I have a Cobra 148GTL AM/SSB rig that looks fairly old that was
manufactured in Taiwan. The serial number is 83013217. Can this
information be used to determine the date of manufacture?

-Dave

On 11 Sep 2006 05:07:00 -0700, wrote:

+++I have a Cobra 148GTL AM/SSB rig that looks fairly old that was
+++manufactured in Taiwan. The serial number is 83013217. Can this
+++information be used to determine the date of manufacture?
+++
+++-Dave
*************

Serial numbers assigned by manufactueres may or may not have date of
manufacture encoded in them. If this did then a possible dcecipher
would be the 3217th unit from January of 1983. I am not saying this is
correct but it is only one of several solutions.

james

wrote in
ups.com:

I have a Cobra 148GTL AM/SSB rig that looks fairly old that was
manufactured in Taiwan. The serial number is 83013217. Can this
information be used to determine the date of manufacture?

-Dave


I don't normally recommend this to CB'ers because 99.9% of time, CB'ers
screw up their radios when they take the covers off of them, and then they
go to ham radio operators and ham newsgroups and whine for help.

Anyway, take the covers off and look at the componant side of the PC
board. Look for chips. The PLL is one you will see the board, but look at
other ones too. Normally on most chips, the date of manufacture is
stamped on it. Two digit year number, then either two digit month number
or week number. It gives a rough idea of how old the radio is and you know
at least the radio was assembled sometime after the latest date you find
on the chips. You also find a date on the PC board when the board was
etched, the CB would have been manufactured sometime after that date.

Ham Radio Buff wrote:

I don't normally recommend this to CB'ers because 99.9% of time, CB'ers
screw up their radios when they take the covers off of them, and then they
go to ham radio operators and ham newsgroups and whine for help.

Actually, I have a ham license and haven't used a CB in over twenty
years. I was merely servicing my sister-in-law's CB, and she's
wondering how old the rig is.

Anyway, take the covers off and look at the componant side of the PC
board. Look for chips. The PLL is one you will see the board, but look at
other ones too. Normally on most chips, the date of manufacture is
stamped on it. Two digit year number, then either two digit month number
or week number. It gives a rough idea of how old the radio is and you know
at least the radio was assembled sometime after the latest date you find
on the chips. You also find a date on the PC board when the board was
etched, the CB would have been manufactured sometime after that date

Well, I looked around inside and noticed that the PLL chip has "78
31" stamped on it. This could mean the IC was manufactured late in
1978, which is consistent with an earlier posting suggesting the rig
was manufactured in January 1983. On the other hand, there's nothing
stamped or etched on the PC board or on anything else inside the rig.

73,

-Dave, K3WQ