C.B. TALES

customer came to me with a Cobra 25LTD with no channel LED's lit. Well, that's simple I said, I'll just change TR-18 which delivers voltage to the LED assembly. That worked, everything checked out, called the customer and told him to come and pick up his radio, and he did. He took it outside and installed it in his Mobil. Five minutes later he was back saying the LED's were not working, What!! I hooked it up again on the work bench and sure enough, no LED's. So the customer left the radio with me and went home.

I put the volt meter on TR-18 and sure enough, no voltage. What is happening here? I changed TR-18 again, once again everything OK, LED's light up. Must have been a fluke I said! I Put the radio back together again, called the customer and told him to come and pick up his radio, when he came by he dropped off another radio, this time he was in a hurry and left right away.

A week goes by and I have fixed his other radio, called him back told him to pick up his radio. He says to me "by the way, you know that Cobra 25 you fixed with the LED problem? Well, guess what, I tried to hook it up the other day and its still not working." WTF!!!! How could this be!!! It was working fine, everything checked out. OK, bring it back and I'll check it out, this is crazy. ( Hmm, he must be doing something wrong that's causing it to short out.) The next day the radio is back on my bench I fixed the blasted thing again, I checked everything at length, put the radio back together, called the customer to pick up his radio, only this time I go out to the car with him to hook it up. Only to find out that after we got it hooked up and turned on, the LED's were still not working. #@&%^$.

I pulled that radio out of his car, wanting to put a hammer to it, It was working fine five minutes ago, we both saw it. Once more I put the radio on the bench. I ripped the covers off and the LED's came back to life! Ah Ha! I checked all the screw holes to make sure the screws were not shorting something out. Well, I found a trace almost cut in two on the bottom of the channel changer board ajacent to one of the case screws. Then I looked at all the screws and found that one was shorter than the others! Well, well, now we are getting somewhere. I took the covers off two more 25's to see if they had the same problem, Hmm, they didn't, that means the one I worked on was a different production # than all the others. I'll bet Cobra had a major headache over that!

In nontechnical terms, what was happening here was, every time I put the covers back on, that blasted screw would short the trace out, which buy the way, was the trace going from, you guessed it, TR-18 to the LED assembly. what a nightmare!!!! I told him, I never wanted to see that radio on my bench again.

ell it all started one day when I Dumped a full can of beer into the face plate of my Cobra 6,000,000,000 base station. I pulled the cover off knowing good and well I could fix it with my 24k Gold Screw driver.

After turning all the (Thingy's) on the board, like the real Tech's do, it still wouldn't Work.

So then, I Got out OLD GRANDMA, (A Titanium hammer)and started hammering away.

Well, after beating on the Board for an Hour, I noticed one of the LED's on the channel selector was now showing 99. WOW, now I'm in Business, Musta Channeled it.

I figured a few more Smacks with the hammer would do the trick. I was Wrong, Smoke Started coming out of the Back end.

So I got some water and put out the fire. And here I am, my radio is Broken, Raped, melted and Dented. Where did I go wrong? my 5th brother from 4 marriages ago said all this would fix it for sure, any tips?

few years ago, Radio Shack store managers were given the word that if anyone came into a store looking for a PL-259 to F-connector adapter, they were to ask the customer what they intended to use it for, and to refuse to sell the connector if the answer was anything like this:

"I heard you can hook up your CB radio to the cable TV line and talk all over the city!"

Seems this had become a major problem with some cable TV companies. The CB radios illegally transmitting on their lines were causing interference and damaging the equipment back at the cable transmitter station.

With that said, here's a story I saved that's related to this.

I believe it to be a true story, based on my own experiences at Radio Shack (as an employee in the 1970's and as an occasional customer now).

Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc Subject: Funny Story Date: 21 Oct 1995 00:28:23 GMT The following is an actual letter sent to the address below. The original was typewritten, and all spelling and grammar has been carefully left intact, including errors. I thought this was pretty funny, and thought I'd share it with you guys. Respond if you like. With that said.... enjoy.

To Mr. [name omitted]
District Manager for Alabama
Radio Shack
3300 N. Pace Blvd
Pensacola, FL. 32505

Dear Sire,

This letter is complain about the problems I have having with the ham radio model number 19-1101 I had got from your company Radio Shack. I had this shipped special to me from your store 1096 Eastdale Mall Montgomery Alabama. I was got this because I think that i would get transmitt furthur that I did with the TRC 217 40 channel walkie talkie.

The problem that had first was when I was going to hook this radio HTX-1000 to the antenna the conektor on the radio was wrong it wouldn't attach to my cable. I was able to hook it finally by making a small change in in the connektor. As soon as I tried to use it there was no sound coming at all. This happened for two days and I never did get to talk to anybody the whole two days. That day the cable company came knocking my door and said there was something causing problems at my house and disconnekted my radio from the cable line. you knew when i brought the Radio that I was going to use that for my antenne. You didn't tell me not to why not?

Next time I decided to put the HTX-1000 in my automobile I thought I would see how it worked their. I hooked it to my CB-antenna and at least I could hear people. But what happens now is no one wants to talk to me because they says you have to have a licencs to talk to them. Why? I dont have to have a licencs to talk on my CB. They'll talk to me there. Anyhow it dont matter much anymore because somebody done took the radio HTX-1000 from my automobile.
What I would like for you Radio Shack to do is refund my money because I don't have the radio anymore and its not my fault i dont and I think you should give me back my money. Also the cable company here says that I hurt something in there line and want to be paid fix it. It will cost $27482.98 to fix the equipment they say was damaged because you didnt tell me not to hook it to the cable. Please remit to me the check for $27758.53 for damages due. To save this matter from going to court the check must be in my hand by June first or I will turn this over to my attorneys of law.

Thank you [name omitted]

---

REMOVING THE KNOBS AND EVERY SCREW, IS JUST A LITTLE TASK TO DO.

THERE ARE METERS TO SET; RIGHT ON THE SPOT, MAKE SURE THE SOLDERING IRON IS GOOD AND HOT !

EVERY RADIO IS DIFFERENT IN ITS OWN SPECIAL WAY, SOME MAY TAKE AN HOUR, SOME MAY TAKE A DAY.

THEN THERE ARE SOME THAT MAY TAKE A WEEK, TO MAKE TICK, BECAUSE OF A GOLDEN SCREWDRIVER THAT HAS MADE IT - T E R R I B L Y S I C K .

THERE IS TRACING AND TUNING AND PULLING YOUR HAIR, AND LOOKING IN BOOKS AND BOOKS TO SPARE.

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT AN HOUR HAS BECOME A DAY, AND TIME HAS SLIPPED BY, IN A GREAT BIG WAY.

NOW THE RADIO IS TALKING AND REALLY 10-8. BUT THE OWNER SAYS, " SORRY, YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT."

"I HAD NO IDEA IT WOULD COST SO MUCH, AS THIS RADIO HAD HARDLY BEEN TOUCHED."

TRYING TO BE CHEERFUL, AND NOT ACT TOO FUNNY, THEY POLITELY ASK IF YOU CAN WAIT FOR THE MONEY.

THE TIME THAT WAS SPENT FOR THE REPAIR, NO LONGER EXISTS; IT JUST WASN'T THERE !

THE LAST FEW BUCKS THAT YOU COULD SPARE, WAS SPENT ON THE PARTS TO MAKE THE REPAIR.

EVERYBODY NEEDS TIME, AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER. FOR THIS AND THAT OR THE OTHER.

MY EXPERIENCE, MY TOOLS AND MY TIME ARE MINE,

IF IT'S NOT WORTH THE MONEY, THEN PLEASE DON'T WASTE MY TIME !!