Interesting radio,looks uniden built but I'm pretty sure uniden were in the philippines by those date codes,I have an unusual philipine boarded uniden 1991 radio,so they were deffo in the philippines by then,this is taiwan r.o.c built,which suggests a very late uniden build,but the echo looks ranger rci'esque,
so I'm thinking after uniden left Taiwan Ranger RCI (the I in RCI is interesting,stands for incorporated,suggesting Ranger bought over/into many smaller companies) moved in and started producing clones in the same factory the original uniden pb042 and pb010 etc were built.Most likely in a one off deal for an Italian/Swiss import company (e bay italy is the only place I've seen zodiacs on sale),it looks like a pb042 clone,the large heatsink and single final scream mrf 477,unfortuneately I'm on a blackberry and can't see the pictures too great with my crap eyesight,not helped by inherent greed at sucking joints/numb brain.
Its no secret Ranger RCI probably including or in conjunction with ex Uniden guys built these in the same manner they cloned the pb010 board and went on to modernise it into the many variations of ept3600 board we know today,if I recall early dirland ss3900 were taiwan roc too,I dropped out of cb through the 90's to raise a family so lost track of the evolution of these export sets a bit,Ranger RCI's lawyer,a member of this forum has openly stated Uniden foolishly for whatever reason didn't patent their designs and still to this day commit radio building genocide by outrageous pricing compared to newer modern exports from hong kong/china.
Won't be long till presidents are made by someone cheaper or uniden sort their pricing out,if not I can't see them being around long.
Like palomar before it superstar is a psuedonym used by more than one company to foil Government agencies who the true importers are,probably arrived in consignments of legit radios (cobra 148 gtl dx in a cobra 148 gtl box was a classic example),incidentally phone cobra for any help on these radios in the 80's all you met was a classic Glaswegian statement when guilty as f@ck,"it wisnae me", or in later days as 10m exports blatantly as they learned to exploit legal loopholes (another member here can explain those far better than I can,lol) worldwide to satisfy the growing demand for these radios.
They even gave up the restriction on the sale of 10m monoband radios here in the uk as they realised they were flooding in from other eu member states notably rep of ireland and france (depending where the uk person was closest too) and customs couldn't touch them,unlike if imported direct from the states due to free trade laws within the EU.Once on our shores there was no shortage of people who could defeat the power limiting or channel coverage limiting they had for sale legally in europe as 10m or even 40 ch legal am/fm/ssb transceivers like in france,soon to be the norm here too if ofcom get their finger out of the olympic pie.
So yes they are interesting,but far from new.bare in mind these are my opinions made through some fact,some guesswork and a fair bit of personal opinion.I may be wrong in some parts,accurate in others and vague in the rest,but its my best guess.
so I'm thinking after uniden left Taiwan Ranger RCI (the I in RCI is interesting,stands for incorporated,suggesting Ranger bought over/into many smaller companies) moved in and started producing clones in the same factory the original uniden pb042 and pb010 etc were built.Most likely in a one off deal for an Italian/Swiss import company (e bay italy is the only place I've seen zodiacs on sale),it looks like a pb042 clone,the large heatsink and single final scream mrf 477,unfortuneately I'm on a blackberry and can't see the pictures too great with my crap eyesight,not helped by inherent greed at sucking joints/numb brain.
Its no secret Ranger RCI probably including or in conjunction with ex Uniden guys built these in the same manner they cloned the pb010 board and went on to modernise it into the many variations of ept3600 board we know today,if I recall early dirland ss3900 were taiwan roc too,I dropped out of cb through the 90's to raise a family so lost track of the evolution of these export sets a bit,Ranger RCI's lawyer,a member of this forum has openly stated Uniden foolishly for whatever reason didn't patent their designs and still to this day commit radio building genocide by outrageous pricing compared to newer modern exports from hong kong/china.
Won't be long till presidents are made by someone cheaper or uniden sort their pricing out,if not I can't see them being around long.
Like palomar before it superstar is a psuedonym used by more than one company to foil Government agencies who the true importers are,probably arrived in consignments of legit radios (cobra 148 gtl dx in a cobra 148 gtl box was a classic example),incidentally phone cobra for any help on these radios in the 80's all you met was a classic Glaswegian statement when guilty as f@ck,"it wisnae me", or in later days as 10m exports blatantly as they learned to exploit legal loopholes (another member here can explain those far better than I can,lol) worldwide to satisfy the growing demand for these radios.
They even gave up the restriction on the sale of 10m monoband radios here in the uk as they realised they were flooding in from other eu member states notably rep of ireland and france (depending where the uk person was closest too) and customs couldn't touch them,unlike if imported direct from the states due to free trade laws within the EU.Once on our shores there was no shortage of people who could defeat the power limiting or channel coverage limiting they had for sale legally in europe as 10m or even 40 ch legal am/fm/ssb transceivers like in france,soon to be the norm here too if ofcom get their finger out of the olympic pie.
So yes they are interesting,but far from new.bare in mind these are my opinions made through some fact,some guesswork and a fair bit of personal opinion.I may be wrong in some parts,accurate in others and vague in the rest,but its my best guess.
