How Should I go about repairing and troubleshooting an old CB radio?

[lightning386]

I just put this into ameture radio before I saw that there was CB radio discussion, so I apologize for not thinking and puting this there, anyways, so my dad gave me his old Superstar 3900, and I finally got power for it, when i plugged it in, only the light for the signal monitor turned on, the screen with the channel numbers did not. out of confusion, I pressed the 'ptt' button a few times to see if the Tx/Rx light would go on, but nothing happened. When I pressed the Ptt on my Baofeng, and my handheld CB radio next to it, the signal pin moved a little bit, but nothing more than a few clicks came out of anything. I talked to my dad after, and apparently you can blow a radio by not usiong an antenna. Do you think I blew it by any chance, or if not, what do you think I should do to get it running? Thank you for your time reading this!

 

[sloop]

Take it to a reputable service man (center) and let them check it to see if it can be fixed. It does not sound like you would have the equipment needed to fix the radio. The fastest way to destroy a good radio is to 'stick a screwdriver' in it when you don't know what you are doing. Todays radios are not very forgiving.

 

[K4EET]

Take it to a reputable service man (center) and let them check it to see if it can be fixed. It does not sound like you would have the equipment needed to fix the radio. The fastest way to destroy a good radio is to 'stick a screwdriver' in it when you don't know what you are doing. Todays radios are not very forgiving.

lightning386, you already stated:

<snip> I talked to my dad after, and apparently you can blow a radio by not usiong an antenna. Do you think I blew it by any chance, or if not, what do you think I should do to get it running? <snip>

What sloop stated above is very sound advice for you since you obviously are not a radio-type person or you would have known not to push the PTT button without a tuned antenna or dummy load connected to the radio.

I found this on the Internet and I do not have a SuperStar 3900 (SS3900) so I have no way of verifying that this alignment procedure is for your model and version CB Radio.

SUPERSTAR 3900 alignment - re-written for the experienced technician.

SuperStar 3900 mods (High Band) Line-Up Proceedure 25.615-28.305MHz Version This is SUPER STAR 3900 alignment, re-written for the experienced technician.

radioaficion.com

I mainly am posting it here to show you what type of test equipment you will need to do the alignment. The test equipment alone could cost thousands of dollars and note that the procedure is written for "the experienced technician." Please don't try to do any of this yourself!

But feel free to hang around Radio Reference and learn. This is a great resource and the folks here really are willing to help. We are helping you now by trying to keep you from doing any further damage to a good radio.

And finally but in no way the least... Welcome to Radio Reference!

Cheers! Dave

 

[hill]

CB isn't going to receive your Baofeng. Tbe Baofeng is transmitting on VHF or UHF and CB is 27 Mhz. Also Baofeng is FM and CB is AM.

 

[K4EET]

CB isn't going to receive your Baofeng. Tbe Baofeng is transmitting on VHF or UHF and CB is 27 Mhz. Also Baofeng is FM and CB is AM.

The meter probably moved because of the RF energy subjected to the area. Fundamental overload. Meters are sensitive current devices and it does not take much to create a current flow of electrons...

 

[GrayJeep]

You're gonna learn about radios with this one. One thing to try is to remove the cover and with NO POWER applied to the radio (disconnected from power supply - not just turned off), unseat and reseat every connector you can reach. Just a little corrosion will cause problems and the disconnect/connect cycle may break it up.

I had a 50 year old CB that wasn't receiving. When I took the cover off and turned it on and touched the radio side of the coax connector I immediately got the expected noise. What was needed was to reheat the solder joint to the center pin of the coax connector. Not saying that's your problem but sometimes it's easy. As long as you're working with only 12V (it doesn't have a power supply that plugs into the wall) you can touch things inside the radio with your fingers (NOTHING METAL!) to wiggle them.