Anyone Know about this radio Northstar DX990V

You need to ask specific questions. It is the same as a 99 except it uses a PIC IC and rotary encoder to generate the PLL codes and LED segments.

 

The chennel selector chip and display driver ...... might be diffrent ...

 

I'm a little confused on what your asking also....It looks to me like you answered your own question back at the first of your post!

You say you just bought this radio... then say you use to have one in the past, and it was one of the best sounding radios you had ever had.......

Then there's some rambling about various radios which has no bearing one way or another with the Northstar....

One usually would ask questions on a product, before he makes the purchase.....Little late to ask, "after the fact"...

-just saying.

 

See post #2..........."It is the same as a 99 except"

I don't think the differences have anything to do with performance as far as transmitting and receiving go
.

 

In general, "Clones" are not usually as good as the original. They usually are at a glance the same as the original, only with a different name on the face, and cheaper in price, and usually will lack somewhere in quality vs. the original...

That said, that does not always hold true when it comes to CB Radios, as most all use the same boards, and are probably all built in the same Chinese sweat shops...

Be willing to bet you won't be able to tell any difference between the Northstar and the Galaxy other than what you paid vs. what a Galaxy would have cost in the same condition.

Never owned a Northstar, but I have owned plenty of Galaxy 99's and other Galaxy radios and about the only problems I have ran into with Galaxy's, specially the 99's were cold solder joint problems, which are easy to get fixed, but for some reason Galaxy's are known to have solder problems...least the older ones were.

 

A Northstar is a machine head radio. A Galaxy body mated with a micro-controller running a program instead of discrete binary math IC's to create bands and channels. The three failures related to the PLL end you will encounter are the encoder having bad or dirty contacts, the encoder shaft being ripped out when the channel selector knob is removed (crappy masking tape glue), or the 8 MHZ PIC clock crystal failing. You will one day see your channel digits are not lit and the radio does not work. That one is easy, use an old 7.8 MHZ crystal from a dead 148 GTL (or any old CB crystal near 8 MHZ at least). So what if the program runs 200 KHZ slower? Still faster than you can turn the knob anyway. Has no effect on the frequency of the channels they use the internal watchdog counter and the 10.240 plus N codes to arrive at those numbers. The only other difference is the dual gate mosfet front end some used. If so it dies in stormy WX quicker than a 2SC1674 but seldom does this occur. The LM324 is upside down on a board with wrap pins, you remove the mosfet from the underside of the board, put a 1674 back on top, remove the standoff board, pull the 324 from it and stick it in the holes on the main PCB. Plus remove the blue wire wrap wire. Now you have the front end of a Galaxy and you only needed to come up with the 1674. However until that day arrives the only difference an operator sees is the Northstar hears better assuming it was not tuned up by the more common than not complete idiot claiming to be a technician out there. As I already said in post #2 it is the same radio only different.

Meaning different to me but the same to you.

 

The Northstar could be hit or miss, this could be due to techs not being fimiliar with them or cbs/exports in general.I knew a tech who did a in/out of warranty work for Northstar and he never had a lack of work with them.