My father has been into radios for a few years now, and we are looking for a kit to build a 8 pill linear amp for his cb. I don't know much about radios, but I do perform micro soldering repairs on laptops, phones, ect. He wants a 8 pill linear for his radio, but due to the price of the guy who puts them together it's out of his reach unless I am able to build him one. Where do I start on finding the plans, a materials list ect. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
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New to CB radios, trying to find a kit to build a 8 pill linear amp.
- Thread starter Kevin Huddleston
- Start date
ICA Manufacturing has most of what you need. I haven't bought any pill amp stuff in years but back then you didn't save much by building it. Builders save by buying in bulk. If you make some mistakes and have to buy more stuff you'll end up spending more. There used to be free amp plans floating around this forum.
If you find plans, usually they are for Toshiba transistors. The HG brand tune different so don’t count on most of the capacitor values to be right.
Good luck with that. IF you can find any new ones you can expect to pay at least $200 a piece for them.
I misunderstood. If you're wanting a complete kit with everything you need there aren't any options I know of.
There are quality amps that use mosfets. Like the other said Toshibas, if you can find, are pretty pricey. Just my $.02
Yea there's a guy who lives close to my father who buys the kits, builds and sells them with the Toshiba pills, and he's charging like 500 bucks to build a 6 pill.
The only kit CB amps I've seen in a while are these:
https://rocketboxelectronics.com/
These are MOSFET transistor amplifiers, however.
https://rocketboxelectronics.com/
These are MOSFET transistor amplifiers, however.
You couldn't buy 6 real Toshiba transistors for $500 a few years ago and I know they are insanely expensive now. Something is fishy about that. Ill bet he's using the knockoff Toshiba look alikes from Ebay. RFparts is the only place you're getting a genuine Toshiba 2879 from.
Edit: Im not seeing them at RFparts. Maybe they're all gone. I assume you know they haven't been manufactured in years and CBers blow through them like smokes.
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I do micro repairs on phones laptops ect, I know next to nothing about cb radios, I'm just trying to help my father. Now these transistor amps, are they comparable or better?
Will this work on a cb radio? He's using one of the presidential cb radios, and is wanting a stronger amp.
We're talking about the same thing. The transistors in these amps are round and white like a big aspirin. Pill is CB slang for a transistor. Usually a Toshiba 2sc2879.
The last time I looked at a genuine Toshiba 2879 they were nearly $200 a piece. There are some counterfeits out there that look like the real deal. I just wanted to make sure you knew that and didn't fall for a scam. If it says Toshiba on it and didn't come from rfparts.com I would assume it's a fake.
Ahh OK, so it's the old style of transistor before FETs and MOSFET? Or something along those lines? He showed me one that the guy built for him awhile back that had 6 of those Toshiba pills, but who knows if they are real or not.