Radioman wrote in :

You asked on Wed 11:18 PM. I gave you the solution on Thu 12:31 AM.
It took you until Sun 5:37 PM to fix it? :

Yup. I work on it when I can. It's a hobby, not a profession. I've been
extremely busy with various work related studies, so the CB radios take
the backseat sometimes. Nonetheless, it's really fun working on them when
I can. I don't see how the time makes any difference. If I was charging
somebody by the hour to repair the radio, that would be a different
matter altogether. I'm a network engineer, not a radio tech. If I was
helping a friend by giving him advice on routing, I wouldn't bust his
balls because it took him 3 days to configure access lists on a Cisco
router, even if I could do it in a couple of minutes. I would say "Hey
man, that's great. Good job". If he was a well compensated coworker, I'd
read him the riot act.


Have fun fixing the rest of them. Bad caps and cold solder joints
are about to found.

I bet you're right! I haven't powered any of the radios up yet, but I
did pull a couple apart. One has two completely blown caps, and another
has a charred pcb near the power connector and a couple of missing
diodes. This should be fun. There's just something really cool about
fixing radios others have discarded. For me it's very challenging, much
like a good puzzle. When it ceases to be a challenge, I'll either look
for REALLY busted radios, or perhaps try my hand at repairing other types
of radios. CB's are kinda fun because I can pick them up all day long at
the flea market for a couple of bucks. I've also wanted to understand
them (and radio in general) since I was a kid. Lately, I decided that I
should quit wondering and start learning. I'm having a blast so far.

If/when I get really good (and fast) at it, I was thinking of fixing
other people's radios around here at no charge in my spare time. It's a
hobby. There really aren't many reputable shops around here. The couple
that I'm aware of are always backed up and charge ridiculous rates.
Naturally, there is no shortage of guys working out of vans and camper
shells willing to turn screwdrivers and "tweak and peak" radios. Every
one that I ever ran into seems to have no clue as to what he's actually
doing. That's fine, until they start charging guys like my dad 50 bucks
(true story) to nock the carrier power on an otherwise good radio down to
two watts, and turning the modulation up high enough to make my meter go
"ding" when it smacks the right side of the case. (OK, I'm exaggerating a
little) And don't get me started on how he managed to turn a once
spectacular old Royce into an off frequency splatterbox. Nope. I'd like
to someday be able to do a fantastic job free of charge. What better
source of broken radios is there than people bringing them to me?
Ahhh...someday when I'm better at it and much faster...

Incidentally, now that the Cobra is fixed, I'm thinking of giving it back
to my dad. I don't think he ever thought it would work again. Neat huh?

Thanks again for the help man, I appreciate it.


--
Alan Strawinski

http://alan.strawinski.net