Bad CB shop/Good CB shop

Well now, spreading the coil a tad is part of tuning the Cobra 29 or 25. Now I'm not a tech, but have watched them tune these radios many times. Nothing wrong with cutting the limiter if you have a mic gain and know how to use it. (Even us lowly CB types can figure out how to use a mic gain you know.)

 

Yep and it's because of miss-information like this being spread around that people like you accept this from these hacks. I can see you're set in your thinking about this, so I'll shut-up now and disengage. Have a great day and be safe.

 

What coils ? are you talking about the output matching/lowpass filter is so that would be stupid ....

As for cuting limiters another not so good move

 

Good call nascar. No sense in trying to reason.

I'm pretty sure he's referring to the copper coils found in the back of the radio near the final transistor. Some of the CB hacknicians like the spread the coils apart in addition to snipping the modulation limiter.

 

I would not allow a shop to do this. And I AM a former two-way radio technician (800 mhz public safety and VHF low band).

I've stated this on another thread, but it bears repeating: there are a million CB shops out there, but maybe only a handful actually know what they are doing. The best advice I have: don't bother getting a CB "peaked and tuned". As another forum member so eloquently stated in another thread, all you're going to end up with is an overachieving POS. Sure, it'll get out there but your TX audio is going to be distorted from overmodulation, plus, you're just going to splatter all over the band.

Instead, find a good shop and/or technician and get the radio aligned. The difference is this: most radios (like any other electronic device) come from the factory working within a certain range of tolerance on the adjustments. The adjustments may or may not be "on the money" but that radio will do exactly what's promised on the box. Having the radio aligned means having a competent technician make those last few adjustments to take a radio from "works well enough to pass the factory QA check" to "this radio cannot be tweaked any more perfectly". A competent technician is also going to immediately zoom in on your antenna setup, without you even asking. This is because he knows that a substandard antenna, antenna placement, cable, or even connectors will make even the best radio on the market sound like crap. A technician who claims to be tweaking the radio without even considering the affects of your transmission lines (antenna system) isn't doing a complete job, for you cannot get a complete picture on how well your radio works without taking that into account. A technician who actually knows what he's doing will consider the antenna, cable, and radio as one unit.

What I'd probably suggest is going to a local communications shop and asking the techs there for the names of any competent technicians in the area. The shop probably won't work on the radio themselves (too busy working on public safety/government radios, repeaters, etc) but they will likely know a good shop in the area.

 

Obviously none of you have ever tuned up a Cobra 29/25, at least where it would talk real good. It is a fine art not to spread too much. Maybe you guys should just stick to talking about stuff you know about. Like I said, I'm not a tech, but I've watched the best at work many times. And they weren't tweaknicians. But some of you will attack them anyway...........

 

AGAIN THe coils are a lowpass filter and matching device why would you fool with them ? What you most likely see is a increse in output due to trash .... I would love to see what they do in the real world with good test gear ...

 

I've sought the expert to either correct me or explain. If he explains, you should listen, he knows whereof he speaks.

 

Josh ........

From a TECH point of view ......

99.999% of radios come from the factory ready to use and within spects ...

Can you get a bit more maybe .....

MOST " MODS " defete something placed in the radio for a reason ....