If you missed it, my Cobra 75WXST CB radio broke/died while out on Christmas day (
post #154). I contacted Cobra regarding warranty considering the CB was only a year old, but I haven't got any sort of response back. I know it hasn't been long and we've just got through the holidays, but not having the CB while out with my buddies is getting frustrating.
Being the ElectricWizard, I had to crack open the CB and at least see what I could do
Opening the CB was easy and only requires removing 1 screw from the back. There are 3 more screws holding one of the circuit boards to the frame as well once it's split.
Since the radio still turned on, made (horrible) noise, and I could cycle through channels, I figured it was likely to be something fairly simple and not a major part, like an IC, so I started looking around.
The first thing I noticed on both of the circuit boards was what appeared to be a salt-crust type substance, likely being leftover flux from soldering, but who knows. In the end this wasn't causing any problems but I still cleaned it up.
I first decided to check continuity through the CB units cord, between the wires soldered to the circuit board and the pins on the very end of the plug. Eventually I came across what I believed to be the issue, and it was indeed quite simple!
That is the antenna coax and the center conductor broke at the solder joint. There was some hot glue attached to it that was also broken free of the circuit board. The picture isn't the best as I was working indoors at my desk under poor lighting.
I was able to strip back some more wire and re-solder it to the board, I then applied a generous amount of hot-glue down, more than factory, to hopefully limit this from happening again. I also removed and applied fresh hot-glue to all the other wire connections, seeing as how this failed and the factory glue came off so easily.
I then put it back together and went out to the Jeep give it a test. I plugged it in, turned it on, and sure enough it was working again! No horrible screech, the power meter not being maxed out, I can transmit/receive to my hand-held CB, definitely a success! Hopefully it'll work good out on my next trip and I won't have the same failure in the future.