My latest discovery!

[KA9MOT]

http://quincy.craigslist.org/ele/4041904715.html

It powered up, but it had no RX or TX. It was stuck on 26.887MHz. Repaired the bad "extra" channels mod, re-aligned it and it works very well. Today I start the clean-up. It was in storage for 20 years and needs all the pots and switches cleaned and hopefully I can do something with the cosmetics.

I figure I'll sell it at Peoria's Superfest on the 21st.

[KA9MOT]

I'm finished with the rig part. I also replaced the lamps with White LEDs. The speaker is in bad shape and will never look pretty.... I decided to at least try to make it sound good. I replaced the "stock" speaker with a better speaker and replaced the 35 year old wire and plug. It sounds great. Here are some pictures:

What I started with:
Cobra 2000GTL.jpg

All done:

IMAG0087.jpgIMAG0086.jpg

And the speaker (not finished yet):

IMAG0091.jpgIMAG0093.jpg

[KG4CGC]

Good luck with it all.

[n6hcm]

so you can sell this for more than what you paid for it?

[KG4CGC]

so you can sell this for more than what you paid for it?

Big CBs still sell pretty well. You can sell them all day on craigslist. At least around here. Ham radio however, is under appreciated on CL.

[NY4Q]

Nice find. I sure had a lot of fun with a Realistic TRC-458 back when I was in high school. I did the "extra channel" mods and built an amp with a pair of 6HF5s and had a Starduster up in a "Jawja Pine" in the front yard (~60 feet). We had a good group nightly on 27.505mcs. I worked a lot of DX on it too. Lotta fun.

[WX7P]

Nice find. I sure had a lot of fun with a Realistic TRC-458 back when I was in high school. I did the "extra channel" mods and built an amp with a pair of 6HF5s and had a Starduster up in a "Jawja Pine" in the front yard (~60 feet). We had a good group nightly on 27.505mcs. I worked a lot of DX on it too. Lotta fun.

Bootlegger!

[KA9MOT]

so you can sell this for more than what you paid for it?

I've seen at least 1 at every hamfest I've been to and they were all priced in the $200 - $250 range. More if it included a matching speaker and/or Mic. I have no clue how many have actually been sold, or for how much.

I have been watching them on eBay since Saturday. Broken ones in lousy condition have sold for more than $100.

[KA9MOT]

Nice find. I sure had a lot of fun with a Realistic TRC-458 back when I was in high school. I did the "extra channel" mods and built an amp with a pair of 6HF5s and had a Starduster up in a "Jawja Pine" in the front yard (~60 feet). We had a good group nightly on 27.505mcs. I worked a lot of DX on it too. Lotta fun.

Damned outlaw!

This one has a "kit" and I could find no info for it. It goes down 40 and up 40 which keeps it out of 10M. Everything I can find online requires cutting traces on the PLL, adding wires and butchering switches or adding switches.

This "Kit" is 3 position rotary switch with a small board attached to it. There are 3 crystal sockets and a couple of variable caps. The crystal was removed from the board, plugged into the "kit" and then 2 wires carried it back to the original crystals stock location. Actually a nice set-up, but when it was installed incorrectly which caused the frequency to wander all over the place. There was another mod that was wired into the NB Switch that did involve a cut trace for the PLL that I don't know what it's function was but the radio would not work at all with that trace cut.

I removed the NB switch mod but kept the extra channels. They don't go up into 10M and the radio really looked bad with that hole in the front bezel.

[WX7P]

Ebay isn't a good gauge for an in person sale.

Whenever someone says to me "the price is X on ebay", my response is always, well sell it on ebay. I don't think I'm alone.

The Peoria Superfest will be my first swap meet out here, so I don't know what the sellers are like here, but I know in California, people trying to get ebay prices will be looking at their equipment all day long.