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Reviews For: Clegg 28FM

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Base/Mobile (non hand-held)

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Review Summary For : Clegg 28FM
Reviews: 5MSRP:
Description:
2m fm transciver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0053.6
N3IBX Rating: 2013-07-01
Good all around workhorse of a 2M rig, Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just acquired one of these from a friend who was going through and discarding things and thought I'd give it a try. It came with some type of proprietary tone board installed. The power output is a bit low so I may have to do a alignment on it, but overall its a real workhorse of a 2M FM rig that I don't have to worry about if I take it along in the car with me. Much better than a HT.
It's also perfect for someone who becomes bewildered by all of the bells and whistles of a newer rig and will do the same thing without any fuss or bother.
In order to use it you don't have to press a function button at the same time as pressing something else for two seconds, then adjusting your volume in a audio menu, frequency in a frequency menu, etc etc. There are NO MENUS to deal with.

Overall, a great "Grab-n-Go" rig with a cigarette lighter plug installed on one end and a antenna installed on the other. Perfect for the Ham on a budget or just to have as a spare 2M rig.
DG8JZ Rating: 2005-02-26
very well after 25 years Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I still have one, in Europe sold under Uniden 2080 brand. It works, and works, and works... no problems. Very stable thing... I love it
K2LES Rating: 2004-09-26
Great HamFest find Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Of all the overpriced junk at the local hamfest, I found this beautiful gem as I was ready to leave for the day. $25 got me a perfectly working radio - in almost mint condition. The unit has good audio (tx and rx), a good transmitter and that classic "real" radio look from the late 70's / early 80's.

The only thing I wished this rig had was CTCSS encode, but for $25 - I'm glad I have something thing that works!

Nice little radio - rare find if you can get your hands on a working unit.
N1BEC Rating: 2004-09-26
The Clegg is still a good rig! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The FM-28 was an excellent radio in its day, and is still quite useable today.
I had one back in the early 80's, and it served me well. Regretably, I don't have that rig any more, so I bought one off Ebay.
This one was originally bought direct from Clegg by W1ZEU on Nov 21, 1977 for the princely sum of $359.95 plus shipping.
Of course, it didn't work as well as described, but I got it running again in short order. The display was jumpy as channels were changed, TX power was low to non-existent, and the S meter was crapped out.
First order of business was to clean out all the switches.
This being done, the display calmed right down.
Alignment was checked, and a couple of the PLL frequencies were significantly off. The transmitter was fully aligned, and power came up to about 26/27 watts.
It barely met rated power. High power was set to 25 watts, low power went to about 3 watts wide open. TX audio ran about 7 kc, so I dropped it to 4 kc for eventual addition of a PL encoder board.
Another transmitter issue were the three crystals that give you Simplex, + & - offsets. They all had to be touched up, and the + offset xtal would not come on channel.
A careful replacement of the 33 pF padding cap with a 22 pF jobbie did the trick: I could swing it +/- .6 kc of center freq.
An external 7 pin connector on the radio can be used to inject PL. Perfect for the addition of a Comm Spec TS-64 switchable encoder!
Be careful of the final adjustment on the PA: It has extremely high voltage RF on it. I remember my original unit going up in smoke on TX one day, and trying to fix a hole the size of a dime on the circuit board next to the PA transistor.
The RX and TX transformer cores are very fragile. Suggest you grind a ceramic tool to fit them exactly.
The receiver broke squelch about .15 microvolts, it's good and sensitive!
Fortunately, I have an FM-88 parts car (yet another "works fine" rig that I got home only to find it hopeless) and a Midland that is also nearly identical to the Clegg, so I have a good supply of parts.
An S meter was salvaged from the '88, and a new grain of wheat S meter light installed.
With a thorough cleaning, the rig is now fully restored and working well.
The service manual is frought with typos and mistakes. You need to take a look at the context and infer some of the frequencies that it asks you to check.
All in all, should you get a chance to latch onto one of these rigs, by all means do so!

73's, -Tom
KC0QEV Rating: 2004-04-15
sounds good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently aquired one that doesn't transmit but it sounded good on recieve. Hope to get it back on the air.