Got a magnum radio.

I have an S3 with green lights (apparently its older?). I love it, most people I work with on a regular basis give me a hard time because it works THAT well...not obnoxiously, just good loud crisp sound. It's hooked to two Wilson 2000 antennas that I tuned myself. Sounds like I got a good'un...?

 

I repeat myself....

 

I just skimmed through, maybe I'm not repeating anything...

With a Magnum radio, you gotta keep those Golden Screwdriver Jockey's out'um. No "peak and tweak" or "peak and tunes" are required in a Magnum S series radio. You open the flipping the box, you do the conversion so all the digits light up on the freq counter (if it's got it and you want it) and that's it. Unless you take it to a shop with an actual service monitor, the Dosy meter watt-God's don't have a clue what they're doing 8 out of 10 times.

I ran a CB shop behind my house for awhile and I can tell you, a Magnum doesn't respond well those clip jobs, it's not a Ranger chassis radio. I've got a friend that does FM radio repair, HAM gear and handles all the Fire/Rescue/EMS/Police etc. radio work for the surrounding counties. Those drivers who go to Campbell's Soup in Maxton have driven right past his shop back when he did CB work also, he got out of it recently. He does have an actual service monitor and we put my radio on it, it was almost dead on... the same couldn't be said for the other radios I own and the ones he had in his shop for sale back then. He and Ray were very close friends, still are and I've been meaning to talk to Richard and find out what's going on with Ray and where he's at now. When I do, I'll try to let you guys know that's interested.

It's a shame that Sam Lewis isn't producing the S series radios right now, he told me the problem was with the company that was building his radios, something about them using SMT devices and he didn't want to go that route yet with his radios... something along those lines, don't remember now exactly what he told me, it's been awhile. But hopefully soon, he'll be churning out S9's again... I hope.

 

To heck with the S9, I'm waiting for Sam to start producing the S45HP's again, except w/o all the problems.

 

To heck with the S45HP's, I'm waiting for Sam to start producing the AR3500's again.

 

Yea, AR3500 would be the heat wouldn't it? You can still find a few of those laying around here and there, ebay and such.

Personally, I'm waiting on Sam to produce a radio with 3 wishes included, a banging full-figured chick, ketchup dispenser and a mini-me sidekick included. I've always wanted a mini-me.

 

when i first started driving a truck, i never heard of fine tune. I asked a driver who he thought did good work. he told me about Clay, so I stopped in and gave him a chance to prove himself.

 

When I started driving, I run across many fly-by-night screwdriver jockeys. Everybody claimed to do something different or better, truth is they all do the same thing, either half or whole. It's the NPC mod, most only do the first half of the mod because they don't how to do the second half and get the radio stable and working correctly. They all commonly refer to it as "super mod".

The biggest thing is if you find someone you like and you feel like you trust, keep them. If they work on your stuff and you're happy then that's what counts the most, if you get compliments on your radio or whatever, then you should be happy with what you spent your money on. But I've found only the course of 12 or so years, they all do the same thing...

TR32 in the Galaxy/Ranger chassis radios usually gets clipped. R249 usually gets clipped/removed either solely or with TR32, which both basically control the same thing. R238 usually gets a 1N4001 diode strapped to it, banded end down towards the board, sometimes it's a 1N4148 and it's done on either side of the board but the result is exactly the same, this is your common "super mod". So a 10 cent diode usually cost you 20 to 40 bucks and the waveform doesn't look like it does in RabbiPorkchop's avatar after any of this. But that's the most common "tricks" done to radios and usually we're all happy with the results. A good radio guy will retune the transmit and receive chain after doing such whether he charges for it or not.