The Ultimate President AR144 Mod

[Buick Mackane]

I don't know if he sells these boards or whether it was just a one off experimental board he knocked up. But it certainly makes a very limited radio a hell of a lot more usable. I know mr maurer sells expansion boards for these radios but thought this might be interesting for owners of these great but limited radios.

[NightProwler]

Dont these use the same board as the Cobra 146? I could be wrong

[Buick Mackane]

Dont these use the same board as the Cobra 146? I could be wrong

You could be correct Richie i have no idea

[14CS06]

Hello

The same PC-833AD

@+
Claude

[cb4ever104]

Dont these use the same board as the Cobra 146? I could be wrong

They do . The 144 is better as it doesn't have the front control pcb soldered onto the controls . Saying that I fitted a Maurer board into my 146 and ran the mod wires out the back to an external switch box with leds . Doesn't look too bad , and it can easily be removed .

[Buick Mackane]

After asking him if the boards were for sale he said it was just a one off experimental board and it had issues

[cb4ever104]

I never watched the whole video . Only the first few minutes . Not too sure why Graham doesn't make any pcbs for these , or the upd858 chassis . The Maurer stuff is good , but the postage is a killer .

[Buick Mackane]

I never watched the whole video . Only the first few minutes . Not too sure why Graham doesn't make any pcbs for these , or the upd858 chassis . The Maurer stuff is good , but the postage is a killer .

Aye exactly Paul. A UK seller of such a board would make a killing i think. He obviously never ironed out the issues with the 144 board hence its not for sale

[Buick Mackane]

FM boards for these aren't as simple given its a single I.F of 10.695 Mhz and most FM add on boards are 455 Khz

[cb4ever104]

Aye exactly Paul. A UK seller of such a board ....

I'm pretty sure Nick does his own 858 pcbs . I used Sue's method from here a few years ago now to do my Realistic TRC-449 . Worked a treat , although the dedicated pcbs are smaller and earier to fit .

[Buick Mackane]

Aye exactly Paul. A UK seller of such a board ....

I'm pretty sure Nick does his own 858 pcbs . I used Sue's method from here a few years ago now to do my Realistic TRC-449 . Worked a treat , although the dedicated pcbs are smaller and earier to fit .

Yes i know other boards / mods are available for this radio. But i liked the range and functionality of the DDS board in this video. Frequency read out replacing the LED channel read out ( Yeah not for everyone) Selectable frequency steps. And far as i could see went from approx the band below Cept (What we used to call the Dungeons) upto around 28.500Mhz. Suppose the issues encountered were frequency stability related. I maybe wrong but i think the Maurer board is similar to the above. But the postage costs kinda make it not a worth while option. Personally never owned a 144 but always liked the look of them

[Buick Mackane]

I tell a lie. 40 below Cept was the graveyards i think 40 below them was the dungeons then 40 below them was The krypts or at least that's what we called them here

[NightProwler]

I tell a lie. 40 below Cept was the graveyards i think 40 below them was the dungeons then 40 below them was The krypts or at least that's what we called them here

[Dinsdale]

I looked into this type of mod about 3 years ago. It used a Raspberry Pi Pico instead of the Arduino. Details are available on instructables.com/Raspberry-Pi-Pico-Based-VFO-for-Expanding-Vintage-/
I always thought that a rotary encoder could be used instead of push buttons and that more could be done than expanding 23 channels to 40. I've never done software and it was to become my debut but life always throws things at you to get in the way and the parts sit here unused.
I'm sure someone could take the code and modify it though. I don't expect anyone will make a fortune out of it but wouldn't it be great to have a group effort and put it into the public domain?