setting up my old gear

Yesterday I managed to get to the dry cellar my gear was stored in. it had been all moved around since I was last there and queue a lot of items falling on my head and an hour spent moving mine and other folks stuff around to get to my gear that was right at the back at the bottom of a stack of boxes.

alot of sweating and a little bit of blood later and i have my gear and got a cab home with it.

so far today been deciding which mic to use, a sedelta desk mic, found how to wire the plug for uniden as i belive it was last used on a hammajor, not mine i inherited it from a friends father. so will fire up the soldering iron aftyer work today.

got contact cleaner in the two sliding pots on it and also on the pot and switch of the swr meter i picked to use.

thinking about what i can get to use as a groundplane on the magmout ill be using to start off with. 

ill do some similar pot cleaning on the radio,

only hard to solve issue is where to set up the radio, and to make space as living in a bedsit (the most common habitations in this area) 

I was glad to find I had not left any batteries in any of the microphones i had stored. 

also found and a lead that may come in handy for the sw radio i plan to have set up for listening but sadly despit finding the Mic for the 2M handheld no sign of the antenna, i know where the mag mount is for that radio its sat in the loft of a flat i sold in the south of the uk over 20 years ago.

I am puzzled, i wanted to look up the Sadelta Mic i have to get some info on it but it can not be found. ill describe it.

Desk microphone black goose neck, two VU one for limit and one for modulation, slideres for the same limit 0 to 10 mVE 0 to 400. black metal body, red/orange plastic sides and PTT with lock function. has about three microswitches the ptt works on. takes a 9V battery. 

Markings lost a little due to corrosion Saedelta (with a sinewave) *P-22  the * is an illegible charachter.

what i know of its use before mine was working DX on a Ham Major through a Sigma 4 about 7 feet off the ground.

Anyone know anything about this model of Microphone? not checked the insert works that will be done later, it did work 7 years ago...


Ok i did some more gargling its an MP-22 not much info online about looks to be from early 80's

Sounds like you're busy there Mike and hope you enjoy your work getting set up.

I'm still "setting up" despite being on air three years later!

Always something to do which is what for me anyway makes the radio interest so appealing.

welll i am now not sure the microphone will work took the cover off the business end and it could be broken as the transducer seems to have come apart as the magnet stayed in the arm and the plastic dome and coil came out, not complety sure its busted as no wires hanging out. i think ill try to test it using the PA function on the yourk before attempting to wire the plug for the undien based rig

Hopefully it's not too difficult to get working and mic elements are cheap enough to be had for replacement. I think the MP-22 used a dynamic element but could easily be converted to use an electret type.

I wish you well with it Mike. 

Photos to see if I can and to show what I mean.

Oh poop - that is an issue.

I'll bet finding a microphone element like that from 1981 might be a problem.

If it helps any Mike I found some details or rather schematic/circuit diagram where someone converted the circuitry to accept an electret type microphone :-

https://www.casimages.com/i/180109084303275985.jpg.html

The mods are basically for applying power to the electret element as well as alteration of the drive circuitry and expanding the frequency response. Weirdly they also put a cap on the VU/Modulation meter to slow the swing of the meter.

They're pretty much component swaps so shouldn't be too hard to perform. I'm sure with a bit of foam and some ingenuity such an element could be popped into that mic head.

I know some will argue that it will never sound the same again but I'll bet a lot would be hard pushed to tell the difference with the mods shown.


Anyway if push comes to shove it's an option available.

Thanks Victor, some study for me tonight once i have re arrainged my arraingments so there is a space for the Radio to sit. Confirms my suspicion its useless as a mic right now, i have a good selection of hand held mics so one of those must still be functional, fingers crossed.

So during my lunch break I had a look in my box of old CB gear and decided on resurrecting an Altai DM-315E glad i had taken the battery out last time i used it. It is i think set for cybernet so ill have to we wire the plug for uniden once i test it on a cybernet rig to check it has a working insert.

Years ago when i did repairs i have fitted an old tape recorder mic element in a mic like that.
Was just a thought and did look on the bay for one but none to be had.

Alan Pilot wrote:

Years ago when i did repairs i have fitted an old tape recorder mic element in a mic like that.
Was just a thought and did look on the bay for one but none to be had.

ah now thats an idea, i have a vague memory of one like that but i bet it was binned over 20 years ago i think ill have a better chance finding one in Prague than the UK though

update,

Finaly got up a head of steam and sorted out the space in my kitchen to have shelves to put radios and such like on and the micro desk to actually work on in place. 

Put back together a Realistic DX-100L sww/mw.lw receiver i took apart some months ago, not even lost a screw or a knob. so pluggged that in and had a listen around the bands, got some stations here and there and some music around 30mhz but not a peep between 26 and 29. 

next took the covers off the York JCB863 and fixed the tone switch that had been pushed in, and attempted to clean the potentiometers, i plan to use it to listen to how i sound on the Stalker 9fdx once i get a microphone wired up for it. 

did not get as far as waving the smoldering iron about tonight but feeling really good as i did a thing after months of not doing a thing due to poor mental health, well apart from logging into work and doing that then going back to sleep. 

I'm feeling pretty good tonight and looking forward to some smoldering iron action tomorrow evening followed by setting the swr on the mag mount ill be using for the time being.

well what have i learned today? 

1) modern PC monitors raise the static on the radio from bouncing around 1 to 9
2) The radio seems to be off frequency, or the york i listened in on is... 
3) I'm not sure if any of my microphones are good
4) I need a frequency counter
5) More testing required.


Number 1 is a pain as i was hoping to monitor 555 for skip while I worked. The rest is life and ill find a way.

I did see a frequency counter in my price range, under 20quid on a local auction site so ill make a bid tonight.
meanwhile Ill monitor the cept ch19 for activity and hope the colleague who has a CB in a box somewhere will find it and tell me what price he wants or lend it to me for a while...

All looking good there Mike and hope you've been enjoying yourself with it all.

My old PC used to cause me radio grief but luckily the new laptop doesn't and the secondary monitor required replacing the RFI noisy external PSU with an alternative that wasn't noisy.

I did buy an eight digit LED frequency counter from China a while back that is surprisingly accurate but they seem to have doubled in price recently!

I hope you continue to get on well despite any small set backs.


All the best,
Victor

in a surprising turn of events I actually heard somone on the cept frequencies this evening, then discoverd my multimeter has Hz then found it is not all that as i get no better than 2 decimal places and get 27.54 on 12 high but with only 2 decimal places and its more a tool for measuring volts ohms and Amps i dont think it is giving much of a picture and is deffo not for setting transmit to.

the Antenna placement will be a big limiting factor while i live in my current place.

12 high should be 27.555 ?.
Have you got a switch for a 10kc drop to get the alpha channels it does look like it.

Alan Pilot wrote:

12 high should be 27.555 ?.
Have you got a switch for a 10kc drop to get the alpha channels it does look like it.

i was working that 12 high should be 27.555 but i would not trust my measuring device it only has two decimal places. its more of a multimeter (Pros's Kit MT-1820) I made a bid on a frequency counter last night from a local auction site, working on a tight budget here, and if that fails ill order a basic one from a local eshop on payday.

there was a little bit of local activity this morning on cept 19 and they sounded on frequency so perhaps worrying with no cause. 

the rig does not have the 10kc shift there is a clarifier  

the York JCB863 is not much use here it is unmodified cb27/81 had it since i was a teen, it is useful to check on audio from the stalker when transmitting. 

I think my biggest issue is using a magmount on a metal windowsill from a third floor flat, ruminating on what I could cobble together as a) a ground plane b) and antenna c) would anyone notice if i got on the roof and dropped coax to my window.

I cant mount anything on the outside wall private rental property. 

there is a rig shop not too far but i is in a motorway rest stop closed weekends and I currently dont have a car and my licence expired and there are a few brexit related hoops i have to leap through without getting stuck or catching fire.

The 2 switches on the left what do they do.
545 is an alpha try it again and change the switch at the same time.
Or even try it on 12 and wind the clarifier all the way.
Strange to be that 10kc out if it is your measuring device that is wrong.

on the ltop left going inwards nb/anl no change to frequency when switching this, or backgriund noise, then two band switches on for high (cept) and one for Low next is to switch between normal or UK cb27/81 

anyway not conclusive it is that far off frequency untill i get a evie that has the resolution to measure it

well the disappointment is high and reception is low, it seems that using a magmount on a large metal windowsill on a third floor flat means almost no reception, ill have to consider investing in something better and getting on the roof,

Make a T2lt and hang it down when you need to use it.
Cheep and easy to make.

Thanks that could be a possibility not sure I have enough height though I did hear some activities around sun set a on Sunday not sure if they were russian or Bulgarian definitely not local but the signals were fading in and out a lot. My cheap frequency counter should be here in 48 hours so that will help clarify if the old set is on or off frequency. If off I'll have to find what to twiddle In side withought Messing the entire radio up.

So the "frequency counter arrived today" only issue is no idea if it is calibrated, it says on the case 1-500Mhz and runs of a 9v battery, I now realize I have nothing with witch to test how accurate it is...

but anyway decided to see what it gave me on the radio 

FM modulation CH1 UK 27.6042, mid/fcc/cept 26.9678, high 27.4178
as above CH20 UK 27.7943, MID/FCC/cept 27.2078, High 27.6579
as above CH40 UK 27.9943, mid.fcc cept 27.4078, High27.8579

So if the counter is any kind of accurate it is off frequency, so next i need to have some regressive hypnotherapy to see what an old guy did to it when i first set it up here 7 or more years ago as he said it was off and adjusted one trimmer or pot i think it was to the rear on the right hand side, it had been gone through ten or so years before that using the factory set up guide by a guy local to me in Bracknell at the time and was spot on after a lot of work.  


Sop how badly off is it, what do the CT community think?

MikeInCzechRep wrote:

thinking about what i can get to use as a groundplane on the magmout ill be using to start off with. 

i

Four bits of wire 9ft long. You can get away with one but four would be better.

Solar conditions were crap last week basically leaving the bands so knackered you could be forgiven for thinking you had no antenna attached. 

As I type things are much better.