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Old 13th Sep 2020, 4:36 pm   #81
electronicskip
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Default Re: CB Rig collectors

And a few more.
Cobra 21x
General Electric
Convoy 80
EuroCB New yorker
Amstrad CB901
Micro 2
President Jimmy x2
Commtron V111
President Jackson 2 Classic
DNT
Harrier CBX
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Old 13th Sep 2020, 11:45 pm   #82
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I had one of those green Midland radios. It was AM and may have been a 2001 or 3001, I can't remember. I bought it off a chap at work who'd done an FM conversion on it, switched in by one of the repurposed front panel switches. I gave it to my younger brother and it's probably still in his loft somewhere.

The Commtron has been mentioned a couple of times. I'm sure the model that I've got has already been mentioned, but I couldn't spot it when I skimmed back through the thread just now. I was given it a couple of years ago and I've found a picture I took of it at the time and posted it below - I think you could call it a genuine 'barn find' judging by the state of it. It looked like it had possibly had reverse polarity and I've done nothing with it so far. I can't find it at the moment as it's buried under 'stuff', but when I get round to it I think it'll actually clean up quite well.

I've been in the loft earlier today and took a picture of the Grandstand Gemini built into a cabinet that I got from a lady that I got quite friendly with back in the day, now sadly passed away. It has an annoying problem that when transmitting on the correct frequency, it receives slightly off and the delta tune (clarifier) doesn't have enough range to tune it in - it seems that a lot of them suffer from this fault and I haven't sussed it out yet. They do sound very nice on transmit audio.

I also found the butchered remains of a Fidelity 1000, shown in the third picture below. These were notorious for being the worst CB radio ever made. I actually think that they weren't that bad, just got 'bled on' worse than most others - the receivers were actually quite sensitive under the right conditions. I would actually like to find a complete example, as I quite like having a 'rock bottom' example of a particular item. I'm not going to go out and especially look for one, but if one floats by in a box of junk then I'm in!

I get given a lot of radio stuff by various CB folk that's not particularly 27 MHz related, an example of which is shown in the last picture. I was given two of these and a docking station probably 5 or so years ago. They are an early PMR radio, operating from memory somewhere around 72 MHz, but I could be wrong on that, I can't remember. I was talking to a chap on the radio a few months back and happened to mention them and he asked if he could have one for his collection (or more likely to pull to bits and fiddle with). So seeing as he'd given me quite a few bits and pieces in the past I said he could have one once I'd found it in the loft. The first one I managed to unearth was the one that went in the docking station. I tried it into a dummy load and there was no transmit output and the receive was dead. Latterly, the one that I've just taken a picture of did actually transmit when I tried it through a meter into a dummy load, but the receive was also dead on this one too, which I've since realised is probably due to a 'sel-call' board installed that needs either the correct tone, or bypassing. I'm unlikely to ever do anything with this radio, so will just keep it as an example of its type. I'm going to build the innards of the docking station into another radio that needs a PSU. More recently I've been given another one of these same docking stations with an old Yaesu FT-230R shoved into it - I thought that looks familiar, then I remembered the old PMR docking station that I'd already got...the PSUs will be useful, as should be good for up to 10 amps at a push.
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 1:14 am   #83
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There is at least one properly organised CB radio -museum- that I know of, but unfortunately for us it is in the Netherlands. Well worth an online look. A lot of familiar looking sets there, often under brand names which we didn't really see in the UK.

https://www.cbmuseum.nl

Maybe electronicskip can put together something similar for the UK...?
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 1:44 am   #84
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Just had a look at the 'museum' link and seeing that Cobra 2000 homebase reminded me that one of the locals that I have done some repairs for, some CB and some other stuff, such as record players and tape recorders, and he also gives me a few items in recompense, had one of those base stations with two matching speakers. There was a sad end to this one though, as he sold it to the collector with one leg, who got someone to take it to a local rig doctor to have the innards of a Cobra 148 GTL DX grafted into it to make a 'special' for him. I was talking to him about this and he told me that he'd been quoted £65 for the work, which involved various other mods such as frequency readout etc. I said that to do this job properly would be a real task and that if successful, then for that price he'd be getting a real bargain of a job done. Well, time dragged on and this rig doctor chap was apparently having problems doing this conversion. I wasn't surprised and it's certainly something that I wouldn't take on, unless for myself on my own radio to do in stages as a bit of a project.

In the end this repair chap suddenly died after a short illness and his male partner immediately disposed of all his test gear and customers radios that were with him for repair. Apparently there were a few people that had radios left with him and from what I'd heard up until then, he had a very good reputation for his repair work. The one legged collector valued the two radios that he'd sent to the chap at over £400 and I gather that there were a number of expensive radios that others had taken to him that were all lost. I was shocked to learn that this chap lived in a caravan, so just how two blokes can live in a caravan with one of them having a workshop of some sort in there, it must have been very cramped to say the least. There was a lot of trouble and a few angry people, but I gather that nothing could be done due to there being no receipts or paperwork to prove that these radios were in the charge of this chap. I think that there's a bit of a lesson to be learned with this incident regarding who you entrust your goods to for repair and what happens if said repairer suddenly dies.
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 3:14 am   #85
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Default Re: CB Rig collectors

Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriusHardware View Post
There is at least one properly organised CB radio -museum- that I know of, but unfortunately for us it is in the Netherlands. Well worth an online look. A lot of familiar looking sets there, often under brand names which we didn't really see in the UK.

https://www.cbmuseum.nl

Maybe electronicskip can put together something similar for the UK...?
Gosh thats quite a collection of CBs, some very desirable ones on those shelves there.
Unfortunatly i dont have quite that amount hahah but its a thought !

I do also collect PMRs and Handheld CBs too (not shown in my photographs).
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 10:58 am   #86
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Default Re: CB Rig collectors

I was born a bit late for the CB craze, but they seemed to hang around in popular culture into the mid 1980s, when car phones started to become more affordable.

Stockport used to have a CB shop into the 21st century, which is now something else but there are still some masts on the roof.

Talking of repairers, my Dad recently needed his Roberts all in one stereo repaired & took it to someone who does repairs from home.

After waiting a while to hear from him, my Dad rung up to find it had been fixed, but he hadn't left any contact details.

It was a tricky repair because the CD drive had been discontinued but the repair man had managed to source on from another stereo that had a different fault.
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 11:13 am   #87
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I also found the butchered remains of a Fidelity 1000, shown in the third picture below. These were notorious for being the worst CB radio ever made.
Hi,

I don't know about that, - have you ever tried a Cheiza?

Kind regards
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 11:42 am   #88
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Same radio with a different badge, so yes.
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 1:45 pm   #89
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Same radio with a different badge, so yes.
Hi,

Thanks for that, I didn't know that, although back in the day I bought and sold both.

My favourite UK radios were the Harrier CBX which I always for some reason
liked better than the York 863 or the Rotel 240, and the Audioline/Uniden sets.

Still got my Audioline 340 bought on legalisation day, with a Ham International Relax power
mike, but I cant remember the last time it had an airing.

Kind regards
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 4:23 pm   #90
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I think you just never forget your first.

The radio I bought on 2nd November 1981 was my Binatone 5-Star which I still have. In spite of the notoriously cheesy brand on the outside it turned out to have a respectable Japanese chassis inside, not all of the Binatones did.

It was more than £100, quite a lot of money for me in those days but I had been saving for it for a while in advance.

I used it a lot so although it is complete and in full working order it isn't in the sort of physical condition I wish it was now. Would love to find a pristine front panel for it.

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Old 14th Sep 2020, 8:39 pm   #91
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[QUOTE=SiriusHardware;1289258]I think you just never forget your first.

The radio I bought on 2nd November 1981 was my Binatone 5-Star which I still have. In spite of the notoriously cheesy brand on the outside it turned out to have a respectable Japanese chassis inside, not all of the Binatones did.


Hi

I had several of those but one was an absolute minter. I sold it to a taxi driver in Birmingham for around £30, and then wished I had kept it!

From memory the front panels were made of white plastic with chrome plating, and the usual problem was that the chrome peeled off, and they looked really awful. A really good set though, as you say, unlike some of their lesser models.

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Old 14th Sep 2020, 8:56 pm   #92
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Default Re: CB Rig collectors

I bought a Superstar 360FM, A Ham Int Major and a Teabury Stalker 9 all for £15 the three on a car booty about 5 years ago. The Superstar has 5 bands, The stalker has 4 bands on it, is ssb, am,fm with the UK 40 and the clarifier shifts the TX and the RX, The Major may come in for parts.
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Old 14th Sep 2020, 9:06 pm   #93
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There was a time not long ago when the larger radios with 134 chassis in (Rotel 240, York 863, Binatone 5-Star, Harrier CBX, Barracuda HB940, Fidelity 2000, etc etc) were selling for at least £50 in nice condition and considerably more if boxed. Odd how that thin layer of printed cardboard and foam polystyrene can often double the value of an item.

Fideilty were one 'badger' who really spread their bets when it came to choosing the manufacturers of their range of CB sets. As already discussed, the Fidelity 1000 was widely considered to be a crime against CB, and I always thought the Fidelity 3000 base station was equally bad. On the other hand the Fidelity 2001 had the same OK-ish chassis found inside the Amstrad 900/901 and the Mustangs, and the Fidelity 2000, also cosmetically the nicest of the Fidelity range, had a Japanese-made Cybernet 134 chassis. The Fidelity 2000 is probably one of the least well remembered radios with a 134 chassis so if you wanted a radio with that chassis now, that would be a good one to look out for.

Arguably the prettiest 134-chassis radio of all is also one of the most unlikely, the Midland 76-900UK Base station. It could almost pass for a typical desktop ham radio of the period. It's highly unusual for a Midland radio to have a Cybernet chassis, they usually favoured Maxon chassis from Korea.

https://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/midland_76900uk.htm

http://m0ysu.com/files/Midland76-900Homebase-2017.jpg

http://www.m0ysu.com/martinmidland70-000homebasecb.jpg

Note the last picture - of the radio powered and nicely lit up - is of the original (AM/SSB) USA version distinguished by RED channel LEDs rather than green as per the UK FM-only version.

Last edited by SiriusHardware; 14th Sep 2020 at 9:18 pm.
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