Uniden PC-68 weather feature failure

[flyboy32]

Hi folks. I've been running into some Uniden PC-68's with non-functioning weather receive feature. Two of the radios, a PC-68 Elite, and a PC-68 LTW, both have never been opened, never been messed with, and the WX receive is dead on both, no other problems, just dead WX receive. Is there a known issue with these rigs? It seems there is as I've spoken with others whose PC68 has no WX receive function either. Does anyone know where to find the bad component(s) on the board? Any help is greatly appreciated. My old eyes are on the fade and I just don't want another bout of signal tracing. Thanks for understanding..

 

[JayMojave]

Hello flyboy32: Yeah heard about that a few times, had a old pace radio that had the weather VHF frequencies in it but it didn't seem to work.

I removed the CB antenna, and inserted a short wire about 1 1/2 feet long into the antenna connector and heard the local VHF weather channel somewhat. So I think the CB Antennas don't work so well for the VHF receiver unless your close to the VHF weather transmitter. Maybe other will chime in here and shed some more light on this.

While traveling up from the Mojave Desert to Northern Idaho and such, I use my 2 meter VHF radio and antenna to listen in on the weather VHF channels, and that's a help at times when sever weather comes in and makes traveling on the roads not pretty. I have made receive contact well over 60 plus miles at times. The weather service puts the weather VHF Transmitters on top of mountains as most repeaters are.

Jay in the Great Mojave Desert

 

[kf4eyr]

that is my first thought as jay said,, sometimes the antenna being used cuts the recieve severely on the vhf signals,,, that is why fire stick does the dual band cb/vhf type of antenna,, i have used my duplexer setup to make my realistic cb/wx radio to get the wx to work ,,,without the vhf antenna the wx was dead,,,,

 

[DJ11DLN]

Neighbor has a Uniden CB with weather in one of his trucks. I'm not sure of the model but it always worked well enough on the (K40?) mag mount on the roof to get the two closest NOAA towers. As of last April it was still working, he's had it for several years.

 

[flyboy32]

Thanks for the replies guys, but this isn't an antenna issue, 40mV at 162.5 MHz results in nada, these suckers are dead. There should be a switching transistor, a small signal type like the 2N2222, that diverts the incoming signal to the VHF board, But finding it's location is the problem. I feel like Mr. Magoo trying to read a road map.