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307
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 9:27 pm: | 
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Tweaking Tools
If you are one of the people among most CB'ers out there that constantly loves to tweak up your radio , you may think this article is for you . There is a correct way and an incorrect way to use tweaking tools . In most radios there are several places to tweak up for optimal performance . These areas such as potentiometers or "pots" , transformers or "cans" and a number of other names all have special tools that are needed to align them . If you use a magnifying glass to look at the component that you want to adjust you will see that the place you put the tweaking tool can have many shapes ranging from flat blade , octal , square , cross hatch , double level octal and a range of other names . The object when selecting a tweaking tool is to properly fit the component .Make sure that when the tool is placed into the component that the tool is not undersized . Sometimes manufactures will use a form of locktight on the component that you wish to turn . If the tool does not fit the slug just right and you try to turn it you will in most cases break the slug and then you are finished .You will have to replace or repair the component and if you don't have a lot of extra radios lying around , you could be sending it elsewhere for a costly repair .
A handy little trick before trying to tweak up a component is to briefly heat it up with a soldering iron . Just lay the soldering iron tip into the "can" slug and heat it up for about 10 seconds . Do not press down on it or you will break it , use only the weight of the iron and let the iron do the rest . Then remove the soldering iron and make the adjustment . This will free up the slug and eliminate the possibility of breaking it . Remember that when going down with the slug NOT to hit the bottom or is will probably never come back up . When approaching the bottom of the transformer , go very slow . NEVER use a steel screwdriver because the extra capacitance when you place the screwdriver into the component will alter the fine adjustment that you want to accomplish . Hard plastic tweakers are really the best ones to use and cost between 10 to 20 dollars for a set of about 8 of them which will fit most all adjustments . If you want to lock down the adjustment after you have completed it , simply use a crayola crayon and melt a few drips into the area that you want to lock . A good thing to do is use different colors for different areas of the radio such as green for receive and red for transmit adjustments. Then you will know at a glance how the radio flows the signal at the same time while looking at it when you are finished . |
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