Why the hate

[halfwatt959]

Any idea why almost everyone hates on the old 23ch radios? From my experience, wich aint much I admit, they usualy have beter recieve than the newer 40s. Where I am most people dont want anything to do with them and yet they very seldom talk between 24 and 40. Just wondering if its just because they are old or obselete or what? I guess the other 17channels are just nice to have even if ya never use them. What do yall think? What, if any are your favorite 23s?

[the caveman]

There is nothing wrong with the old 23's. I have a browning LTD I saved from a yard sale and it is a nice radio. Might be my first base radio. The 23 channelers are tough radios. Some are a little fragile or have downsides but the 23 channelers are good radios.

[Tallman]

Most people don't know that you can modify the boards and actually have a 46 channel radio.
There is a site called cbtricks.com that has a lot of the modifications listed.

[solarradio351]

Love the old gear most is made to last not to sell you bits to keep it going !
Cbtricks is wicked all the oldies with some pll's can do amazing things... lescom kits I like best check them out ! ....351... down under..

[Tallman]

The old gear I like most is the tube mobile amplifiers. They sound is so much cleaner.

[Silverado 996]

I've never used a 23 channel radio, but I know people who have. What I don't understand is... with technology today you would think they could easily duplicate "old school technology".. Why cant they make the new 148's better than the old 148 GTL or even better the GTLDX? The new 148's aren't close to what those were, same thing with the 29's and the Cobra 2000's. We cant for get the TRC Realistic Radios and other old school kings of the air. ...Tube amps are very clean a nice sounding, just like the old guitar tube amps. I wish Cobra would bring back the 200 GTL DX, its a nice 10 meter radio that would do more than 100 watts on SSB and with the 11 meter mod it would do 70 watts or so on am, but it had a few problems...instead of correcting it issues like everything else they stop making them. That's sad because it had serious potential. I say bring back the vintage radios with an updated look. I don't like seeing post with people crapping on the old vintage rigs, those rigs and technology are the reason why we talk on the radios we have today, am I right? There's a certain member in here back in the day ran a mid 70's model sears SSB radio and dual 102" whips would flat out shoot skip like a mofo, barefoot. Here's a link on the 200 GTL that was made for a few years, just in case you've never seen one. I would like to own one, but people are asking too much $$ for my wallet. over $350 ebay

http://cbradiomagazine.com/Feb%20200...X%20Review.htm

[Tallman]

Yeah, I know the guy you are talking about. $200.00 truck, $400.00 worth of radio gear. The whips were mounted so high on that ugly truck it would thump overpasses at 13' unless he was speeding. Not only did it skip like crazy it was a good late night SSB talker. All of the co-phase harness home made too.

By the way I bought another radio just like that one! Yep that was me with the ugly truck.

[Tallman]

The main reason the new radios are the way they are is they are cheaper to make. Surface mount requires very little labor on the part of humans. Put a bare circuit board with solder paste applied and the machine does the rest. Just keep the parts loaded and the machine will run all day long and will never put a part in the wrong location. Once all of the parts are in place you just put the circuit board on a conveyor into an oven and the soldering is done. Humans still do most of the top assembly.

[Silverado 996]

Yeah but that $200 dollar truck had a heck of a stereo in it also!

I took the cover off my 29lxle and looked at the solder joints and started giggling. They looked like my solder joints I did in the 6th grade. Its a wonder the damn thing works, but it does.

[Roadrunner]

I actually like some of the "old school" 23-ch radios. They are cheap & easy to experiment with & unless you just can't live without ch-38 on SSB, you really aren't missing too much above ch-23.