Batboard

Apologies if this is totally out of the blue (it is), but I was thinking...

When people mess with radios, it's always important to align it on a service monitor. When hacking software, people warn you to write down your soft pot settings so you don't have to re-align it.

Do radios undergo an initial alignment? In other words, if I buy a radio new from Motorola today, do they perform an alignment, or is the process not needed on new radios? And if that's the case, has anyone ever tried to compile the default settings from new radios as a useful starting point?

Yes, each radio is automatically aligned on automated test equipment at the factory. Due to the tolerances of various components (how perfect the reference osc is, how perfect the laser etched the vco, whatever), each radio needs to be aligned to spec. There's no such thing as a "default" value.

Kenwood even goes a step further, allowing the addition of an opcode which will get the radio aligned to be absolutely perfect on your specific frequency.