First you have to find a 148 or Uniden Grant XL that is in good shape. Lets assume you find a gem that has not been butchered and is not tired adn beat up guess what it will cost you? It could end up costing just a little less than a new Export radio. If it is worth owning than it is from mid 1990's so it is 20 or more years old. A lot of caps are going to be getting weak and dry so noise and a lot of depending on use and where it lived the audio ic, voltage regulator and final might be getting weak. A lot of the switches and control pots are going to be getting lose and worn out. The meter might be yellow and stuck. Not to mention scratches to the bezel and case.
Then you have things like free-banders they would have to buy a Lesscom kit and have it installed.
So you have $140-$240 for a really cosmetically clean 1990's SSB CB radio that is used. Let us say $75-$150 to have it re-caped inspected and properly aligned. Then you decide you want a $182 channel Lesscom board that is prob. about what $175 for the kit and $100 to install it? If they decide they want an amplifier like the RFX150, RM-Stinger etc....that is another $38-$68+installation etc......
So as you can see a lot of people would rather just buy a dual final expert or one with a amplifier already installed and not have to pay to rebuild the radio and then modify it to make it into what they want.
If it where me I would tell them to get RCI-2950DX and then latter on get an external linear amplifer for it. Great receive, SSB stability, more bandwidth than they will ever need good audio on AM and SSB. If the amp is separate should it fail you do not lose the entire radio. If the radio fails you still have the amp. On top of that packaging wise radio's with built in 4 transistor amplifiers are huge the width, length and depth combo poses a real mounting challenge. If you want to use the radio alone you can use it with a fairly small power supply which = cheap! If you have to power a unit with an amp built it that will limit how small and cheap the power supply can be. This is especially true on mosfet high power models. For some reason the 2970N2 even with the RF power turned down as low as it will go they still swing to insane levels with modulation.
I currently own a Uniden Grant XL, Palomar SSB500 and President Lincoln a pair of Realistic SSB radio's and a Hygain remote mount AM radio. I understand the pro's and cons of old radio's. I owned a RCI2950 for about 10 year. I would like to get another one only the modern 2950DX.
The current crop of SSB CB radio's are garbage. They are not very good designs, poorly constructed with almost no quality control. The Uniden Bearcat 980 has to be the worst SSB radio I have seen in my 42 years on this Earth. Uniden should be ashamed to have their name on the box let alone what is inside the box! The Galaxy SSB radio's drift like snow in the Winter wind or a leaf in a stream if you are from the south! SSB is only fun if the radio's involved are fairly stable.
You would never catch me paying someone what they want to install a stinger board or Lescomm kit into a CB radio. Better to just get what you want from the word go in terms of bandwidth. Like wise you would never catch me with a GIANT radio with a 4 transistor amp built in. To limited on mounting and power options and I hate to lose an amp and a radio when just one is broken. It also locks me into using an amplifier that might not suite my needs.
What if all I want or need is a 1 transistor amplifier? If I get an all in one unit I stuck with a 4 transistor amp and I am forced to feed it.
If I was going to spend $500 or more on an HF rig I would get actually amateur gear and get my ticket punched! I almost did that this Winter. You would never catch me spending $799 on a RCI2970N4 with 4 crappy DEI bipolar on board or the $500+ for the 2970N2 with mosfets that where not even designed for RF. Last I checked they where not even true AB biased but I could be wrong on that. I know I have seen more 3rd and 5th order harmonics on them in the past than I like to see but a lot of that was how they had been tuned.
My CB's are completely stock no free-band mod's no swing kits no NPC. As long as they can be repaired I will keep them around and use them. I do think they are better for what I use them for.I am a nostalgic sentimental guy at times and I just like old things! My CB radio's do have great receive and transmit but they are anything but cost effective anytime I need a repair I can not do myself. It is usually a poor way to spend money making them into an export rig piece meal(sp).I am huge on SSB so for me they make a lot of sense since nothing legal currently produced is worth owning right now in the CB SSB market place.
