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Issues with Galaxy DX 959 2010 year model

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Cruiseomatic

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Found it in a junk car I was cleaning out before crushing and brought it home to see what I had. Covers and face were sticky and filthy dirty. Pulled the hoods and knobs off and deep cleaned them. Started looking to see how dirty, bad, and molested it was inside and surprised it wasn't. Still factory clean and virgin. Got it tuned, opened, and clarifier tracking both TX and RX.

Notice some strange things after trying to use it.

Meter doesn't show SSB modulation only AM and even then, opened to 80% mod the needle swings just past 100 and back. ANL/NB doesn't work on SSB either, Just AM. Clarifier tracks about 2 wide Kc's up but maybe 1 down at best with onboard freq counter making it almost useless. One time the freq counter didn't work but slapping the top brought it back, Then later, it couldn't lock on freq for a minute. (Thinking loose wire on that). It currently has 4 watts output on low power and about 13 on high. Thinking of turning the low down to 2 instead.
Don't want it or any of my other radios to do every last little mW they can or cranked up to 120% modulation..... Its not watts that get you heard, It's audio power and if your signal is weak but carries loud clean audio, you'll be heard.

What could be wrong with this thing? I've already looked at the factory specs for wide clarifier and it has the correct resistor installed. Wiring appears right on J3 and J9.
Also, Clarifier is acting the same now as it did before tracking RX/TX. Wide and very unbalanced regardless of mode.

Lastly, And this might be antenna related, but when checking SWRs on a new antenna install, the meter would randomly twitch like it lost TX power briefly. I "rocked" the antenna and rechecked while still swinging. There's no spring either. While the untuned SWRs were slightly changing by .1 to and from, it didn't twitch. External meter has never done that before and is accurate. Before tuning it said I was at 1.8 across 1-40 while built in "meter" shows 1.1 - 1.2 and somehow automatically calibrates?
 
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Cruiseomatic

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To add to the radio, On SSB, it sounds like "frying eggs" and stations sound "warbled" on RX.
I attempted to tune the antenna and the SWRs will NOT drop below 1.9 no matter what adjustments I make. I'm beginning to think the coax is bad because it is stiff and when you flex it, It crackles. But if it were bad, The SWRs would be lower. Almost to low from line loss unless the core has desinigrated and changed the impedance. I also checked for CMC by running my hand along the coax looking for changes, None.
 

jonwienke

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I attempted to tune the antenna and the SWRs will NOT drop below 1.9 no matter what adjustments I make. I'm beginning to think the coax is bad because it is stiff and when you flex it, It crackles.

Bad coax can cause SWR far higher than 1.9. And your coax is definitely bad if it's crackling.
 

kesselk

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To add to the radio, On SSB, it sounds like "frying eggs" and stations sound "warbled" on RX.
I attempted to tune the antenna and the SWRs will NOT drop below 1.9 no matter what adjustments I make. I'm beginning to think the coax is bad because it is stiff and when you flex it, It crackles. But if it were bad, The SWRs would be lower. Almost to low from line loss unless the core has desinigrated and changed the impedance. I also checked for CMC by running my hand along the coax looking for changes, None.

Might want to check the antenna connection on the radio, if it was a little bit loose there is a good chance the wire has broken off where it connects on the inside of the radio. I had this happen to my 99v2 and it made it act weird, SWR was unstable, static on recieve, and intermittent transmit.
 

jonwienke

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Change the crackly crap coax before touching the radio.
 

kesselk

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Change the crackly crap coax before touching the radio.


he can remove the lid and check the wire soldered to the coax connector, if its broken it will be easy to see...mine had a solid wire going from the PCB to the connector that broke off because the connector would rock back and forth when attaching the coax and the wire broke right off
 

jonwienke

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Doesn't matter. The coax is obviously bad, and should be replaced before doing anything else. If that fixes the problem, there's zero point in opening up the radio.
 

kesselk

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Doesn't matter. The coax is obviously bad, and should be replaced before doing anything else. If that fixes the problem, there's zero point in opening up the radio.

if that wire is broken it acts like the coax is bad...how can you say its "obvious" that the coax is bad? its easy enough to hook up another cable and antenna to that radio, or hook up a known good radio to that coax
 

jonwienke

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Coax isn't supposed to crackle when you flex it. Re-read post #2.
 
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