Teaberry Stalker IV & Uniden PC78LTW

[NESN]

Had to use a spare truck last week and I used an old stock Teaberry Stalker IV from the '80's that was given to me a while back. Seemed to me like that old Teaberry was much more sensitive on the receive side than my late model Uniden though the Uniden gets out far better. I could hear more guys talking farther away with less noise. Any ideas why? Older better made components?

 

[Dawn]

Welcome to the fine art of receiver performance. Today's rigs can show impressive sensitivity over and old unit, but they're cutting costs. Bear in mind that the equielent dollar is now nearly 5x what it was worth in 1974, so extrapolate that into dollars and materials in your Teaberry. I have no knowledge what year it was made, but odds are that it was built with more expensive components as CB's today sell for much cheaper by comparison then they did when the first 40 channel units rolled out in '77

So what makes the difference?

Broadband front ends instead of tight LC bandpass circuitry. They have to do that now because they expect so many people mod their radios for wider coverage
Synthesizer phase noise
Gain distribution that used to be adjustable inside instead of just a very hot and noisy front end that acts more like a preamp then a front end.
Use of IC's that replaced entire stages of optimumly chosen parts of the day.
Electronic switching using diodes in the signal path instead of a relay.
Very cheap ceramic IF filters.
Noise blankers in some old radios were very good and could be adjusted for optimum pulse blanking.
Some older radios had some very elaborate full wave detectors with audio response tailoring. Now it's probably part of a chip that would be as much home in a cheap transistor radio as a CB.
Microprocessors are now being used for all the gee whiz displays, bells, and whistles to save on manual switching. Those add noise to the unit as well. They're not going to spend the extra bucks shielding and using feed through capacitors like they used to even in synthesizers.

Things like this all add up to a higher noise floor in two radios with comparable sensitivity figures that's done by the numbers. Cheaper filters mean less protection from adjacent signals. You've never paid less for a radio with so many features. Those cost cuts have to come from somewhere and they can't build them like they used to for the same prices or less of 30 years ago.