CB to CW Emergency or PART 2

 Hi everyone...

As of right now, the CB to CW conversion is on pause. As I went in to go realign the receive circuitry, I cracked not one but two of the ferrite slugs used to tune. They are jammed in the coils and I have no way of getting them out at the moment. I will be taking it to a CB repair shop and seeing if there is anything I can do.

That being said...is there a way to fix these crappy slugs?

As I mentioned above, I broke two slugs on the receive side, L101 and L102 namely. These are standard IF-type cores like what you see below:

I'm sure you've all seen one of these before and you've more than likely broken at least one. Well who knew breaking one would send me on a frenzied research rabbit hole adventure! I've learned lots about these and how they work. 

I have discovered that places like Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, etc., all sell ferrite cores THAT WILL FIT THESE PERFECTLY...I think...

Sourcing Hard-to-source Parts

Sure, you could go on eBay, buy a spare radio, and steal the transformers from there, but that sounds like pure torture for those of you who hate to desolder things. Apply too much heat to one of these and the entire operation is shot.

Why not visit places online that sell the parts you need already? Trust me, if you also want to rewind the entire coil, most online marketplaces sell kits to do so if that sounds fun :)

But in all honesty, you can find things like this that have the cores inside of them already. And it's that easy! Just unscrew the cores CAREFULLY and place them in the broken transformer. Problem solved. Plus you get free coil formers too that you can use in various projects.

If you're curious about the dimensions, the ferrite cores measure 3.66mm x 8mm. When I measured the inside of the coil's bobbin in my Midland using precision calipers, I found that a 3.66mm diameter was a good, if not spot-on estimate.

These should work for 30MHz and below according to all descriptions I've read online on all marketplaces that sell them. I bought some ferrite chokes from Amazon a while back for my common mode currents, and despite the lack of explicit ferrite mix labeling, the currents disappeared when I used at least 10 on my feedline, so this is obviously some form of good grade ferrite. It's the same thing with these - these are usually labelled for 25 - 100MHz. More than likely, these cores are made of Mix 61.

In the meantime while I get my 13-853 serviced, I have just purchased 3 more CB radios now, all 23-channel crystal controlled - the 13-857, 13-866, and 13-867. The latter two are untested however I think I will try my hand at the 13-857 first and go from there. So stay tuned for a final product!