Searching the top ten worst cb and 10 mt band equipment around the wold.

[Lil'Yeshua]

Here's the CBTricks service bulletin if anyone had clicked on the previous link.
Cobra 150GTL DX







The devil comes not but for to steal,kill,and destroy but I came that you might have life and life more abundantly.

 

[towerdog]

in my experience

Cobra 19 plus:
PCB soldered at 90 to display/control PCB, cant take it apart to fix !@## without desoldering a hundred connections

Maxon MCB-60:
lots of buttons and knobs, that break. A whole world of cold solder joints inside


95% of all CB's, after all these years you think the BCD channel selector would be out, and a scan function would be standard

 

[TonyV225]

As far as what was wrong with the 200GTL it was everything that was wrong. I never "Squeeze every last watt out of anything" nor do I let anyone tune my radios because I know where I want them set and whaere there safely run. My Cobra 200 was set at 100 watts eache time because thats where it was intended to idle along like all of my HF rigs.

Parts just kept failing after a few hours use. Maybe Cobras Techs are just retards I dont know but the radio was sent to other service centers to start out. After repeats of breakdown it went back to "Brian" the head tech in Cobras service department. The last time they had it they told me they were discontinuing this marvelous gem of a radio and they were sending me a refund on the purchase price.

Now I ask you if the radio was a good product would Cobra have quit its production? I also know alot of others that owned or had owned a 200GTL and I maybe heard 3 or 4 people out of 20 people tell me theirs was trouble free. As mentioned do a google search and you will see there was more trouble than there was good units by far. Cobra told me right out that due to high volume in 200GTL and repairs on them stacking up they could no longer keep up with them and were losing money resulting in a stop of production.

I loved the radio and would still have it if it would have been a decent and reliable radio. I wanted it for 10 meters but all in all it was a great idea gone wrong with no reliability. I was bummed out because I purposely waited for the last generation board and upgrades that was said to be trouble free and as Ive explained and had learned that certainly wasnt the answer either.

 

[n0zna]

Black face Jackson,super star125,cobra148gtldx...maco 200 amps...sorry had to through that one in there....73 de JW

 

[ExitThirteen]

Interesting to note here... with all the problems associated with the Cobra 200GTL DX, it primarily centered around 1 problem. They used a problematic mosfet when they made the radio, a Mitsubishi RD16HHF1. That mosfet was the primary cause of problems in the radio.

Oddly enough, Uniden didn't learn anything from this and they use that SAME mosfet in their 980 SSB radios. I have heard of a few people having trouble with their radio losing output, same issue as the Cobra.

If they'd just use an IRF520 I'm sure things could have been a lot better, and the 200GTL DX wouldn't have been such a turd.

This is why altho it'd be kind of neat to have a 980, I've been undecided about purchasing one.


As far as turd radios go, I'd say pretty much the ENTIRE Galaxy line. They're ALL bad. Why have SSB when the radio drifts like a sailboat?


~Cheers~

 

[TonyV225]

My Galaxy DX2527 doesnt drift but then again its really a RCI 2950 in a base station box. The 2 Galaxy Pluto radios I owned were also great Sideband radios but go figure neither radio is nolonger made.

 

[Carl]

+1 on the 200 mosfet driver failing. its all that ever goes wrong with them. the gate volate is to much if set to facotry settings (much like the 2970dx2's) reducing it makes them last for a long time, the other issue is the mosfets are very static prone. a grounding strap to the radio might help that.

 

[Mudfoot]

That's it, I remember now. It was the voltage that was set to high.

 

[MudDuck442]

Does the company that hosts this site have enough room for my list? Ok, in all seriousness, probably any base station which is a mobile radio in a big metal box with a weak power supply (I cut out most ranger/galaxy bases) .

The AR-3500 not so much for the finished project, but it was full of "band-aids" and after thoughts so much that knowing this turned me off to them. A real "patch-job".

I could give a whole list of the little maxon / cobra / whatever brand radios that are basically "bic" disposable throw away radios, but this is so obvious why do I need to waste the time recalling all of these I have ever come across.

Some of the early magnum delta-force.

I agree for the most part on the Cobra 150 and 200, although with some TLC, they are almost workable, but I guess anything is.

 

[VA3ES]

+1 on the 200 mosfet driver failing. its all that ever goes wrong with them. the gate volate is to much if set to facotry settings (much like the 2970dx2's) reducing it makes them last for a long time, the other issue is the mosfets are very static prone. a grounding strap to the radio might help that.

COBRA 200 GTL DX, RF DRIVER MOSFET REPLACEMENT - RD16HHF1 - YouTube

 

[wls27mhz]

I was doing DX many weeks ago and a contat said me that I am interfiring in his QSO 10 KHz upper with a MAAS DX 5000. He asked me I pu off my linear but I had linear, was the harmonics and he sowed me the interferences from my equipment.
I allways have words for all but in that moment I shut up same as child in the chuch I did not what to say.
If you have a MAAS dx5000, Anytone5555 or Superstar 6900 beware with the components, are too low quality.

 

[towerdog]

I never had a problem running an "export" on 10 nor amplifier until I mentioned what gear I was running

 

[towerdog]

Then my radio suddenly started drifting and splattering all over the band

 

[towerdog]

same thing with my old FDC HT, compliments until I mentioned what it was, then it all the sudden became "overmodulated", on fm..lol, too loud, etc and was supposedly splattering all over (which I verified with my scanner to be b.s.). Fortunately the general consensus of the legality of such HT's changed and now everybody's got a baofeng or TYT

 

[jazzsinger]

Then my radio suddenly started drifting and splattering all over the band

That my friend is radio snobbery, usually carried out by more money than sense morons with ft1000 or the like, that they don't know what half the buttons do and have the other half set up wrong, with RG58 or RG Mini 8 or some other no brand coax 100m to a 4 element Quad someone else set up for them.

They generally think echo is cool but don't quite yet have the brassneck to ask someone who does know their new radio's more than 4 pin microphone's socket wiring to wire a super duper echo chamber in for them.


They always tell you, you are off frequency because their radio is the standard by which all radios should be judged,because Hank the local repair cowboy got his hands and magic monkey wrench and blowtorch and did a full scale alignment on his 5 digit bench counter, they guarantee you a 60 over 9 report, because they heard someone that actually knew what it meant, and it sounded well kool,but when you give them an honest S7 R2 report,because their processor and alc are set so high the rig's breathing its dying breaths and the fans whizzing like Usain Bolt on amphetamines,they tell you you need to go to Camelot Radio shop and see Hank,handle fucking Merlin,just by sheer coincidence and totally understating his gift with blowtorches and crowbars.


Sadly you get bellends like that on 11m too (a couple of "elitest" groups are famed for them),let's not forget all those nuggets your referring too had to get their misunderstanding of radio and its concept of saving life's, making friends, broadening one's horizons etc in favour of my knob is shinier than your knob brigade mentality they show somewhere.

It's the first sign your talking to a dickhead and you probably have something more constructive to do with your time.:headbang:headbang:headbang<can not stand it>