Loud audio crackling noises

[hcarter333]

The radio developed a loud audio crackle while out in the desert of the Organ Mountains. At the moment, (since the connection just broke), the issue appears to be a faulty headphone connection.

[hcarter333]

I beleive I fixed this (temporarily) yesterday. I found that the sheild of the rf output coax was no longer securely attached to the input crystal used for the direct conversion receiver's local oscillator.

As can be seen in the picture above, there is also potential for shorting, or noise creation due to the remnants of the old stranded antenna wire that was clipped when the coax was reinstalled.

Washi taping the coax cable shield braid to the crystal case has fixed the issue for the moment.

[hcarter333]

Next steps:

1. Solder braid to crystal
2. Remove frayed, stranded wire visible near bottom of crystal casing.

[hcarter333]

The culprit was not the shield. It was wire strands that were leftover from the interim fix for #51.

The ground wire to the crystal case and its connection to the shield were still in place. Here's the original connection:

Most of the wire was removed, and the rest was cleaned up.