Well guys, my urge got the better of me just like i knew it would
yeah i bit the bullet and went for it
.
Ok, i don't want to keep everybody in suspence, so here's the verdict...................it works!
and damn well at that
On that link, some of those guys soldered a wire to just one terminal, and it worked, others didn't have any luck and soldered to three terminals, and bingo! it worked, i tried one terminal and saw an improvement, but not much to shout about, so i decided to do three terminals and that did it, and was what i was hoping for.
I'll give you an idea of the difference, before the mod, if my BS was in the garage and my receiver was in the kitchen at the window, right next door to the garage i could get a good reading, anything after that was a bit hit and miss. Now i can have the transmiter in the garage, and the receiver in any room upstairs or down, and it works a treat!.
I was very worried about doing this mod as the ET-73 is very precious to us on this side of the pond, but i'm glad i did it now
Anyway for those that are considering doing this mod,here's a little guide of how i did mine, this is not for the squeamish
nah just kidding, it really isn't that difficult, ok here we go:
Take the batteries out of the receiver, remove the 6 screws carfefully, ok now here's the bit where you need to take extra care. The 2 halves should come apart fairly easily, mine did, but some have reported silacone/glue from the on/off switch sometimes sticks the 2 halves together, very steady pressure should get them apart, apparently some have used a very small screwdriver to ease the glue away.
Try and just seperate the 2 halves, without side to side movement.
Ok, once apart this is what you should see:
The arrow points to where some ET-73's sometimes have a wire, although the horseshoe shape on the circuit board is said to be the anttena?
Anyway mine didn't have a wire, so obviously that's the next step, i used some multi strand wire about 1mm thick.
So i soldered the wire as shown:
Ok, next i wanted to fit an anttena mast to keep the wire neat and safe, so first of all i drill a 1/8th of an inch hole on the rear section of casing:
Next job is to fit the mast, when doing this don't let hardly any of the mast penetrate too far into the casing as this will foul the circuit board when reassembling. I fitted mine flush to be on the safe side.
The mast is an anttena mast from a model RC truck, it has a small rubber end cap to keep the wire anttena tidy. The mast is a snug fit in the 1/8th hole, but i used a dab of hot glue to secure it.:
And the end cap:
Ok like i said after doing a test, there was an improvement, but not enough imo, now this could have been a bad bit of soldering on my part?, i don't know, but after reading the link again, i decided on plan b.
So i took everything apart again(easier second time round) and decided to solder the wire accross the 3 terminals:
I carefully tinned the other 2 terminals, and resoldered the wire accross all 3, i then measured the wire from the point of solder, and cut it to a length of 6 1/2 inches. i fed the wire through the mast and reassembled everything.
Now this time it was on the money!, to test it i went into the garage with my cell phone and the transmitter, my wife was in the house with the receiver and another phone, she went from room to room, and we checked with each other our readings. it was spot everywhere we tested it, updates were quick also.
So i've concluded this a big success, if i were doing this again, i would just do plan b, and use the 3 terminals because i know it works, although on the link some say just 1 terminal works?
Anyway here it is all back together:
Hope i explained clearly guys?, but if anybody wants to do this i'll help in any way i can.
Bye for now guys..............LilSmoker
