Good Old CB Radios

Cobra 148GTL made in the Phillipines seemed to be better liked than newer versions.

 

Any of them don't say "China" on them.

 

If you don't care about channels, I had a really good Midland 23 channel radio which had great receive - 13-882c.

 

Any of the Unidens built in the Philippines or Taiwan are good. It was at this time Cobra had Uniden building all their radios for them.

No need for a Cobra 148 or a Uniden Grant unless you plan to use the SSB on them.

Some of the old Pearce Simpsons had Uniden boards in them too

 

Good advice above, especially concerning the Philippine - made Cobras. The Malaysian ones weren't too bad either, but the Philippeno (sp?) made ones are what you want.

Any of the Cobra XLR series would be a good choice. I've never been too fond of the LTD series GTL's aren't bad but again, it depends where they were made. Stay away from the 'plus' series, those were so bad that Cobra won't even acknowledge them.

If you can find one, the Tram D42 or Browning Sabre are very well made, as were most of the Japan-made radios of that era.

 

Agree on the Cobra's made in the Philippines...The Taiwan built ones are good to, but they are going to be older radios (80's) Cobra switched to having the radios built in the Philippine in the late 80's (88-89) and were built there till the mid 90's when they switched to building in Malaysia...(Malaysia ones did have some quality issues)

FYI, the 148 GTL's have the same board in them as the Cobra 2000 GTL...the 2000 GTL was one of the best built, most sought after Base radios of all time...

Another older radio that is worth looking for is the slant-faced Sears Road Talker...There were two different slant-faced Road Talkers built for Sears in the late 70's, one is AM only, and the other is AM/SSB...First couple of years these were out, they had switchs that you flip on the different functions of the radio...Later the switches were replaced with push-buttons...Ones with the switch's had fewer problems.

One thing tho with the Sears Road Talkers, is the power cords. The radios were AC/DC, and had two different power cords, and are next to impossible to find. So if you look for one of these radios, be sure it comes with the power cord! (One other note, since these radios are AC/DC, they are allot heavier of a radio than most mobiles because of the built-in transformer for the AC)

 

My uncle has been running a Cobra 21 from 1977 for the last few months and that radio sounds just as good if not better than any of the big radios out there. He has even had guys offering to trade him their big bad galaxies and what not for that little cobra that he picked up on eBay for 10 bucks. The problem with the old radios is that there arent many people out there that really know how to fix em. I think he had to take his down to the guy in rockland tx at the TA to get it worked on.

 

The older radios (except CPI, Stoner and Motorola) are easier to fix than any of the new junk out there now.

 

Agree with that, but sometimes sourcing parts can be difficult.