On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:07:43 -0700, Jay in the Mojave
wrote:

|james wrote:
| On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:25:29 -0700 (PDT), Justin
| wrote:
|
| |This rig is in Prestine condition, with a cobra desk mic. I beleive it
| |has some sort of mods because it has a switch on the back, i tested it
| |and it works to a tee. Asking $300 and help with ship, thanks
| |
| |Ps- serious enquirers email me for pics at
| |--------------
|
| $300 dollars? There must be gold in those old radios. There can't be
| more that $40 in parts for the whole radio.
|
| james
|
|No thats a good price for that radio. Bill Good (who passed away a few
|years ago) a really great Technician and really good friend loved to
|work on these radios. Bill had a contact within Uniden and Bill asked
|many times to have the radio reintroduced into the market. But the
|answer was it cost to much for production. I wounder what the
|manufacturing cost to selling cost was on those radios.
|--------------

The MSRP price is generally five to ten times that of the production
costs. My guess was the labor costs were creaping up. Most CB radios
of that era were hand assembled. The PCB was hand stuffed and wave
soldered probably. Into the 80's the CB craze had died off from the
peak in the early to mid 70's. As sales dropped the costs to
manufacture went higher. Some houses could have used automated
insertion of some parts. That would save on labor. The problem comes
when production falls, the cost adder for preforming parts for auto
insertion, probably outweighed the savings that autoinsertion gained.

|I have seen these radio sell for more on E-Bay.
|
|I know these radios had expensive modifications installed that helped
|the receiver with crystal and mechanical filters in the IF. And even a
|-10 and -20 dB attenuator. And Bill use to remove the stock rf front end
|and installed a duel gate mosfet front end that significantly increased
|the performance of the receiver. The stock front end had too much gain
|and was dirty. Causing way too much bleed over. I remember Bill removing
|modifications in the transmitter to return the output power level to the
|the stock settings as the audio sounded way better, and made it cleaner.
|
|I asked him once how he knew how the RF Output was dirty or clean, he
|replies that he looks at a spectrum analyzer. Well one day I go over to
|Bills place quit a drive for me and there is a no **** bingo new HP
|Spectrum Analyzer. He shows me a radio that had the golden screw driver
|in it, and removes the stupid modification parts, and does a alignment
|on the radio and then its clean. There was a significant decrease in
|spurs and trash going out.
|
|But as you bought the radio and had the expensive modifications
|installed you now had a radio that cost the same or even more than a
|amateur radio that was even a better radio.
|
|Bill Good you are missed!
|
|Jay in the Mojave
|-------------

Yep, so called techs that modify radios with only a watt meter have
know concept of what they are doing. Yes sir make a quick buck and
send the unsuspecting customer on his way still fat, dumb and happy.


I should also realize the collector value. It is that I was 23 yrs in
teh design and manufacturing of electronic equipment and know of part
costs and that tends to bias my thinking. It is hard for me at times
to buy electronics now when I consider that the parts that make up a
unit are so darn cheap these days when bought in very large
quantities.

james