NEW COBRA 29 LX LE - COMING SOON!

[jazzsinger]

Looks tacky as hell.

AM only?


-Richard-

My sentiments exactly,but seeing as its AM only then it will never reach here which seems more promising to me than those crappy 200 gtl dx's that did make it here.

As for being made in chinese sweatshops,i'm sure by the number of korean part numbers in the latest cobra radios they've moved production to korea,most likely maxon or a subsidiary,i may be wrong though.

 

[NorthStar]

Giant is building the majority of Cobra's Radios.

 

[office888]

what are you talking about? this radio looks more like a ham radio than anything else.

This is a ham radio.

I think people would LOVE a CB with a remote mount face. More people might have CBs in their cars then?

Not only that, the display on the 29 LX LE is a lot of flash, without a whole lot of function.

The 7900r on the other hand is straight to the point. Memory channel, with the frequency displayed front-and-center, a few minor displays for such as repeater offset, and a signal strength meter at the bottom.

-Richard-

 

[jazzsinger]

Giant is building the majority of Cobra's Radios.

i stand corrected,as i say i assumed korea due to the amount of korean parts used which is unusual for chinese companies who generally use japanese parts.

 

[Pioneer621]

I like the looks of the radio. Would love to see one in person to see how the display looked up close, & some of the extra features sound cool. I think the display looks very nice, especially seeing large pics at cbtricks. Hopefully they do not have any problems with the display & it lasts a long time, seems like the Night Watches had a lot of problems, at least the ones I had, the EL panel was going out on many of them, even newer ones I had. I even have a couple Cherokee NR-100 radios with the blue EL panel face & they went out on that too! Not sure what there using on the new Cobra, but hopefully its different or better then the other ones.

I was browsing cbtricks & seen mention of the new 29 LX LE so I clicked on it & they have a picture tour of the radio inside & some good pics of the face lit up, looks like a typical Cobra 29 LTD with a new front face / bezel to accommodate the extra features / electronics. I did not see this posted in this thread, but my apologies if I missed it.

I hope I am allowed to post links to other sites here, but here is some more pictures of this radio at cbtricks.

Cobra 29 LX LE 50th Anniversary CB Radio

Cool looking radio for sure in my opinion!

Just wanted to post the link to the pictures I came across incase they were not mentioned yet, & figured I’d post my thought on the looks as well!

 

[TonyV225]

Im not an AM user but the radio does look pretty neat but so did that brandnew P.O.S. cobra 200 I bought and sent back for surgery 6 times or so :thumbdown::headbang

 

[BOOTY MONSTER]

there are a few people that got a cobra 200 and it didn't fail them and their still happy with them . i still would never invest in a 200 . they were nice looking radios with nice features , but the majority of comments i read about them well not good .

 

[Red Ranger]

This is a ham radio.

I think people would LOVE a CB with a remote mount face. More people might have CBs in their cars then?

Not only that, the display on the 29 LX LE is a lot of flash, without a whole lot of function.

The 7900r on the other hand is straight to the point. Memory channel, with the frequency displayed front-and-center, a few minor displays for such as repeater offset, and a signal strength meter at the bottom.

-Richard-

Exactly. BTW I think it looks GREAT, it's the 21st century and they are still selling Chromed bezel radios? Chromed radios should be a dying breed, this is not the 80's anymore.

These new cars have NO PLACE for a CB, a detach head is a must if you even expect to install a CB in a car, even the smallest units are too big, and performance suffers.

and SMT..... IT'S THE FUTURE, IT'S HERE, and all you techs complaining about it, you are going to have to upgrade your equipment, a SMT soldering station is the must now days. The days of a Clipped Diode and spread out the coils for max power are quickly passing by.

 

[Robb]

Exactly. BTW I think it looks GREAT, it's the 21st century and they are still selling Chromed bezel radios? Chromed radios should be a dying breed, this is not the 80's anymore.

These new cars have NO PLACE for a CB, a detach head is a must if you even expect to install a CB in a car, even the smallest units are too big, and performance suffers.

and SMT..... IT'S THE FUTURE, IT'S HERE, and all you techs complaining about it, you are going to have to upgrade your equipment, a SMT soldering station is the must now days. The days of a Clipped Diode and spread out the coils for max power are quickly passing by.

Have you ever worked on a radio? SMT is very hard just to see properly - let alone work on. It's just not the extra cost of repair equipment. If your eyes are very sharp still; then you might have a chance at it. Regular resistors, diodes, capacitors, and transistors are much easier to work on if you DIY. Not that I don't own more than a few SMT radios - I do. But it will become necessary to send them to a shop if they should ever need to be worked on. The parts are often MUCH smaller than a grain of rice!

Yeah; the chrome is a little bit old - but those radios can be worked on/repaired - by the owner if necessary.

 

[pro151]

That is the whole idea. Make the radio too big a pain in the butt for us hackers, modifiers and tuners to work on so we will have to send them back to the "Factory Authorized Distributor" for "Expert repair" (Rip out the old board and slap in a new one and charge 50% of the cost of the radio for an out of warranty repair.

This is what is referred to as "Progress".

Yeah right. My big ol hairy........................

 

[Red Ranger]

Have you ever worked on a radio? SMT is very hard just to see properly - let alone work on.

I've used "EcoWave 45" soldering flux (warton-metals.co.uk/fluxes.html) to help solder an SMT with 176 pins (0.5mm fine-pitch) but I found it very difficult as bridge is formed between pins of that IC.

The trick is the temps and the solder/technique, Tip temperatures: Sn63/Pb37 (tin/lead) should be soldered between 550F - 600F.

Lead-free: SAC alloy (silver), Sn100C (nickel) & Sn100E (cobalt) should be soldered at 650F - 700F.

The use of pre-heat on the secondary side of approximately 150F (convective) will allow you to reduce your tip temp (conductive) by 50 - 100F and still achieve a good inter metallic bond. Only enough conductive heat to achieve the bond. Get in and get out so you don't thermally stress the components.

550 - 600 F. Do not try this with lead free. It can be done in one pass if you put some solder on the tip (heat bridge), start out just above the top lead, immediately feed a little solder and lightly drag the hoof tip or single flat on top of the feet of the leads.

Light even pressure and consistent speed of travel are the key and it can be done in a "one touch" application. Make sure to use flux.

 

[Madhatter]

Of the new features on this radio I think that the most useful to me would be the ability to automatically switch to the most powerful NOAA station for weather as I go through several station areas throughout a 11 hour shift. Hopefully they will combine the better features of this radio with the bluetooth feature on the 29 BT.

As for the chrome faceplates on the CBs, I think that they may start to disappear as the older drivers that were around in the 70's and 80's retire. The old timer's in the trucking industry are reluctant to change anything. Not that all the changes in the last 30 years have been good.

 

[Cityboy]

I have some of the equipment to work on the SMT and Red Ranger is either a lab repair tech or just blowing smoke because it is very difficult to repair the SMT radios and my Pace soldering/desoldering station is well equipped for it but my eyes and especially my hands have a hard time staying steady enough to keep from overlapping solder to another trace, and let alone read the part number on it or location. Then you have to look up the schematics and trace it down and hopefully it has the value and if the location is not printed on the board. Well I like the older chrome bezel radios for the looks and for the ability to work on them. SMT technology is very expensive to implement for a radio system for cbs and it may be in the future but for now it is way too costly for say Uniden or Cobra or Ranger to invest in the re-tooling to make an all SMT technology based radio; the price point and number of sales of using such technology overides doing it and it is still a ways off. And besides that they want to build obsolesence into their radio so people have to buy more radios when their's fail and SMT radio are more durable as far as the parts and fewer cold solder joints.

 

[DTB Radio]

Having seen the inside of this radio, I think most (if not all) of the main-board mods for prior versions of the 29 will apply to this unit. We've got a case arriving this coming Monday, and we've already had customers placing online orders just to make sure they don't miss out on the first ones. Assuming the new display design doesn't "bug out", I think that this radio will be one of Cobra's best yet, from both the retailer's and the end user's points of view.

 

[Turbine Divinity]

looking at it from a tech perspective

Looking at the pictures at least the main body of components I see such as the finals and receiver sections are very very familiar territory. I am willing to bet any tech out there could tune this radio and even throw a mosfet into it without too much trouble.

Now I am a tech geek . I like (not love ) the way the radio looks. give me more information than I have gotten before. I am for it. However...

In 20 years will it hold up like all the cobra radios I have owned., and still work to this day. I have 3 cobra 23 channel radios I know I can toss onto the dash right now and hook and antenna to and it will work, Reliably every time all the time.

Now I know Cobra has made some crap too. But the 29 has always been a tough workhorse. It seems however every time they added things like Nightwatch or Sound tracker It either failed or was a gimmick. but the core of the radio was solid (providing nothing stupid was done to it)

I don't know if cobra listens to anyone but their marketing directors but here is how I would have gone.

Ditch the chrome. Sure if you want to sell the "classic" radios fine. But your main line should be chromeless

Illuminated dials and name tags on those dials,3 color LED types so we can custom color them the way we want forever. Leds last forever vs any of that EL shit. Plus you don't have to have the shielded silver box pumping out HV to drive the stupid thing. (which looks to be the way you did the backlight on this new one (gods no more EL in CB's)

Freq counter. Yes I like this, But how about OLED screen for this. A small one. One that can be REPLACED if it fails down the line sometime.

Now Style it like you would build a car or truck after 1997.

Then make this same model with a remote face and I would buy the shit out of it. Don't change a goddamn thing on the TX or RX side unless it really works and can hold up to being thrown into the toolbox on the back of my truck every day.

And Delta tune WTF really , you can't find a better use for that knob than farking DELTA TUNE? anything on a PLL is never going to be so out of tune that you will ever ever ever use it. Unless you are talking to someone on a crystal set who fell out of the sky from 1972 from a failed military experiment. this knob will never ever be used. Might as well called it "BS knob that looks good on the list of "features"

Cobra , please. Stop with the "OOooooh look at the Pretty lights" and give us a up to date illuminated (NOT%&^(#$(*& EL ) radio that has the reliability we want and the features needed. and will look good in a modern truck.

And a remote face .... I want a 29 with a remote face

That is all