No, it is not true. It is no longer legal to manufacture a 23 Ch CB because they are no longer "Type Accepted" by the FCC.
You can own them and talk on them all day long.
You can sell them as the used radio that they are.
when 23 channel switch over to 40 it was illegal for established businesses to sell 23 channel sets. that is why just before the date to change stores sold 23 channel radios so cheap(some as low as 5 dollars) to get rid of them. it is not illegal to sell privately as long as you are not promoting them to be new. originally it was thought that they could only be sold as parts. but the law order that was made up is so vague it is uninforcible. as far as owning a 23 channel it is legal and it is legal to use if unmodified, any cb modified is considered illegal for usa use. you gotta take into account when the rule came up about not using 23 channel radios they forgot that there were so many 3, 5. 6, 10 channel radios out there and had no rule making on those. when i first got in to cb about everyone had 3 or 6 channel radios that was all the channels you needed for local work. and in all these years i have only seen a few fcc actions on 23 channel radios but they were all over having extra channels and power amps inside of them. just a few thoughts 73s midnight special
and it is ok to have them,dealers cant sell them any more.A private person can sell as many as they want.73 de JW Late note,i rember when they where selling 23 channel radios dirt cheap,and dealers where selling xtal boxs and expo kits,hehe...Have a mint Browning mk3b still 23 channel and no mods...hehe i run 22am all the time with it,hehe...73 Tesla
carl, they were limited to 4 watts only the five watts part is input wattage. the older tube types were cabable of that but the newer transistorized were far and few in between for that. that was a manufacturing gimmick to sell more radios was the 5 watt deal they just didnt say it was input wattage instead of output wattage. just like they advertised having 69 channels for a ssb radio. just a few thoughts 73s midnight special
I was waiting on someone to bring this up. You win the prize for catching the input/output game the manufacturers played to make their radios sound like they were more powerful than the competition.
(Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think Royce started the liar's game)