CB Installation and Design

Swing kits are supposed to lower the dead key and offer more modulation. Some like them, some don't. I used one once, wasn't impressed. Plus you end up paying more for them than if you went and bought all the parts at Radio Shack. (yes you can)

Your radio has this because someone probably bought into the "you can make a big talker out of this radio with one of these for $20, albeit the parts alone costed not more than $2.

 

Yup, what Turbo said, plus the fact that the "more modulation" that it offers is likely to be "overmodulation", causing you to splatter signal onto adjacent channels. That wastes your power by putting it where the people you're talking with can't hear it. It also makes you a "bad neighbor" because of the noise you cause on the nearby channels. And the increased power demand in the final stage in the radio might very well damage the big expensive parts.
If you have your radio's "dead key" (unmodulated carrier) at 4 watts and it puts out 5 or 6 watts peak when you talk, that's great, and within the guidelines of physics for a clean signal. If you reduce your dead key to 2 watts and the radio puts out 15 when you speak loudly, your modulated signal is more than 4x the dead key, and the channel cannot contain the energy, so it causes spurious emissions on frequencies besides where it should. Usually the only reason to reduce dead key power is to drive a power amplifier that can only stand a watt or two of input. I can send you more info on swing kits; I *remove* a lot of them for customers here who come in with complaints of "People tell me I sound raspy on the radio". For some reason, a lot of users think that seeing their output needle "swing" a huge amount when they talk is a good thing. It's not.
-- Handlebar --

 

Run the radio for awhile first and see how it works out. If you get comebacks saying that you sound very good and clean and you are getting out far enough, then don't worry about it.

If a swing kit is done correctly and not over modulating then it can be a good thing. It is just making you be heard a little better.

I may not understand what "swing kits" are but I personally think of it to be similar to how sideband power is used. Very little deadkey or carrier until you start talking into the mic. Kind of like my Galaxy 949 worked. I would key up on sideband and there would be little power output until I started talking then my power output would be there but much higher then you would see if you were not talking on sideband.

I might be wrong though but I do know that some swing kits do sound good on the air and you can hear the person much better in a cluttered area.

I know that my connex 4300 HP had a low deadkey that was adjustable to be higher. On the low side it was around 4 watts and the high side it was about 60 ish. Now start talking and it would swing to over 135 watts. I could be heard over 20 miles away easily which was good especially when the other radio could reach back to me.

 

i also have a question on antenna placement, i have a galaxy 959 peaked and tweaked with the recieve mod put in, im running the viper coil antenna, everything is excellent now except i nail trees and some lower bridges, i tipped it forward but really dont like the placement , my question is can i mount the coil on back of my sleeper on the horizontal grab bar. the coil will be below the roof but the whip will be above the sleeper, which the sleeper is fiberglass, i planned on grounding it to the exhaust mount.was wondering if any one has tried this or not?

 

Heathkit and Drake " Screen Grid / Controled carrer " Modulation 2010 style we fought to get it out of radios 45 years ago and its BACCCK ...

 

Ok is this a 2sc2999 replacement for the 2sc1674 ? maybe some faster diodes in the noise blanker ?

I would love to see how some are doing this "RECEIVER MOD" and how much they are costing ......