10-22-2014, 10:16 PM
I had two problems with those spring connectors for the external antenna. Evidently the two-part contact was intended spring together to make good contact when no external antenna was connected but then break the connection with the internal loop when the external antenna was plugged in. Kind of like a crude version of today's phone jacks that disconnect a speaker when a headphone is plugged in.
The first problem was that they were bent enough not to make good contact with the internal loop. I wasn't able to bend them just right to make good contact, so I soldered in a jumper wire to the base of them to make the contact. I don't intend to use an external antenna, so that solution was alright with me.
It looks like a previous owner of your radio had the same problem, since there is solder joining the two pieces together.
The second problem was that those contacts were long enough to scratch the cardboard of my battery when I installed or removed it. I partly solved that by shrinking a piece of clear heat shrink tubing over the contacts and cutting it off just long enough to cover the metal.
The heat-shrink still scraped against the battery when installing and removing, so I decided to cut a piece of thin but fairly stiff plastic to shim the battery away from those antenna contacts. I hold it against the battery when I install it to isolate the contacts from the cardboard.
I'm sure no one cared much about scraping the cardboard when those batteries were new, but I wanted to protect mine.
The first problem was that they were bent enough not to make good contact with the internal loop. I wasn't able to bend them just right to make good contact, so I soldered in a jumper wire to the base of them to make the contact. I don't intend to use an external antenna, so that solution was alright with me.
It looks like a previous owner of your radio had the same problem, since there is solder joining the two pieces together.
The second problem was that those contacts were long enough to scratch the cardboard of my battery when I installed or removed it. I partly solved that by shrinking a piece of clear heat shrink tubing over the contacts and cutting it off just long enough to cover the metal.
The heat-shrink still scraped against the battery when installing and removing, so I decided to cut a piece of thin but fairly stiff plastic to shim the battery away from those antenna contacts. I hold it against the battery when I install it to isolate the contacts from the cardboard.
I'm sure no one cared much about scraping the cardboard when those batteries were new, but I wanted to protect mine.
John Honeycutt
