Cobra, Uniden Compatability

[Scipio Kid]

Recently fell in love with Deoxit and started cleaning up some old radios and bringing them back to life. I ended up with a Cobra 148 GTL with a side-mount 5 pin mic jack that didn't transmit. Thinking it might be the mic, I tried the extra mic from a Washington and it seemed to be a mis-match. I thought the Cobras and Unidens all used the same mic wiring configurations but now I'm a little confused. The Cobra mic won't work on the Washington either. Maybe it's just the 5 pin radios that are different.

Seems like you can take almost any 4 pin mic and use it on a Cobra, Uniden, Connex, Galaxy or any number of similar radios and have no problem. Or are there differences we all ought to know about that effect performance?

Also, if someone wants to fix the 148 for me, there's some really good chocolate chip cookies in it for you.

[sonoma]

they use the same mics unless some one has gone in and changed the wiring.

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[MDYoungblood]

The 5 pin Cobra and the 5 pin Uniden are wired the same, the PCB's were manufactured by the same Uniden factory so like sonoma said, someone was inside the radio and changed things, could be wired as 5 pin Midland.

3's

Greg

[sonoma]

I am bad about wiring my old radios like Royce, Robin , and others to work with the cobra 4 pin mics. some one like me may have wired it to match up with what radios he likes the most.

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[Scipio Kid]

Thanks guys,
Then clearly, things are not what they were when the radio was new. If I plug the Uniden mic into the Cobra radio, it tries to transmit (but doesn't because it's screwed up). And if I plug the Cobra mic into the Washington, it does the same thing and goes to transmit as soon as I plug it in. So, for some inexplicable reason, they've apparently changed both the radio and the microphone. I poked around inside, looking for noticeable damage or carnage and found a snipped wire and another that looks like it pulled out of a cold-soldered connection on the main board. Someone's been fiddling too much inside this unit.

I know it's a real broad question but, with similar problems, what do you experts think it might cost, generally to fix up a 148 GTL like this? Not an exact dollar amount but, even though it's a good unit, is it worth what it might take to fix? Especially when I might have to ship it somewhere for service. I don't know if there is a good tech in Salt Lake or even Utah for that matter any more. I can't get the only one I know of to get back to me so maybe he's quit the business and out flyin' airplanes now. A year or so ago I took a Cobra 29 and a Uniden Pc76LX to him. The Uniden needed one small part and the Cobra needed a channel selector display. But his advice was to let them go. He said by the time he got the parts, spent a couple hours fixing them, we'd be up to 80 to 100 bucks per unit and I'd be better off to just buy something similar that works for that kind of money. The GTL is a nicer radio than either of those, but is it worth major fixups or is it in the same boat as the others; once they're fried, they're fried?

[MDYoungblood]

That is the thing, if you don't have a local to take it too, then you have to add the cost of shipping into the scenario, figure a $20+ to the repair cost, 2 hrs of bench time (fixing and aligning), $100 (probably more for cap work), unless the radio is a dear friend that never let me down I'd be looking at new and saving/selling it for parts. JMO.

3's

Greg

[Scipio Kid]

Thanks Greg,
Pretty much what I figured. This unit was never a "dear friend" to me. Maybe it was to someone else but he let it down or screwed it up tinkering with stuff he didn't understand.

Still Looking for a good Local in Northern Utah, Rob, Where are you???? Hey, Mighty Mo, you seen or talked to Rob lately?

Final question: The 5-pin cobra mic (HG M77); can I re-hook it to work with the Uniden or better yet to work with a common 4-pin jack? I could use another good 4-pin.