Good question. Over the years, there were a lot of noteworthy models produced - and many used the same mainboard. The Cobra 148/2000GTL is a prime example. An older Popular Electronics review cited the '2000 as having the best adjacent channel rejection of anything on the market at the time. I had an early '148 (same chassis as the 2000 but sans frequency counter) in my car way back when and as good as the receiver was touted to be it would still get clobbered by nearby base rigs.Originally Posted by n6hcm
That fact led me to search out its true competition - not so much frill-wise as receiver-wise. A number of offerings from the era are considered collectible due to innovative design features (scanning or computer control), limited production runs, uniqueness (the Browning Golden Eagles and Demcos being the only true 'twins' in CB-land, for example) or snob appeal.
How many people would shell out $1k for a 40-channel, 4w AM/12w PEP SSB CB radio when < $700 would net you a Yaesu FT-101E with its 100w of VFO-tuned SSB goodness? People did, however - Tram's D201A, the Browning MkIV/IVa, the Stoner and CPI setups. You could easily tie up $1500+ in 1978 dollars in a full line of either of the latter two. Assuming SSB operation was your primary focus, either the Stoner or the CPI setups would run rings around the rest of the CB world in terms of receiver performance.
If Pat's collection criteria ultimately focuses on performance, those two definitely get the nod.
And if I were a smart man, I would take the shack's CP-400 (the mobile version of the CP-2000 base) and slave it to one of my R7s via an ARB-704 or similar interface...just using the CB set for its transmitter. Alas, that's too hard for 'DSG to figure out when we just want to have a quick bike-to-shack chat on 11M.
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