I've popped the hood on my SRF59 and decided I'm not going to reinstall the hood. I'll breadboard the guts of it to a base so that I can mount a larger dial with a pointer until I can figure out where the RX mixer is driven. That's where I'll connect my digital dial. A single bead of hot glue anchors the smd side of the board to the battery holder shell. It was easy to pry loose. The magic IC, CXA1129N, is a fine pitched IC, 30 pins, 15 per side. It's .375" long per side. Pins 1-15 are connected to traces on one side. On the other side pins 18, 24, 27 and 29 are not connected to traces, the rest are. Likely connection points won't be at the IC pins, but at the IC pins trace's first component solder joint out.
The most likely replacement dial candidates appear to be either a peanut butter jar lid (3.5", plastic) or a 2" plastic vitamin jar lid. The current dial attaches via a slot that sits on the variable capacitor spindle. There are couple of slug cans that need to be cleared by the larger dial but I have a plan that should work. Using the original dial with temporary spacers, a few dabs of hotglue should connect the jar lids to the original dial at a height sufficient to clear the cans. What makes the dial hard to turn in the original case is the case itself is a bushing against the top of the dial's spindle. It probably could be relieved somewhat. However, it might compromise the cheesy indicator apparatus. Hey, what did we expect for 15 bux? I'll magnetically couple the RX's bar to my crystal radio set's antenna tuner which is extremely sensitive. My set consists of 4.5" high Q solenoids of 660/46 Litz wire. The antenna is 160' long, up 70'. In the past, it really has boosted my DX 398's reception. I also have an assortment of loops that will help. Stay tuned... 73 Gil _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list IRCA@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: irca@hard-core-dx.com