If you believe the old phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, it’s a stupid as “if you ain’t bleeding, you ain’t doing the job right”. If you change out an alternator on your kid’s car and bust open your knuckles loosening the adjuster bolt, what’s wrong with you? You know it’s tight as balls, change your grip! Putting your 1911 back together and the slide bites you, damn, go get a Sig. I’ll be touching on radios soon, but the main point here is if you do not adapt, you will become extinct before your time. Making mistakes or being wrong is okay. Just make sure you change your approach. If you tend to protect your beliefs, instead of learning from your mistakes, double check your driving skills and try not to drive off until you lower your dump.
So by now you are saying WTF does this have to do with CBs? Well technology will continuously change and if you don’t change with it, your flip phone from 1996 won’t talk. Sorry, back to radios. For decades, the big radio for a majority of drivers was the Connex 3300. Some went with their other models or went with a Galaxy. In the 90s, one of the best talkers was a barefoot Galaxy 44 and if you had the coin, you went with the 88. I could go on about the different models and the fact that I mention the term “best radio”, will probably piss someone off, but there were some great radios back then. The design really didn’t change much, but boards got thinner and thinner, some components stopped being manufactured and I started to look at it as planned obsolescence.
The most common issues in the 90’s were “my radio doesn’t turn on” (voltage regulator), or the channel indicator blinks (loose wire). Then that changed to “my radio doesn’t work unless I smack the bottom a couple of times a day”, (the notorious “cold solder joint”).I had a driver show up once so pissed off at the world, that he punched the bottom of the radio so hard, he drove the speaker through the board to the top cover. He stated “ that fukin thing has been in 4 different shops and I spent over $160 having it repaired and it still cuts out”. Now I’ve had my share of brawls through the years, but he had a fist the size of my head and hitting him with a bat would just ruin a good Louisville Slugger. So I take off the covers and 20 pieces fell out, pieces of the board he punched the speaker through. The only thing intact was the channel knob. There was a pile on my bench, and I sat there waiting for him to ask me to fix it. He started laughing, bought a new radio, and has been my customer ever since. Bad coax took out the radio. The audio modulator shorted out and took out the driver and finals, toasted the board and 3 caps. 16 years later, new radio time. Why? Same coax from 2006. But this is not my point of this writing. Yeah, he didn’t learn from previous mistakes (change your fukin coax!), but now he has to learn new shit (different radio).
Now, this behemoth of a man with the giant paw, well his knuckles are now the size of my knees. He’ll shake your hand, but you know he’s sucking up some tears from the arthritis. It’s almost permanently frozen in a C shape made for a gearshift knob, CB mic and a small cup of coffee. I know you know this driver and have seen him multiple times. Well now, he needs a new radio. I recommend a Stryker 655. This is where I tie in “Can’t teach an old dog” bullshit.
He shows up with the truck on a Saturday morning. It’s already 86 degrees out. The night before, I fuk up my back doing nothing, it just decided to shoot pain from my ass to my ankle, again. So now there’s 2 old fuks that can’t get into or out of the truck and I just started laughing my ass off. Ah, the golden years, or is it titanium? Again, I digress, but it was just too funny not to mention. I installed the radio, and a wide-eyed look of panic comes over his face. He doesn’t want the radio now. He wants his old piece of shit fixed, no matter the cost. I start breaking his balls, cause that’s what I do, then suddenly realize the issue. He didn’t understand the radio because it was different and did not want to ask for help. Being an old bird dog trainer, I know you never beat the dog!
We took our time and went through everything the radio has. I purposely changed every setting, started to talk about the grandbabies, then had him reset it. I had him take a picture. He then started to bitch that he couldn’t see the picture, then showed him how to blow it up on his phone. We actually did a training session about his phone. Why? He didn’t want to have his balls broken about not knowing how to do something new, so he stayed silent and did not utilize over 75% of the features available. He’s far from stupid. What he stores in his head and figures about his business would make an accountant blush that he has to use a calculator. The only thing necessary was a route for him to be comfortable to ask a question.
The next day he calls in a panic “no one can understand me and his receive is all messed up”. Wait for it. Remember that goompy hand of his? Well, when turning up the squelch he switched the radio to FM. Now more than ever he wants his old piece of shit radio repaired. I reminded him his story about the first time he got progressive lens. “I’m throwing them out!” “$450 and everything is blurry!” His wife told him to give it a little time. Now he will tell you how great they are, and everyone should wear glasses. I then asked him to stop being pissed and look at the picture he took yesterday. Silence, then he hangs up. Fast forward to 3 months later, “This is the greatest radio I ever had!” “With the new antenna I’m talking 15 miles and went FM!” “I talked skip NY to Fla, and they said I sounded like a local!” “I want them in all my trucks”. Shut up already you old dog, you.
