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If you could create a cool new CB product what would it be?

Brand new, attractive, well-performing AM/SSB base station as an alternative to the Galaxy 2547.
Maybe qixiang will see this thread and do something. If it were anything like their mobiles..... it could be excellent. Not sure how big a base radio could get with how small the pcb's are getting.

A radio heads dream right thereResized_1322edd0-af9e-445b-9e52-c03cda019e8d_202522668161231.gif
 
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Direct sampling SDR.
Mike
Yeah I am a newbie here! Anyway, I am surprise that no one agreed on a CB being a SDR. I mean someone can create a SDR and lock it down to CB only frequencies to make it legal. (FCC Approved) Being able to have a Panadapter and such would be an eye opener for those who never had one. I haven't seen anything better then an Anan SDR. There are some good competition out there, and the Hobby surely needs Competition to push it farther into the future. The future is here but CB is lagging behind. Now the CB World surely isn't lagging in the Amplifier world, Holly Smokes!!!
 
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So, here's my idea for a killer CB product. It's an upgrade for millions of "black" base-station radios based on the RCI2950 circuit board. This is a long list of models over the last 30-plus years. The tuning knob on these radios is a rotary encoder. In this case it's called a "quadrature" encoder. It closes two sets of contact points in a sequence. Which one closes first tells the computer which direction you turned it. These contacts close only when the knob is in between detent clicks. The radio's computer moves the frequency up or down with each click. Both contact points are an open circuit when the knob is at rest. Just one problem. The contacts are prone to "bounce", or make/break the circuit multiple times when they touch. The contacts must have spring tension to draw them back apart between clicks. But you can't make the springs so tight that they won't exhibit this multiple-make/break bounce behavior. The computer is supposed to compensate for contact bounce, but there's a limit to how effective this can be.

The tuning knob on the mobile radios behaves itself fairly well. You can confuse the computer if you spin it really fast but the one used in base radios is different. The control in the mobile radios has a solid 6mm shaft with a flat spot that engages the knob. The base radio encoders have a 6mm split shaft with splines. It takes a totally different and larger tuning knob than the mobile radios.

You would think they're both the same on the inside, but not so much. The base station tuning knob is famously flaky. Might jump six channels with one click, might move the channel the wrong way from how the knob was turned.

Flaky.

A better choice of rotary encoder type is called a "gray code" encoder. The simplest, and cheapest has only a two-bit binary code that closes a circuit to ground on each pin. The difference is that this type is "static", meaning that the on-off pattern is always there, not just while you're turning the knob. Naturally the computer code that responds to this type encoder is different from what's needed for the quadrature type.

I looked for gray-code encoders for years that had a shaft that matches the knob on these radios. The idea is to interpret the new encoder with a simply tiny computer and output pulses to ground that mimic the factory encoder.

But without the contact bounce that causes the flaky response. A chip that provides a clean version of what should come out of the factory encoder should fix this problem and make that knob useable.

And guess what just turned up on chinabay? A proper gray-code encoder with that split spline shaft.

I wrote code for gray code encoders decades ago for a synthesizer we used to make. Might be adaptable for this.

One thing I don't have is the upper/lower limits for how the radio's computer responds to the factory encoder. How long must I make the pulse coming out of a controller chip to properly mimic the factory encoder? How fast can they repeat without acting flaky like the factory setup? There has to be some minimum interval between "clicks".

Sounds like a research project that calls for an unrealistic pile of "round tuits".

Unless someone else has already had this idea and done some of the preliminary research, to establish specifications of how the old encoder's timing would have to be matched.

Ideally, this thing would go into the hole in the radio's front panel, plug and play.

Just not enough round tuits.

73
 
And....American made. With 100% USA parts.
These days "Made in America" really means "Assembled in America from Chinese parts". Not just for radios, but for almost all consumer goods.

The problem is, say for example an American company wanted to build an American CB radio from American parts. They would quickly run into a big problem.........they would discover that America doesn't make parts for anything much anymore, especially electronics ! Sure there's a few exceptions, but for the most part manufacturing has all moved to China and more and more to India. That's where parts come from these days.

MFJ is a great example of this. They would buy parts in Asia and assemble them in Mississippi into gear that was then sold as U.S. made. They really had no choice as most of the parts they needed were no longer made in the U.S. !

America doesn't make anything anymore, they just assemble parts from other places and call it "Made in U.S.A."
 
About impossible, I only know of one tube manufacture in the US and they only make one audio tube.
Western Electric makes the 300b and a matched pair costs $1400+.
I contacted them and asked if they plan to build any other tubes, the answer is basically No.
That alone kills the whole idea of a US made tube rig.

73
Jeff
 
I would make a new SSB/AM/FM/CW handheld, and a small form-factor SSB/AM/FM/CW mobile. Both covering 15m-10m at least. (Or 40m-6m if possible.) :)

73
 
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This is from a decades old post I have here on the forum....


The features were amazing.
23.815 Mhz to 30.555 Mhz Continuous Coverage (Requires Export Mod)
Single Chip Microprocessor Controller (LC72338)
Clarifier Control Tracks Both Transmit And Receive (SSB Approx. 40Khz)
Programmable Memory Function (Stores Favorite Frequencies)
Backlit Liquid Crystal Display (Frequency, Channel, Functions Menu)
Digital Meter Scale Displays Signal, Power Output, SWR and Modulation
Dual Watch Mode (Allows Monitoring Two Freq. Simultaneously)
Red/Green Transmit/Receive LED Indicator
Two Antenna Connectors on Rear Panel, Push Button Front Panel Select
Noise Blanker/Automatic Noise Limiter
Roger Beep (Switchable )
Variable Mic Gain Control
Variable Receive RF Gain Control
AM/FM/USB/LSB Operation
25 Watts Variable RF Output Power SSB (2SC2166 X1 - 2SC1969 X2)
10-15 Watts Variable RF Output Power AM (2SC2166 X1 - 2SC1969 X2)
Four Step Dimmer lamp Control
Split Frequency Capability for Repeater Use
Dual Power - 120VAC Operation or 13.8 VDC Operation
DTMF Page Mode (Touch Tone Paging)
DTMF Auto Reply Function (Touch Tone Auto Signaling)
DTMF Coded Squelch Operation (Receiver Muted Until Special DTMF Received)
DTMF Encoder Pad (Allows Direct DTMF Frequency Entry)
5 Pin DIN Jack on the Back Panel for PACKET Radio
Scan Feature
Automatic Squelch control
Channel 9/19 feature
The Radio also featured a Jack on the Back that you could plug a Outboard Analog S Meter into if you did not like the built in Digital S Meter ( like the Yaesu FT 897 Radios)
Some one should get Maycom Co in S Korea to build these again, I think it would prove to be a Good Radio.
Add protection on the CPU from the Mic error, maybe a wide/narrow filter option, A cooling fan for the radio/power supply..this thing would blow the new ranger "base" out of the water


73
Jeff
 
American made. With 100% USA parts.
You gonna build the parts factories?

Would be cool.

And unlikely. Manufacturing goes where the labor and land and taxes are cheap. The stockholders will send you down the road if you don't cut costs to match your competitors in the same market.

You're not just competing for customers, you're competing for the capital to build the product. The guy with lower cost gets the investors.

Martin moved the fabrication of many parts into his factory when those parts' manufacturers closed or discontinued things like air-variable capacitors and roller inductors.

He did NOT try to manufacture fixed capacitors and resistors in-house.

Or transistors, or diodes, or integrated circuits. I still consider him the king of "in-sourcing".

73
 

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