Fine Tune prices?

Discussion in 'CB Radio Forum' started by throttle325, Sep 1, 2019.

  1. rabbiporkchop

    rabbiporkchop Road Train Member

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    There's certain amps that he likes but unfortunately they are no longer manufactured and even Ameritron can't even build a decent mobile amp anymore since the transistors have been discontinued. He definitely doesn't like the garbage that's currently being built today.
     
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  3. Meteorgray

    Meteorgray Heavy Load Member

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    Why are there no longer any good transistors?

    Is it the lack of demand vs the cost because all the cool folks dropped the microphones and picked up the cells and mouses?
     
  4. Night Stalker10

    Night Stalker10 Road Train Member

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    That would be my guess. Either that, or they cost too much to make here in America due to higher wages.
     
  5. Ridgeline

    Ridgeline Road Train Member

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    Why don't they make them any more?

    Because the companies who made the transistors with their quality control standards didn't see a market for them any more due to the fact they were 1970's technology and the amount of replacement parts in stock covered the needs of their direct customers.

    Toshiba for one was one of the best, but there are still Chinese made rf transistors that come close, contrary to some tech's comments.

    See for you guys who don't know how it works, and for those great minds in the cb world who are ignorant, when you have something made over in china or even Japan, you have to watch their quality very carefully after you hand them samples to copy. So once they get it right, then you have to watch to make sure they don't let the quality slip. It takes a lot of work and only a few are willing to get involved that much, but the others who get Chinese made stuff don't give a crap and that gives everything a bad name. This means having someone watch almost daily what is going on and a must is samples are given to the customer, they are tested by a third party if they are like someone who is just having 10,000 made or tested in house if there is >10,000 made.

    I have a bunch of Chinese and original Japanese made transistors that are almost impossible to tell apart. But then I have a lot of Chinese transistors that were made to clear materials and sold by one or two great cb techs (and one "great" amp builder) that are just horrible but they get good money from their customers.
     
  6. Naptown Muduck

    Naptown Muduck Light Load Member

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    I agree. There is good Chines and bad Chinese, not only in transistors, but in almost anything. All depends on what your willing to pay for.
     
  7. Central_Scrutinizer

    Central_Scrutinizer Light Load Member

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    That is very interesting. What's the MDS @ bandwidth, SNR, NF on your receiver?
    Takes some work and upgrades on a CB to get the best.
     
  8. Central_Scrutinizer

    Central_Scrutinizer Light Load Member

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    Chinese manufacturing philosophy is interesting. Putting aside for now those who intentionally let things slip to increase profit or who cheat on samples, you get what you pay for.

    Sometimes people think that Chinese components are supposed to be dirt cheap but it's not really like that. When you negotiate price with a factory and the item's quoted a fair price of $1, then you proceed to beat them down on price to 60 cents, what you get is lowest-grade parts. You get 'dishonest parts for your dishonest price'

    Brokers who have no paper trail for parts are also a source of problems. Legitimate brokers always have factory sealed parts with manufacturers' lot numbers and paperwork showing where they've been.

    Fly by night brokers can be honest or dishonest, but they often buy undocumented leftover lots of parts from failed companies/canceled projects, and even bins of marginal rejects, what are called 'floor sweepings', and repackage them or blow them out as bargain lots.

    The worst brokers counterfeit the more expensive parts, removing one # and stamping on a number of a more expensive or somewhat higher powered part. The 2N3055 family has been one of the most-counterfeited part in the world.

    When I worked at a semiconductor company, we would get returns from customers with complaints that they failed or didn't work. Using ultrasonic and X ray microscopes, we would see a die/chip that was not ours inside a semiconductor package that looked exactly like ours, even to fake lot numbers. We knew these were fakes with switched numbers but had to prove it or replace them. Proving it sometimes meant dissolving the pacage to totally expose the chip. This cost a lot of money to do. Customers were not amused, too bad.

    In one case, we sold tens of millions of a very cheap-priced version of a $20 DSP chip to a Chinese state telecom company -they didn't want high performance for the Peoples' use, and didn't want to pay up, so they had us castrate their chips and add -c to the part number and it became $8. These were agreed - must never be resold. Somehow a couple hundred lots made their way into the international market. One greedy manufacturer in Canada bought the whole bunch and merged them into ther production line. Unauthorized broker/dealer, no paper trail, unauthorized customer, unauthorized region, too bad. That company still shipped their product to the unwitting public!

    Another customer had over 4000 modems built in China before discovering that they didn't work, and we found out that some of the $12 modem ICs their contract manufacturer had sourced did not even have a silicon chip inside them at all. The CM got an unbelievable deal on them from an Asian broker though it ended up costing them >200K to salvage, too bad. They had the chutspa to threaten to sue us, but were dissuaded from that folly by our legal department.

    This crap goes on every week in the semiconductor industry. No surprise that in the 3rd party CB industry, some individuals screw their customers with garbage parts.
     
    Meteorgray Thanks this.
  9. rabbiporkchop

    rabbiporkchop Road Train Member

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    The only figure I'm aware of is .0399uv minimum detectable signal along with various AF/IF/AGC mods.
     
  10. Billyjack

    Billyjack Light Load Member

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    Do the radios that this fellow (Mr. Mark) hope I got his name correct, builds as strong as the N4 cb you mention here?
     
  11. iron horse 128

    iron horse 128 Bobtail Member

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    He does a great a job of tuning a radio to where it transmits crystal clear. I don't see the receive that everyone brags about. As far as power? Mark does not tune for power. He never shows how many watts a radio is doing. He believes that cleaner is meaner. So, no the radio doesn't do the power that other techs tend to get out of their N4's. It is a matter of opinion just how much cleaner is meaner in a power hungry world. I stopped with the jigga watts a long time ago. I am traveling down the path of clean sounding radios. Do Marks radios sound good? Yes they do. Are they going to crush anyone? No, not really.
     
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