but everything to do with respecting other's and being considerate of other's. I use the radio to talk to people and to have fun as a good citizen and gentleman not to be disruptive or self serving. People do not drive considerately or with any decency and they do not act orderly even when pushing a shopping cart at the store so I guess I am expecting too much from others!
18 volts is way way to much for a Washington supply circuit....they should be set at 13.77 Wich is factor ...13.8 max and this is for the 858 board ....and all the Washington,and cobra 142 .. Navaho..and many other 858 chassis ..they should be set at 13.77
Happy Thanksgiving Mike! Two things that caught my eye - not being a CBer (but I do have a license KAAE3854) I wonder if you tie the clarifier function together, i.e. you effectively have RIT and XIT together, don't guys chase one another around if the other guy's RCV/XMT are off? I'd think you'd want to be able to independently move RCV/XMT around. Having said that I don't think I've ever used XIT but have used RIT sometimes on my HF rigs. The other thing was the what looks like RG-174 from the new Xtal board goes thru the steel chassis - with the coax there you in effect have the outer jacket and shield to protect the inner conductor; IF you used a single wire (and I agree with your thought process) would you put a grommet there to keep mobile operation from chafing the wire? Just curious.
Happy Thanksgiving to you to. There are different trains of thought with CB clarifiers. Factory is user adjustable RX and locked TX. The bigest problem I have with that system is as frequency changes over time due to components aging the RX and TX frequencies can start to drift apart. By "unlocking" the clarifier both RX and TX frequency is the same and both change with the clarifier (you would think you would call this locked). There are a few export base stations that had a dual control. One was RX/TX and the other was RX only. With this setup it effectively had a XIT and RIT control.
Unlocked RIT is the only way to go on a CB or an export unit lacking continuous tuning. If you can move a cursor/carrot and tune the last digit a clarifer that is locked is no big deal. I live on SSB and if you want to talk to a group of people all at once like a big round table discussion it is a must. Nothing is worse than talking to a group of guys and one guy has a locked clarifer and you have to be quick on the clarifer to catch what he is saying compared to the rest of the group. On top of that radio's drift over time as the parts age. If you happen to own a modern SSB radio or an export they drift like made and if you are lucky once they warm up they settle down but not always. My Dad was anal about this sort of thing and he used to send his mobile radio's off every 2 years for a full alignment check . Most people are not that anal retentive about this stuff and a lot of them have gear that has had golden screw driver to it before they have even bought it because the best gear is older used gear for SSb. It is not like amateurs that buy a piece of gear and never take the cover off and if it breaks it goes back tot he factory for servicing. I do not know of any electronic repair shop with in a 1 hour drive of my home that is competent to work on rf gear. More than likely their is maybe 2 and you would be hard pressed to find them on CB you would likely have to go to an amateur radio site and inquire to find them. Have a look on ebay and it is hard to find a radio used or new that has not been modified!
Mike where can I find a replacement meter for the President version of this radio,and the slugs for the tuning coils. Someone modded the radio by removing all the slugs out of the tuning coils and I assume they destroyed the meter and could not find another,power supply and all circuits for it is gone have to make an aftermarket set-up or run it off an external supply - E-Bay find to try and repair. Thanks for any help I know you are an Authorized President Repair Center.
Mike other than to save money on transformer why would they set these up with 13.8V? Just about every car I have owned has had a voltage with engine running in the 14.5V-15.5V at idle the lowest I have ever had in a car was a General Motors product and it ran at 13.8V once warmed up at idle but even it came up to about 14.5 off idle.It is a mobile Uniden Grant/Cobra 148 board right?
hi Mike. do you recommend using solid copper wire for the connection from the crystal switching board to the main PC board? I have always used solid copper for things like this, but would like to know your opinion on whether or not it's beneficial. as for the clarifier mod, i would guess that the pot was still varying the amount of voltage going to the wiper even though there was no ground reference, and that's why the clarifier still changed freq when turned? just guesssing...
That's kind of what I was thinking. Between that and operating at 18 volts I guess it had enough range. What was funny was they had extended the range of the clarifier by installing a different varactor diode and adding some inductance. Once I did the clarifier modification properly it had over 12KHz of range. Way to much for a single turn pot. Had to put a normal varactor diode back in to reduce the range some. That's what I use, solid wire. Mainly because I have a 5,000 foot spool of that black and white paired double insulated wire.
People over do it with varactors. I hate 10 turn pots and varactor changes or additions on a mobile designed to be used in a mobile. If it going to be used as a base than it is fine. I am guessing they where after 10kc of adjustment but they could have just used a switch and pulled the right pin down for that. 3kc-5kc is the practical limit I think for a single turn single pot on a mobile. If you have ganged pots one for fine and one for coarse or have a 10 turn than more than that is not a problem. I am not anti-modification so long as they are done well. I do not even mind NPC, Direct Injection, Asymetrical Modulation etc so long as people filter the output but most never do!
Hey mike I have the same model Washington as this one and I got it second hand. When I turn it on it all powers up fine but when I turn the volume control above about 1/2 way a really loud squeal comes out of the front speaker. Also it receives on am on ch 1 and 40 but does not tx on am or SSB. The RX/TX light changes color but meter does not move in any mode. Any ideas where I can start if I were in the us I would send it to you but I’m in Australia
Is there a preference of Silicon or teflon stranded wire as replacements for moisture damaged factory wires.Does wire size matter I see radios with factory wire from 22 to 26 gauge wires in them?
So it would be safe to replace all with 22 gauge,I seen the SWR Board lightning hit and you spoke of how critical the trace size had to be so I was checking to make sure of wire size and types to use. Thank you very much.
i have the exact same radio with the same mod down to the 3 way switch where the head phone jack goes.......the problem with mine is i have 3 wires in it that go nowhere ...one is off the clarifier and i think one is of the mod board and the other is an orange one .......when i got this washington they had 2 wires wrapped and tried to solder them to the 13.8 volt plug on the inside ......the radio comes on and lites up and has static but i have failed to here anyone on it ....you key the mike and it switches to tx from rx......the clarifier does nothing.....i live in western ky and there is no repair shops around me close ........sorry for the long post.............
Hi, off topic sort of but I cannot find anyone who knows where I can get a replacement l.e.d. channel display for my Realistic trc-458. There's a total of 5 segments out on mine and it's hard to tell what channel it's on. I'm not bad at solder/desoldering so I can handle replacing it if I could find one. Do you know of a source. Thank You'
Uses one of the most common dual 7 segment displays ever used in CB's. Go to Kens Electronics. www.kenselectronics.com/lists/leds.htm The radio should have a TLR321 in it. The substitute he carries should be a 4233RA.
+ᗒ╬ᗕ1112223333111ᗒ╬ᗕ If you have a radio with a crystal switch board like this do a factory transceiver alignment using the CB band crystal. After your done the alignment of the synthesizer circuit you can then switch to the other crystals and use the trimmer caps on that switch board to adjust them.
I have one they put a switch down at the bottom for a post to be upper and lower channels well I got a frequency counter and it went to 28 MHz it’s all messed up I have a messed up radio the regular channels it’s all right was not loud enough I need to more modulate or something they got that switched it it’s it’s weird it’s the same certain switches same channels but no up really ever nor channels like that supposed to be they got it messed up bad side van I can’t get out I can hear not a problem the breaker for the channel if you get that switch in the middle yeah the regular 40 channel He gets out that I need more power to it I don’t know what to do with it the guy that used to work on the radios up here in Indiana that I know in Lafayette he passed away I’m having surgery still rod he’s a good guy and I got radios it needs to be worked on but I have nobody to work on them don’t have the money really but what can you say other president Washington I need to get the right modulation Five pan I want to use it as a 4 Pennbecause I got more microphones for for Penn
William Colvin Crystal boards are a bad idea. No matter what you do all those wires cause frequency drift because they all act like capacitors in parallel with the crystals. If you must have extra channels the only way to do it and not effect frequency stability is to do a old school switch mod to the PLL or add either a old school EPROM or a microprocessor controlled type channel expansion board.
I am not educated on the program type circuits trying to figure out how to write the program to make it work. Had way too many head injuries and mental stress and my mothers side of the family all her and her siblings and their children have been hit with Alzheimers Disease. Thank you very much for all your help answering my questions and others on here with limited funds trying to find a way to cope in the World we live in today.
If someone only wants 40 above and 40 below is their anything wrong with those old crystal boards? I can see maybe running to 15V because most Toyota's when running run at 15.5 volts but 18V is insane! Some idiots over volt their amplifiers to 21-24 volts. Why they do not use more transistors or higher gain or use higher voltage transistors or LDMOS I have no clue. Just a lot of stupid all the way around. To add insult to injury these idiots are burning through obsolete no longer made premium Toshiba bipolar transistors.
UNIT 399 Medellin Colombia UNDERSTANDING AND MODIFYING THE UNIDEN 858SSB CHASSIS Anyone know who unit 399 is - he has this page that is like a book on the Uniden 858 boards,and the website is unit399.wixsite.com/858ssb. I never knew there was so many modifications to the 858 radios and he claims the ones listed on his page were all created by him.
Damn I love watching your videos lol it’s almost like I know you or something lol I’ve been working on radios since I was 16 (1986) and I still learn a lot from watching your videos take care! Peace ✌️ from ve3hip In Welland Ontario Canada 🇨🇦
Seen a lot of crazy mods do some crazy things. Good job at fixing that one up. Got a General AP Hill sitting on the bench at the moment with VCO issue.
Good luck, VCO problems can be a pain sometimes.
Happy Thanksgiving Mike! Thanks for sharing.
Mike, where have you been! Missed you and your videos. Come back!
Sadly I don't think Mike is with us anymore
Trouble with those xtal mods is that usually ssb or am is off depending upon the band, I prefer to change the PLL binary instead, as that eliminates that issue.
Are you talking about building a borad with extra binary adder's and such? That seems like a lot of work compared to a Captain Cave Man simple switch and crystals for 40 above and 40 bellow. I could see al that work if you where trying to get 300+ channels.
buckaroobonsi555 - yes it's more work, but the end result is better and can be properly aligned, without drift issues, I used to use EPROMs, now I use Arduino boards instead.
This is going to sound terrible since I was in first robotics for 4 years and took a year of programming and network security.That said I have never played around with Aduino!
Most people like Lester's Customs want like 100 dollars for the custom board - but with his they are direct plug and unplug no genius required to install the board.
That is fine if you are into programing chips - but for the everyday old timers like me a chip board would be a lot simpler.
Hello Mike. I have recently purchased a Uniden Washington and would love to send it to you so you could go through it and see what this radio needs. It does work and looks pretty good. How do I get in touch with you to do this? Thank you. Bryan
Nice job done! Happy Thanksgiving Mike. Hope you have a great weekend.
this has to be the first radio i've seen that the crystal addon was done good & worth keeping. tim at src has shown some pretty bad stuff of those that wasn't done properly was messing up the radio bad, not to mention the shotty work in the first place
it was a surprise the radio had any receive / transmit at all.
18 volts is the idea voltage on a pumped up rig, this way you know you're going to get full illegal wattage out and the system will be able to handle it without voltage drops during long winded QSO's during DX....to your nextdoor neighbor! :) ~Jack, VEG
ROFLMAO!!! And there were signs of it having a noise toy at one time. Who would have guessed...
Awe yes, the obligatory noise maker....probably a screaming goat or something cool as such, you definitely wanna advertise when you're on to your closest neighbors in a five mile radius, that way the can stop their QSO and listen to (as they have no choice as you suck there needle backwards) your bedazzling omni-impotent jibber jabber, 42 roger-dee! ~Jack, VEG
I hate noise toys and any echo, reverb or delay that is noticeable. Echo, Reverb and Dealy are fine to add some warmth to an other wise sterile cold room but if you can hear them as effects it is too much! It is kind of compression if it is sucking and popping it is too much and you do not have your attack, decay, threshold set properly. I like the diversity of people and idea's on the CB but I do with it was a little better regulated. Not as regulated and sterile as amateur but better than the free for all chaos we see today. I wish their was not so much ignorant trashy bottom feeders on CB. It has nothing to do with income or social class but everything to do with respecting other's and being considerate of other's. I use the radio to talk to people and to have fun as a good citizen and gentleman not to be disruptive or self serving. People do not drive considerately or with any decency and they do not act orderly even when pushing a shopping cart at the store so I guess I am expecting too much from others!
18 volts is way way to much for a Washington supply circuit....they should be set at 13.77 Wich is factor ...13.8 max and this is for the 858 board ....and all the Washington,and cobra 142 .. Navaho..and many other 858 chassis ..they should be set at 13.77
Happy Thanksgiving Mike! Two things that caught my eye - not being a CBer (but I do have a license KAAE3854) I wonder if you tie the clarifier function together, i.e. you effectively have RIT and XIT together, don't guys chase one another around if the other guy's RCV/XMT are off? I'd think you'd want to be able to independently move RCV/XMT around. Having said that I don't think I've ever used XIT but have used RIT sometimes on my HF rigs. The other thing was the what looks like RG-174 from the new Xtal board goes thru the steel chassis - with the coax there you in effect have the outer jacket and shield to protect the inner conductor; IF you used a single wire (and I agree with your thought process) would you put a grommet there to keep mobile operation from chafing the wire? Just curious.
Happy Thanksgiving to you to.
There are different trains of thought with CB clarifiers. Factory is user adjustable RX and locked TX. The bigest problem I have with that system is as frequency changes over time due to components aging the RX and TX frequencies can start to drift apart. By "unlocking" the clarifier both RX and TX frequency is the same and both change with the clarifier (you would think you would call this locked). There are a few export base stations that had a dual control. One was RX/TX and the other was RX only. With this setup it effectively had a XIT and RIT control.
Unlocked RIT is the only way to go on a CB or an export unit lacking continuous tuning. If you can move a cursor/carrot and tune the last digit a clarifer that is locked is no big deal. I live on SSB and if you want to talk to a group of people all at once like a big round table discussion it is a must. Nothing is worse than talking to a group of guys and one guy has a locked clarifer and you have to be quick on the clarifer to catch what he is saying compared to the rest of the group. On top of that radio's drift over time as the parts age. If you happen to own a modern SSB radio or an export they drift like made and if you are lucky once they warm up they settle down but not always.
My Dad was anal about this sort of thing and he used to send his mobile radio's off every 2 years for a full alignment check . Most people are not that anal retentive about this stuff and a lot of them have gear that has had golden screw driver to it before they have even bought it because the best gear is older used gear for SSb. It is not like amateurs that buy a piece of gear and never take the cover off and if it breaks it goes back tot he factory for servicing. I do not know of any electronic repair shop with in a 1 hour drive of my home that is competent to work on rf gear. More than likely their is maybe 2 and you would be hard pressed to find them on CB you would likely have to go to an amateur radio site and inquire to find them.
Have a look on ebay and it is hard to find a radio used or new that has not been modified!
I love my unit ( the Australian version)
Mike where can I find a replacement meter for the President version of this radio,and the slugs for the tuning coils. Someone modded the radio by removing all the slugs out of the tuning coils and I assume they destroyed the meter and could not find another,power supply and all circuits for it is gone have to make an aftermarket set-up or run it off an external supply - E-Bay find to try and repair. Thanks for any help I know you are an Authorized President Repair Center.
Mike other than to save money on transformer why would they set these up with 13.8V? Just about every car I have owned has had a voltage with engine running in the 14.5V-15.5V at idle the lowest I have ever had in a car was a General Motors product and it ran at 13.8V once warmed up at idle but even it came up to about 14.5 off idle.It is a mobile Uniden Grant/Cobra 148 board right?
hi Mike. do you recommend using solid copper wire for the connection from the crystal switching board to the main PC board?
I have always used solid copper for things like this, but would like to know your opinion on whether or not it's beneficial.
as for the clarifier mod, i would guess that the pot was still varying the amount of voltage going to the wiper even though there was no ground reference, and that's why the clarifier still changed freq when turned?
just guesssing...
That's kind of what I was thinking. Between that and operating at 18 volts I guess it had enough range. What was funny was they had extended the range of the clarifier by installing a different varactor diode and adding some inductance. Once I did the clarifier modification properly it had over 12KHz of range. Way to much for a single turn pot. Had to put a normal varactor diode back in to reduce the range some.
That's what I use, solid wire. Mainly because I have a 5,000 foot spool of that black and white paired double insulated wire.
People over do it with varactors. I hate 10 turn pots and varactor changes or additions on a mobile designed to be used in a mobile. If it going to be used as a base than it is fine. I am guessing they where after 10kc of adjustment but they could have just used a switch and pulled the right pin down for that. 3kc-5kc is the practical limit I think for a single turn single pot on a mobile. If you have ganged pots one for fine and one for coarse or have a 10 turn than more than that is not a problem.
I am not anti-modification so long as they are done well. I do not even mind NPC, Direct Injection, Asymetrical Modulation etc so long as people filter the output but most never do!
Crazy
Hey mike I have the same model Washington as this one and I got it second hand. When I turn it on it all powers up fine but when I turn the volume control above about 1/2 way a really loud squeal comes out of the front speaker. Also it receives on am on ch 1 and 40 but does not tx on am or SSB. The RX/TX light changes color but meter does not move in any mode. Any ideas where I can start if I were in the us I would send it to you but I’m in Australia
Is there a preference of Silicon or teflon stranded wire as replacements for moisture damaged factory wires.Does wire size matter I see radios with factory wire from 22 to 26 gauge wires in them?
+William Colvin
Size does matter. Never go down in wire gauge. Replace with the same gauge or larger.
So it would be safe to replace all with 22 gauge,I seen the SWR Board lightning hit and you spoke of how critical the trace size had to be so I was checking to make sure of wire size and types to use. Thank you very much.
Hi Mike, I have a Washington I want to send to you with a couple of power mics. How do I do that?
You said you replaced the capacitors also. Maybe the clarifier was working because of a leaky capacitor. Just a thought.
i have the exact same radio with the same mod down to the 3 way switch where the head phone jack goes.......the problem with mine is i have 3 wires in it that go nowhere ...one is off the clarifier and i think one is of the mod board and the other is an orange one .......when i got this washington they had 2 wires wrapped and tried to solder them to the 13.8 volt plug on the inside ......the radio comes on and lites up and has static but i have failed to here anyone on it ....you key the mike and it switches to tx from rx......the clarifier does nothing.....i live in western ky and there is no repair shops around me close ........sorry for the long post.............
Could u help me my ssb is off
Hi, off topic sort of but I cannot find anyone who knows where I can get a replacement l.e.d. channel display for my Realistic trc-458. There's a total of 5 segments out on mine and it's hard to tell what channel it's on. I'm not bad at solder/desoldering so I can handle replacing it if I could find one. Do you know of a source. Thank You'
Uses one of the most common dual 7 segment displays ever used in CB's. Go to Kens Electronics. www.kenselectronics.com/lists/leds.htm
The radio should have a TLR321 in it. The substitute he carries should be a 4233RA.
I thank you, you are a store-house of information.
the crystals always suck, upper lower and am are always different on the clarifier on each band
They shouldn't be if its aligned properly.
MikesRadioRepair Do I align them to AM?
I find if I align on lsb, usb will be all different eg. not 12 oclock
+ᗒ╬ᗕ1112223333111ᗒ╬ᗕ
If you have a radio with a crystal switch board like this do a factory transceiver alignment using the CB band crystal. After your done the alignment of the synthesizer circuit you can then switch to the other crystals and use the trimmer caps on that switch board to adjust them.
It has always amazed me some of the stupid crap people do to CB radios. lol
I have one they put a switch down at the bottom for a post to be upper and lower channels well I got a frequency counter and it went to 28 MHz it’s all messed up I have a messed up radio the regular channels it’s all right was not loud enough I need to more modulate or something they got that switched it it’s it’s weird it’s the same certain switches same channels but no up really ever nor channels like that supposed to be they got it messed up bad side van I can’t get out I can hear not a problem the breaker for the channel if you get that switch in the middle yeah the regular 40 channel He gets out that I need more power to it I don’t know what to do with it the guy that used to work on the radios up here in Indiana that I know in Lafayette he passed away I’m having surgery still rod he’s a good guy and I got radios it needs to be worked on but I have nobody to work on them don’t have the money really but what can you say other president Washington I need to get the right modulation Five pan I want to use it as a 4 Pennbecause I got more microphones for for Penn
Anyone here have a schematic to make one of those crystal boards?
William Colvin
Crystal boards are a bad idea. No matter what you do all those wires cause frequency drift because they all act like capacitors in parallel with the crystals. If you must have extra channels the only way to do it and not effect frequency stability is to do a old school switch mod to the PLL or add either a old school EPROM or a microprocessor controlled type channel expansion board.
I am not educated on the program type circuits trying to figure out how to write the program to make it work. Had way too many head injuries and mental stress and my mothers side of the family all her and her siblings and their children have been hit with Alzheimers Disease. Thank you very much for all your help answering my questions and others on here with limited funds trying to find a way to cope in the World we live in today.
If someone only wants 40 above and 40 below is their anything wrong with those old crystal boards? I can see maybe running to 15V because most Toyota's when running run at 15.5 volts but 18V is insane! Some idiots over volt their amplifiers to 21-24 volts. Why they do not use more transistors or higher gain or use higher voltage transistors or LDMOS I have no clue. Just a lot of stupid all the way around. To add insult to injury these idiots are burning through obsolete no longer made premium Toshiba bipolar transistors.
Anyone here have a schematic to make one of those crystal boards?
UNIT 399
Medellin Colombia
UNDERSTANDING AND MODIFYING
THE UNIDEN 858SSB CHASSIS
Anyone know who unit 399 is - he has this page that is like a book on the Uniden 858 boards,and the website is unit399.wixsite.com/858ssb.
I never knew there was so many modifications to the 858 radios and he claims the ones listed on his page were all created by him.