[amsat-bb] Drake 2880 mod (XTAL)

[brianm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Brian Mitton)]

Hi all,

I got home late last night to find a box from ICM frozen to my porch,
so I had to come in tonight and mod up my new Drake.  It looks like
the surgery was successful, but I have one thing I really want to share.
The ICM crystal looked taller than the one it replaced, so I compounded
the situation by putting it on with a bit of room to bend it over.
I had to bend it about 30 degrees to get the lid on.  It really didn't
like to be touching the lid, so I put kapton tape over the top.  
As I was tighting the lid I came to a point where the output would
jump almost 100 KHz (KC).  I noticed that the crystal case was touching
one of the chip caps, so with some tweezers I snuck a bit of kapton 
tape down there as well.  It all seems to be working, but I am curious
if anyone else has tried putting in an ICM crystal, and if you have
had problems.

My other observation, and this is probably a newbie question, is that
the hardest problem I had was getting that F connector un-soldered.
I worked on it with alot of solderwick and what I thought was patience,
but when I turned the nut-shaped-thing a piece of trace went with the
center conducter!  All the instructions start with the board out on the
bench ;)

So I re-crystaled it.  Took out the red coils and green caps. 
Put 18pf caps on either side of the green coil (all I have is 18 and 27)
Used clippings from the crystal leads to extend the bandpass filter.
Tweeked in the LO as best I could, and zipped it all up.  All in one
setting (two cans of coke).  It was really not that bad.

Do I need more amplification or am I ready to move on to the antenna?

73 de N8NPA Brian

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