Connex 3300HP-ZX

Awww that is ashame with that nice ICOM he has inherited. I wish got even some of what my grandpa had. Lot of old stuff along with new. He kept a stash of vacuum tubes for some of his radios even. At age 4 I was oogling at his office area that reminded me of NORAD,lol. I wasnt old enough to ride a bicycle when I had my first CB. Anyways, I need to stay clear of lookin at the noise boxes, and move up. Hopefully rubberman will see the light too.

 

Yea, I see the light . . .
I just can't understand why they make them convertable if it is illegal to convert them ??
Someone and I don't know who controls it if it is so illegal should make them so they can not be converted , seems to me it woukld be easy enough to do , I mean , look how easy they make it to convert ??
It's #### near like saying it is ok , we just can't say it's ok .
Do you see what I'm getting at here ?
It makes it seem like it's not all that big of a deal , so it makes people like me exploit it .
True , I am not alone millions feel the way I do .
Millions feel the way you do .
Personally , I think it's a nonsense law .
My radio has crystal clear audio , I really can't see how anyones audio could be any cleaner and i have heard many many ham radios in the passed that sound crunchy muffled and all that , and these guys wanna brag, just because they're Hams and their radios cost mega bucks ??
What good is it if n-one can understand what you're saying , or if you have to strain to hear them .
I have a very fine tuned ear , I do know the difference between clean audio and loud audio .
This radio is Loud and Clear and everyone I have talked to on it tells me the same thing , beautiful sounding crystal clear audio .
I have nothing to gain by saying this about Connex, they aren't paying me , If the radio sounded like crap , I would tell you , I wish I never bought this piece of garbage, But I just can't say that .
Now when I get my ticket , I'll be working on something that from what I heard is supposed to have some beautiful sounding audio , But if it don't , I'll be the first to tell you , don't buy this radio , cause it's junk . . .
I have no reason to lie about it , I have nothing to gain , nor nothing to lose .
I can tell you that I can tell the difference between a flea farting 100 miles away and a tick farting 100 miles away, being a drummer for the last 30 some odd years , I pride myself Intensily concentrating on all types of sounds , the slightest little clicks that the ordinary person would never hear , or take for granted .
Anyway , I still appreciate your input, I don't know it all and sometimes anger just makes me say foolish things .
I was wrong and I am man enough to say so .
All except for the way this particular radio transmits, i haven't heard a cleaner sounding radio yet, for any dollar amount .
That's not to say , If I cranked it all the way up and tried to get every possible watt out of it and crank the hell out of the echo " Which I never even use " that it would sound the same .
have a great evening guys . . . .thank you for the time

 

You'll find that when you run a real Ham radio (like your IC-7800) on AM the audio is horrible, they were designed for SSB and not AM. AM is offered because there is a very small percentage who will use it and if you do, you'll have to buy AM filters to make it work decent. Also, the receiver is so sensitive that received signals on AM that are stronger then say a s-3 overpowers the receiver and sounds horrible as well as it can cause damage to the receiver.

I think that if your Connex is running around 100% modulation then it probably does sound clean.....your big benefit is your antenna at 85 feet.

 

Well, I'm no pro on how these meters I have work , I just go by the sound , when I take a drive in the mobile and have my friend come in here and key up , and I'll go about 20 - 30 or more miles away , That's the only way I can tell the difference between this radio and other peoples rigs .
But on my meter , when I key the mike a dead key the meter is 5 percent then with audio it swings to just about 100 percent .
Now I can make it dead key like 60 percent modulation and themn talk and the modulation needle will slam the other end with so much force you can hear the dog gone thing click , But I have never like the way it sounded like that , the audi is just not clean , it's loud as hell, but definitely not clean .
And this meter I use is a SWR/Watt/Modulation meter in line .
I have it tuned to ch 19 at a 1.1 Swr, only because I use this channel the most.
Not a real expensive meter , but it does the job I suppose

 

Yes, I have noticed that my friends Yeasu <~~ Hope I spelled that correctly .
Sounds well muffled when he talks on ch 19 on the am side , but when he goes over to FM, completely different . . .
Nice and crystal clear , Now this radio I have has no sideband , so I have no way of measuring how it sounds over there , but I'll take your word for it there.

 

Let me start by saying I have owned this radio for nearly 7 years and have never switched if from the AM CB Channels to the 10 meter side.

It has been tweaked, by an older radio guy that put an led lamp where there had been either a jumper or a diode or resistor. I can't remember what was there it has been so long ago.

Anyway, I use an RK56 with it and have always gotten compliments on how clean it sounds.
I used to mix live audio on the Strip in Vegas from 1976 to 1998 and I never use the echo on a vocal mic unless the talent is singing.

I don't sing, so I don't need no stinking echo.

Now, this past week I have noticed I am having a problem with the unit.

Whether I am sitting still or driving, at times the radio signal just disappears. You know, that faint "sizzle" noise you hear when it is on?
Just stops.
At the same time this occurs, if I key up, I get no swing on the meter and the Tx light does not go from green to red.
I do hear a faint click in the ext. spkr.
But no transmit.

Now, if I wait it will come back to "normal" and I can key up.
Or, I THINK, if I tap the radio lightly on the case, it will come back to "normal".
However, that could be a coincidence, because it does not always come back just because I tapped it. I might tap it 2-10 times and then it comes back.

So, I disassembled it yesterday and thoroughly inspected every connection, plug, traces on the circuit boards and solder joints.

I could find absolutely nothing that seemed out of place.

I reassembled it and it is still doing this cutting out whenever it wants to.

Suspects;

A weak capacitor or one that has broken down or is breaking down

A diode that gets too warm, while NOT transmitting and goes "open"

Some other component reacting to heat that goes open and then cools and closes.

I don't know.

I graduated from AC/DC Fundamentals and Electronics in 1971 but have never been a ham or an electronics engineer.

I know a little about radios but not enough to chase a signal without a Sams' Photofacts schematic, a signal generator and and O-scope, none of which do I own nor have I touched any of those in over 30 years.

You Kcorey, seem to have a great deal of knowledge and experience and I would appreciate your help if you have some ideas.

Or, you may blow me off because I own an illegal radio.

Then, I won't go a way mad, I'll just go away.

Thanks in advance.

CB KAEC0503 since 1975

 

SOunds like your on the right track with something heating up and going open or closed my suggestion is a hair dryer and a can of canned air turn it on on the bench and take the hair dryer and start heating up small parts of the board 1 at a time till it cuts off then cool it down with air and see if it comes back on. this should reveal the weak part. it may also be a cold solder joint that only now showed up after years of flawles service but certain conditions have now been met that will make it show up. THese kind of troubles on any radio are hard to find and some times are time consumeing to find and treat so allot of your cb butchers will not take the time to find. You can get the sams for the radio pretty easy. or you can send it to a place in Michigan that i know will fix it. it may take some time for them to get to it but they have been in buisnes for years and have allways been good to deal with. if you want there name and address drop me a note to kd5drx2003@yahoo.com and i will be glad to give it to you.and yes i am a ham and yes the radio is ilegal but fixing one of those old radios is worth it in my opinion as long as you stay under 28.000 meg and above 26.000 meg you will be ok the FCC will one day start policeing the (freeband) as we called it in the old days. Good luck.

 

Dumb, dumb dumb...!

The thump, thump noise you hear is me kicking myself....

Please don't snicker when you find out why!

We have a Connex 3300 that we love and just leave the little buttons alone because we are CB dummies.

Well, we left them alone until I heard another driver ask someone to go to the (low?) side of 19 and, of course, I wanted to eves drop on them and know what was going on. So......I started flipping toggles and buttons. Never did get more than a muffle sound of what they were say.

But now!! I can't pickup anything, can't figure out where the settings should be.

Can someone kindly help and tell me where I should have things set?


NB/ANL......ANL.....OFF:

RF Power....High....Low:

Band...High....Low:

Echo....On....Off:

I know how to work the mike/vol and RF gain buttons.



PA...FM....AM: (I know, we REALLY are dumb)

D/A.....E/B.....F/C

and the echo and time I know where to set.

Help!??

 

I ended up call the shop where we bought the CB and the guy there helped me with the settings. He was very kind, no laughing at all.

Thank you

 

ok, well if you ever want to go talk on low or high side band all you have to do is hit the low band switch... Thats almost it..... leave everything else alone.... it will work. The other 90% of the thing is you have to tune them in. You have a clarifier switch, you need to turn it untill you hear something, then till thte voices are clear, or close to it, you wont always get clear sound. Chances are its about 12 o clock where the knob should be pointed. I love SSB it is great... i hang out on 39 lsb and i have talked well to alaska but thats only skip, but on a regular basis, in my mobile i can talk 60 miles... while regular CB i can talk 7 or 8 ...