replacing the electrolytic caps all at once saves shipping costs and shop reputations.
If i replace the one cap that keeps your radio from transmitting, and then a week later the cap that couples to your speaker goes out; who do you think gets the blame?
Now, if you happen to have a repair shop local to you, then sure, you can keep going back each time something goes wrong and giving the guy 20 bucks a pop.
you may get lucky, but you may end up being nickel and dimed to death, not to mention thinking that the tech doesn't know what they are doing because your radio keeps breaking.
To ship a base station to a shop is almost a 100 dollar endeavor before any work even gets done.
with an average price range of 70-90 dollars for a complete re-cap, it becomes the obvious choice pretty quickly.
depending on how a shop charges for services, you may end up 40 bucks in by the time the tech tells you you need to replace a couple of caps. then he charges you 20 bucks or more to replace them.
now you just spent 60 dollars for two caps when you could have just sent the radio to them asking for the re-cap and spent 90 for all of them.
yes, these are hypotheticals, but the fact remains that electrolytic capacitors have a life span. you can end up the lucky one whose caps just lasted and lasted until you shelve the radio, or you can be the unlucky one whose radio goes out four times in a year because of bad caps.
to each his own, but i think old CB radios should be restored if you love them.
LC