need help fixing a President Lincoln with swrs in the red

[rreeves1965]

Hello I have a president lincoln modified for CB use. That I just was given. I have it hooked up to a 4 ft firestick antenna setup. I have completely checkout out the antenna and eliminated it as a problem or so I hope. I think there is a problem in the transmitter itself. But could be wrong. I have been trying to set the correct swrs for use in the 11 meter band and the swrs are always in the red. Checked with 2 different meters. I checked for Continuity on the radio antenna connector and I have continuity beween the center pin and ground on the radio connector. I am hoping someone can help me track down and fix this problem. The radio does transmit. But I do not want to damage anything else. Thanks in advance for any help in this matter

[Rick]

Check the radio with a dummy load, as it look like you have a bad antenna, and need to check the radio first. If you have a mate with a radio set try your radio on you mate setup.

[poikaa]

Just curious but is the radio and the antenna used as a mobile setup? If not that type of antenna needs a counter poise, that is a good ground plane like on a auto or truck. Otherwise the RF will feedback into the radio and give an SWR meter a RED report.
As a base setup the Lincoln / 2510 makes a great station but a good antenna is needed like a Solarcon, A99, Starduster, multi element beam or a dipole wire cut to the frequency most used. A tuner is helpful to cover a wide number of channels but is lossy if the antenna is out of range.

Good luck! poikaa

[ramblingman]

also a firestick antenna is not a good choice of antenna,when running a export high powered radio..id suggest a wilson..as they match up realwell...ive never had much luck running firestick,exspecially when running power through it.........s.w.r.s will be good until you run alittle heat through it,then theyll go sky high......

[rreeves1965]

Well after testing the radio with a good antenna setup that checked out ok on another radio like mine. The swrs were still off the scale. I opened up the case and found a broken solder connection at the final. I repaired the connection and made sure that no solder spilled over to another connection. I also checked for other problems. I checked for a short in the radios antenna connector and found that the center wire was a direct short to ground. I desoldered the center wire from the board and found the short was still present on the board. I called a repair shop and they said this was normal for this radio. I also checked the rating for the firestik 2 antenna setup I had used before and it is rated for 900 watts and checked out ok when tested for any faults. I also connected it to another radio and got a good swr reading. I connected the radio to the firestik antenna to retest the swrs after repairing the solder joint. After keying the mike just long enough to calibrate the meter and check the swrs. The radio quit transmitting. The mike was not keyed for even 5 seconds and no sound was sent through the mike while it was keyed. Any ideas on what might have let go? Could the final have finally burned out from testing it with the broken connection after the connection was repaired? Will a service manual walk me through how to test this radio to find the problem or should I try and locate a repair shop that will fix this radio. Which will be hard since repair shops are few and far between in my area and the one I did find would not touch the radio because they say it is illegal with the mods it has. Thanks for any help.

[ramblingman]

well i do know one thing,,it dont suppose to read dead short bettween the shield and center of radio...something is shorted...check with rick..i cant help much on this one,seeing i dont have a schematic on one...

[warhorse]

Hi If you do your math its down too good ole resonance -ask a ham or better still do a good ole search on the subject Power fet,capacitance resistance,coiles.dont confuse volts with watts. no short if the lincoln is box standard.

[rreeves1965]

Thanks for all the input and help. The radio has at the very least cooked the finals as a result of the broken ground connection. So since I do not have all the tools needed to repair and realign the radio. It has been shipped off to a repair shop to have heavy duty finals installed and checked for any other problems. In the mean time I will be looking for the best mobile antenna setup to use with this radio. Thanks again for all the help.

[CH3373]

Hi all I'm new to the site so go easy on me but have found some good info here. As I drive a truck I have been given the oppertunity to purchase a HR2610 at a reasonable price (have done home work) I beleive that it's an amature band radio but has 26megs and would like to use it in a mobile setup. As this set covers more than just 26megs I would be keen to see what eventuates in this thread as to what is the best mobile areial for this type of setup that is available to phurchase in NZ. I will be watching this with interest thanks Dennis

[rreeves1965]

Again thanks for all the input and help. I got the radio back from the shop and it had some internal issues. The driver and 2 coils were bad and a pot needed replacing also. While he had it apart, I had him install a new 455 heavy duty final and retune it and peak it out. The problem with the swr was that I used firestik's firering terminal. It had a high resistance short. I installed a Wilson 5000 roof mount antenna and the setup rocks. I got a 1.2:1 swr match on channel 19. Double checked between 2 swr meters and a antenna analyzer. The setup really gets out. On good days I can talk to people a few states away.

Dennis, I was told that a Wilson 1000 magnet mount would work just fine with the Lincoln, HR-2510 or HR-2600. Which is the radio I think you have or want to buy. I went with the Wilson 5000 roof mount because that was the only roof mount Wilson antenna the shop had in stock and I did not feel like waiting for the 1000 to come in and it was not that much of a price difference for the better antenna. The roof mount model is also a permanet mount. So you have to put a hole in the roof to mount it. But you can unscrew the base and put it inside the truck if you need too. The nice thing about the Wilson antennas is you can buy an extra whip and cut it down to use on the 10 meter band. If you have your ham ticket. Then you can just change whips for the band you want to talk on.

Good luck