Who's Good At Soldering?

[Metro174]

I'm having a problem with my scanner. Reception has gotten very poor indoors and I have a hunch it's the same thing that happened to an old scanner of mine. With that one, the connection of the antenna to the board inside became disconnected resulting in the same type of reception I'm having now. With the old scanner, I was able to solder it back and it works fine now. The trouble is, I am not the most adept person when it comes to soldering. Took me way too long and several attempts to get it right.

Anybody here good at soldering or know a place where I can get it done correctly?

 

[jparks29]

whereabouts in MD are you?

 

[gewecke]

Re; soldering

First of all,is this a handheld unit you have?
If it is, a common problem is if it has a bnc ant. connector they tend to loosen if
you change antennas alot. The center conductor will break.
an easy way to fix this is solder a small 1/4 to 1/2 inch piece of copper braid
in place of the copper wire which goes between the pc board and bottom of the bnc.
You can also use LOC-tite on the internal nut which secures the bnc
from moving.
Good Luck!
n9zas

 

[mlevin]

What kinda scanner is it? I sent my Pro 96 into RS service a couple of years ago for the same problem. It came back better than before.

 

[Metro174]

It's a handheld, my Pro-96 and yes the BNC/ANT connection has become loose. I confirmed that this afternoon. I can turn it partially and reception changes. The same thing happened to my Pro-95 which I was able to fix. My soldering skills are sub par so it was kind of a major project.

jparks, I'm in NE Baltimore area.

Mo, how long did it take for RS to service your scanner? I'm itching to get it fixed ASAP since I use it so much at work.

 

[mlevin]

It took about 4 weeks. I bought another pro 96 to use in the interim, then returned it once my scanner was ready. I wound up selling my Uniden, and using that money to buy back the second Pro 96 that I returned, so now I got two.