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  1. #1
    La Rata Del Desierto K7SGJ's Avatar
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    Feb 2010
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    The Desert
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    When CB was "da thing" I spent all my free time fixing the damned things, and had no time to play on the air with them. On those rare occasions I did get on the air, it was either 40 or 80 cw. I wish I had a nickle for every reverse polarity diode across the 12 volt line that I replaced, every audio output device(s), and every RF out transistor and usually the driver, too. Those were the money making days. I was reasonable price wise, and would not let any rig leave that did not meet specifications or FCC requirements. I did lose a certain amount of business because of this, but still, I had more work than I could handle with a decent turn around time. I was able to buy all the state of the art test equipment of the day that I used to fix consumer electronic devices, commercial two way radio, and all the stuff i needed to fix/maintain commercial broadcast equipment.

    One piece of test equipment that was specifically built to service and maintain CB equipment was the B&K Dynascan 1040 and 2040. All you needed to do was add a scope and you could generate, receive, or analyze any signal needed to troubleshoot or verify FCC compliance. I still have a set or two of those out in one of my trains. I always figured that they could be expanded and modified to be useful when working on ham gear. I'm sue Dave remembers those units. As time went by, I was forced to buy some Marconi and Areoflex station monitors plus some specialized stuff when I did some civil aircraft electronics on the side for a place in Phoenix. I really miss working on all that stuff down to component level. It was a challenge to track down the part(s) that were faulty, and I got a lot of satisfaction when I finally fixed that "dog" that was on the bench trying my patience and knowledge of how actual components worked together and made everything work. There wasn't time to be a parts changer and then try to charge the customer for parts that didn't fix the problem, and that were just left inside. These days it's either replace a board or the entire equipment. People with no actual electronic knowledge are fixing or 86ing the equipment that was once fixable.

    Those were the days my friend......
    Last edited by K7SGJ; 04-09-2018 at 11:18 AM.
    A clear conscience is usually a sign of a bad memory

    RIP ALBI-W3MIV RIP RUSS-W5RB RIP BOB-VK3ZL





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