RCI-2950dx am final fix??

[VirtualLiquid]

Hello all !!

I am new here and I am so far very glad I found this site lots of good stuff !!

I am not new to the hobby but I have been out of the loop for a bit. I have a problem with my rci-2950dx..
I just hooked it up to a nice new dipole 44ft in the air, and everything was working great 1:2 on the swr great receive and send, but then all of a sudden only on AM it stopped receiving so well unless the transmission was really close to me. I am still able to send out good distance but receive is no good anymore. I think it is the final or finals.. Is there anywhere I can look to see the replacement procedure for these or where I can get new ones ? I do not want to pay 300$ to have it fixed.. Thank you in advance.. any help is appreciated..

 

[rfradioconsult]

If you are still transmitting pretty much the same distance, then it is not your final(s). Most likely it is the receive RF amplifier stage or the TX/RX antenna switching network. Time to find someone with the ability to troubleshoot the radio with test equipment capable of measuring the receive sensitivity.

 

[Token]

Hello all !!

I am new here and I am so far very glad I found this site lots of good stuff !!

I am not new to the hobby but I have been out of the loop for a bit. I have a problem with my rci-2950dx..
I just hooked it up to a nice new dipole 44ft in the air, and everything was working great 1:2 on the swr great receive and send, but then all of a sudden only on AM it stopped receiving so well unless the transmission was really close to me. I am still able to send out good distance but receive is no good anymore. I think it is the final or finals.. Is there anywhere I can look to see the replacement procedure for these or where I can get new ones ? I do not want to pay 300$ to have it fixed.. Thank you in advance.. any help is appreciated..

As rfradioconsult said, if you are transmitting OK it is probably not your finals, in fact your finals (Q60 and Q61 on the schematic) have nothing to do with receiving on that particular radio. If you can get access to a power meter to confirm the power output of the rig that would give you a firm answer, if it is full transmit power, or near full power, then it is not your finals. But even if TX power is low I do not see how bad finals would affect your receive signal other than a possible shorted transistor pulling a voltage rail low, and I do not think that likely.

Also, if it is in AM only mode this is another possible indicator of where the problem might be. It is possible that it is a simple Mode Switch failure, but it also could be a deeper component failure.

Are you sure it is AM only showing the problem? Not FM and not USB/LSB/CW? If all modes are having receive issues this is a different symptom from FM or USB/LSB. In that radio the IF splits after the first IF filter (L8, L9, and L10) and the USB/LSB/CW path is different from the AM/FM path for a bit. A problem that affects all modes would be either before this split or after the signals all are recombined just before the Squelch circuit, Q55. A problem that only affects AM/FM but does not affect USB/LSB/CW would indicate a problem between these two points and in the AM/FM branch. A problem that honestly only affects AM and not FM would indicate a probable issue around D34, the AM detector, as that is the only part of the path that differs in the AM and FM path.

Regardless, unless you have some electronics knowledge it is unlikely you will fix this problem yourself anytime soon. Electronics are not magic and it is possible to hammer out many issues with minimal electronics background, but from your description so far it sounds to me like it might take a bit of ferreting to find the exact issue.

T!

 

[VirtualLiquid]

Ok, I have been playing around with the radio for a little bit now, I hooked up another radio to see what the difference was if any on 10 and 11 meter. So far I've concluded that the AM is for some reason not as bad as I thought it was, but it appears to be receiving much much less then the other radios on both 10 and 11 meter. But this is only happening on AM, lsb usb and CW all work, I have pre recorded stuff from a few days ago in my spectrum analyzer and on audacity and it sounds all the same. It is just AM for sure that is giving me the problems, when I switch to AM the radio becomes much quieter. But I will be sending it out later this month to get fixed anyway. Thank you for your help it is much appreciated

- 73's