WHO MANUFACTURED THE SBE SIDEBANDER II TRANSCEIVER.

[Shockwave]

The "conversion" promise was made by a company desperate to sell a radio. Too many prospective customers were sitting on their hands waiting for 40-channel radios.

With typical federal efficiency the the FCC didn't publish the technical specs a 40-channel would have to comply with until some time after they announced the channel expansion. Turned out the rules wouldn't permit a simple channel-selector swap. Technical limits for a 40-channel CB were far tighter than they were to make a 23-channel radio legal. A 23-channel radio only had to meet limits for what RF came out the coax socket when you keyed the mike. The FCC had discovered that a 23-channel radio in a wooden cabinet was radiating the frequency of every crystal in it, along with a few others. This would interfere with a nearby TV and they placed new limits on what could legally leak out of a CB in receive AND transmit modes. They also set limits on how much RF could leak out the power cord, the mike cord, external and PA speaker jacks. Retrofitting all the filtering was not going to be practical. But for a few months there, they didn't know this and promises of upgrades from 23 to 40 went down the 541tter. Wasn't gonna be legal.

73

I wonder if 40 channels had something to do with the demise of Tram? They did in fact change the channel selector board to 40 Channels with more crystals however, that only lasted for about a year. I've actually jammed the 40 channel D201A board, into a rat's nest vox D201. I think I recall reading something about this having to do with frequency drift in crystal synthesizers. Sometime later in 1977 the FCC required PLL circuits.

 

[nomadradio]

The D201 evolved from the 23-channel open-chassis design built in Winnisquam New Hampshire to the printed-circuit board version also built in New Hampshire. They figured out that the labor to build the original version was killing their hopes of making a profit. Circuit boards reduce labor cost. The New Hampshire pc-board radio had the same "Diamond" logo badge as the open-chassis version. The diamond doesn't tell you what's inside, only tells you where it was built. Had a customer years ago who proudly brought in a D201 with the diamond badge, saying he had always wanted a "hand wire" as they were calling it. Lifted the hinged cover and pointed out to him the big printed circuit boards inside. He looked at me like I shot his dog. Had to explain that simply lifting the cover at the flea market where he bought it and taking a peek inside would have saved him all that trouble.

A policy by the Mexican government called "Maquiladora" established US manufacturing businesses just south of the border, where parts could go in, and manufactured product trucked out without the usual import duty/customs stuff. This provided jobs for mexicans and reduced the labor rate for the US manufacturers. Building the D201 this way saved Tram's bacon until the 40-channel version. The D201A had a fatal flaw. Every one of them was made with a channel selectormade by "A-MP" Inc. that would wear out in weeks. This was a fiasco for Tram. The other brands of 40-channel CB were not selling well. By the time everyone had sat on their hands waiting for 40 channel radios, the immense stocks of 23-channel radios in the pipeline now sold for pennies on the dollar, just to get them out of the warehouses. This in turn depressed 40-channel sales, forcing prices down to bankruptcy level. So many brands of CB disappeared by 1980 or so that Tram would have been one of them even if their channel selector had not been a train wreck. Just speeded up the inevitable, looks like to me. By the mid 1980s it was down to Cobra, Midland and President, by then owned by Uniden.

73

 

[demco satelite]

I actually own a 40 ch sbe console 2.