My first CB I bought with my own money, a Moonraker FA5000, has been stood unpowered for a few years, I believe it was last used in about 2013 on an on-glass antenna, since then I've used the Midland Alan 78 Plus Multi B and President Grant II on 11-meters.
Today, the first bit of radio I did was to power up the FA5000 and see if it would receive, it appears to do this just fine, however as all my patch leads, the 50 watt rated dummy load and the SWR and power meter were all still in the car from testing the SS9900 on 10-meters (and the Grant II on 11-meters on the same antenna) I was not able to to a transmit test until this evening and it was then the quirks showed up.
Firstly the transmit power was reading not quite at 4 watts though the meter is not totally accurate, though it seemed a little lower on some of the EU channels over the UK channels, though not a big deal as still on the correct side of Ofcom regulations, the microphone however did not appear to work, so I checked the plug, full of dry joints so I will have to repair or replace it later, the inside of the mic I did not check as I don't have a screwdriver immediately to hand to open it, however I remembered this radio does have a mic gain control, and turning this up to max seemed to work, though the mic still has to be close, so I don't know if it is a fault with the radio, poor design, or just a dodgy mic, which I will replace for a powered mic should I recommission this radio for any reason, as it is still useful in this age of AM and SSB on the CEPT channels.
I will be doing a transmit test of my TTI TCB-550 as I have something in mind for it considering I did remove the speaker, though I will do a receive test of it as well with an external speaker plugged into it, and I have the mic to hand for this radio as all I need to do is unplug it from the PC interface box, or I could use my desk mic though that won't be a good judge of audio as the audio from that mic is terrible.
I'll keep you posted, but as it stands the FA5000 appears to be working and should be fit to air
73 de 2E0EIJ/26CT730
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