CB Radio Suggestions?

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Dana67Dart said:
CBs took off in 1976

I had a Pace CB144, 23 channel, (24 if you can get to 23a)

I had a slide mount under the dash, power connector is still there.

Antenna was a trunk lip mount. My dart still has the scars to prove it.

Cobra, radio shack, were also popular at the time.
Click to expand...

My Barracuda still has the scars in the body from the trunk lip antenna my grandfather had, there was an issue with the fastback so he went to the mount that he drilled into the lid for. The first mount he had was a bumper mount.


Alan
 
Slap Stick said:
Oh yeah....antennas dont do much for paint jobs. The trunk lip mounts will put two divots in the paint on the bottom of the lid where the Allen screws are and the bracket can mess up the paint on the top side.
Magnet mounts are flat out hell on paint even though they dont move.
If you can get a gutter mount if your car has em.
Click to expand...
Is this the gutter mount you’re talking about? Goes around the gutter and then a couple set screws hold it against it?my car has the gutters above the doors.
2AAE2E24-0C6D-42C4-A80A-0633BC706199.jpeg
 
My grandfather had something much simpler, more like this (even simpler)...
Trunk_Lip-2_large.jpg



Alan
 
Me, 1970 on Treasure Island near the ham club (graduated Navy ET-A school), on the way from N Idaho (leave) after going to RADAR school in Georgia, and S down to NAS Miramar where I would end up for 4 years and to the end of my 6 year enlistment. ANYWAY I had just bought this 63 Chev SS 327 PowerSlide up in N Idaho. On a side note, about 1 1/2 years later I'd have my first RR a 69 383

If you look close you can see the trunk gutter mount, which was HOME MADE out of a piece of sheet metal. Just bent "as needed" and screwed into the trunk gutter. The antenna is NOT CB, but rather "2 meters" amateur radio (VHF.) This was a GE "Toilet Paper Line" (Transistorized Progress Line) which outputted upwards of 80W, a HELLofalot of power on 2M back then. This radio was converted from "under dash" mount to "trunk mount" by the same guy who would later sell me my 70 440-6 RR, and he DID the conversion right there when we were in school at TI about a year before this photo was taken

Hams_011.jpg


Our ham club at TI. This is looking mostly W and "somewhere" out there to the NW is Alcratraz, and out W is the Golden Gate. The building was on the NW corner of the Island. This was a highly desirable endeavor back then, because otherwise you would be drunk in the EM club, getting into trouble in SF or Oakland, or playing poker in a smoke filled room in the barracks, which were WWII wood horrid things, with very little "comforts." (chairs)

Bldg318_004.jpg


The "main" SSB station after I left. The difference was the receiver. We had bought the Drake T4X series transmitter before I had left, and at the time had a Collins "S line" receiver. Everything else in this photo looks familiar. National NCX-2000 amplifier, Collins control console which had a "phone patch" and wattmeter and the control box for a HUGE antenna rotator which I helped install

TPL under-dash--
TPL1.jpg


Receiver section of TPL below

TPL8.jpg


This "line" could be configured 3 ways for mobile, with proper parts.
1...Underdash as shown where the entire radio was slung under the dash. I don't think the 80W version could be done this way, too big
2....half front mount, half trunk. The "head" shown in the dash mount containing only the receiver was put under the dash, and the rest of the unit in the trunk
3....Trunk mount. The radio would have a conventional "control head" up front and the entire radio mounted in the trunk

Trunk mount 35W version
TPL5.jpg


Control head for trunk mount version
TPL9.jpg


NOW THIS 80W radio DID SOMETHING THAT A 5W CB COULD NOT DO!!!!!

I had a little neon lamp affixed to the base loaded antenna, and when you keyed the radio, the neon would light up with the PRETTIEST violet light at night. Neon normally lights up orange, but when exposed to VHF or UHF radio waves, it turns more violet color
 
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I had a 23 channel Midland when I was 16-17 (1972-3) I had an antenna that the base was in the middle of the front edge of the trunk lid and the bracket was inside and connected to the lid with a couple of set screws. But to get the real effect you need a big *** antenna with a big spring at the base, attached to the rear bumper with the top ball clipped to your drip rail next to the driver, so when you get tailgated you can unclip it and let that baby fly. (guy behind you - :steering:)
 
str12-340 said:
I had a 23 channel Midland when I was 16-17 (1972-3) I had an antenna that the base was in the middle of the front edge of the trunk lid and the bracket was inside and connected to the lid with a couple of set screws. But to get the real effect you need a big *** antenna with a big spring at the base, attached to the rear bumper with the top ball clipped to your drip rail next to the driver, so when you get tailgated you can unclip it and let that baby fly. (guy behind you - :steering:)
Click to expand...

That’s how you do it. That’ll teach them lol
 
67Dart273 said:
Me, 1970 on Treasure Island near the ham club (graduated Navy ET-A school), on the way from N Idaho (leave) after going to RADAR school in Georgia, and S down to NAS Miramar where I would end up for 4 years and to the end of my 6 year enlistment. ANYWAY I had just bought this 63 Chev SS 327 PowerSlide up in N Idaho. On a side note, about 1 1/2 years later I'd have my first RR a 69 383

If you look close you can see the trunk gutter mount, which was HOME MADE out of a piece of sheet metal. Just bent "as needed" and screwed into the trunk gutter. The antenna is NOT CB, but rather "2 meters" amateur radio (VHF.) This was a GE "Toilet Paper Line" (Transistorized Progress Line) which outputted upwards of 80W, a HELLofalot of power on 2M back then. This radio was converted from "under dash" mount to "trunk mount" by the same guy who would later sell me my 70 440-6 RR, and he DID the conversion right there when we were in school at TI about a year before this photo was taken

View attachment 1715705672

Our ham club at TI. This is looking mostly W and "somewhere" out there to the NW is Alcratraz, and out W is the Golden Gate. The building was on the NW corner of the Island. This was a highly desirable endeavor back then, because otherwise you would be drunk in the EM club, getting into trouble in SF or Oakland, or playing poker in a smoke filled room in the barracks, which were WWII wood horrid things, with very little "comforts." (chairs)

View attachment 1715705676

The "main" SSB station after I left. The difference was the receiver. We had bought the Drake T4X series transmitter before I had left, and at the time had a Collins "S line" receiver. Everything else in this photo looks familiar. National NCX-2000 amplifier, Collins control console which had a "phone patch" and wattmeter and the control box for a HUGE antenna rotator which I helped install

TPL under-dash--
View attachment 1715705668

Receiver section of TPL below

View attachment 1715705669

This "line" could be configured 3 ways for mobile, with proper parts.
1...Underdash as shown where the entire radio was slung under the dash. I don't think the 80W version could be done this way, too big
2....half front mount, half trunk. The "head" shown in the dash mount containing only the receiver was put under the dash, and the rest of the unit in the trunk
3....Trunk mount. The radio would have a conventional "control head" up front and the entire radio mounted in the trunk

Trunk mount 35W version
View attachment 1715705670

Control head for trunk mount version
View attachment 1715705671

NOW THIS 80W radio DID SOMETHING THAT A 5W CB COULD NOT DO!!!!!

I had a little neon lamp affixed to the base loaded antenna, and when you keyed the radio, the neon would light up with the PRETTIEST violet light at night. Neon normally lights up orange, but when exposed to VHF or UHF radio waves, it turns more violet color
Click to expand...

i love the idea of a trunk mounted radio with all the controls neatly up under the dash. That makes sense to me to have the physical components located elsewhere and a much smaller Interfaxe up front
 
67Dart273 said:
Me, 1970 on Treasure Island near the ham club (graduated Navy ET-A school), on the way from N Idaho (leave) after going to RADAR school in Georgia, and S down to NAS Miramar where I would end up for 4 years and to the end of my 6 year enlistment. ANYWAY I had just bought this 63 Chev SS 327 PowerSlide up in N Idaho. On a side note, about 1 1/2 years later I'd have my first RR a 69 383

If you look close you can see the trunk gutter mount, which was HOME MADE out of a piece of sheet metal. Just bent "as needed" and screwed into the trunk gutter. The antenna is NOT CB, but rather "2 meters" amateur radio (VHF.) This was a GE "Toilet Paper Line" (Transistorized Progress Line) which outputted upwards of 80W, a HELLofalot of power on 2M back then. This radio was converted from "under dash" mount to "trunk mount" by the same guy who would later sell me my 70 440-6 RR, and he DID the conversion right there when we were in school at TI about a year before this photo was taken

View attachment 1715705672

Our ham club at TI. This is looking mostly W and "somewhere" out there to the NW is Alcratraz, and out W is the Golden Gate. The building was on the NW corner of the Island. This was a highly desirable endeavor back then, because otherwise you would be drunk in the EM club, getting into trouble in SF or Oakland, or playing poker in a smoke filled room in the barracks, which were WWII wood horrid things, with very little "comforts." (chairs)

View attachment 1715705676

The "main" SSB station after I left. The difference was the receiver. We had bought the Drake T4X series transmitter before I had left, and at the time had a Collins "S line" receiver. Everything else in this photo looks familiar. National NCX-2000 amplifier, Collins control console which had a "phone patch" and wattmeter and the control box for a HUGE antenna rotator which I helped install

TPL under-dash--
View attachment 1715705668

Receiver section of TPL below

View attachment 1715705669

This "line" could be configured 3 ways for mobile, with proper parts.
1...Underdash as shown where the entire radio was slung under the dash. I don't think the 80W version could be done this way, too big
2....half front mount, half trunk. The "head" shown in the dash mount containing only the receiver was put under the dash, and the rest of the unit in the trunk
3....Trunk mount. The radio would have a conventional "control head" up front and the entire radio mounted in the trunk

Trunk mount 35W version
View attachment 1715705670

Control head for trunk mount version
View attachment 1715705671

NOW THIS 80W radio DID SOMETHING THAT A 5W CB COULD NOT DO!!!!!

I had a little neon lamp affixed to the base loaded antenna, and when you keyed the radio, the neon would light up with the PRETTIEST violet light at night. Neon normally lights up orange, but when exposed to VHF or UHF radio waves, it turns more violet color
Click to expand...

I found this Cobra C75WXST which is a box you mount out of the way and all the controls are on the handset. That’s not bad.
 
Cirra 1980/81
Poor dart took a hit in the left rear quarter, but the antenna mount is clearly visible on the trunk lid

Screenshot_20210310-223348.png

Screenshot_20210310-223705.png
 
Put a modern uhf/scanner in my ute as i did a fair bit of traveling, put the head unit in ash tray and used a windshield Ariel that sticks to your glass and just looks like the defrost wires.

20201212_180555.jpg
 
Whatever you do, don't get into ham radio. What a colossal waste of time! It's a toilet of FCC mismanagement. And if you do become a ham, and if you become aware of how the Commission is illegally and incompetently administering the radio service, and if you mention it on the air, you will soon receive a letter from the FCC accusing you of "intentional interference" (i.e., jamming! just because you criticized the Commission!) and requiring you to go to Washington, D.C. to obtain the renewal of your license. That's where the Commission has its kangaroo court, where they rip off your license without listening to anything you say in your own defense. They just want to shut up anyone who criticizes them. And the Commission will proudly proclaim that they are not subject to the Constitution, and don't need to respect the First Amendment.

You don't need a ham radio license, let alone needing one badly enough to have the FCC telling you what you can discuss on the air. They've got all the ham operator pantywaists so scared about losing their license that most hams actually agree with the Commission that they have no free-speech rights! As a result, the extent of your free speech on ham radio is limited by peer pressure, rather than governed by the Constitution.

But maybe you want to live the full "George Carlin experience". Maybe you want to have a really personal experience, wherein you obtain intimate knowledge about how you really have no rights. Maybe you want to discover that your so-called Constitutional rights are really just a "cute sentiment", but not real because the federal government can take them away whenever it wants. In that case, then by all means get your ham license.
 
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Ok. After some digging, I think the Cobra 19 DX IV will be the way to go. It’s a much smaller unit than the 29 and offers a PA ability.

for the install, I think recessing it in the upper left hand corner of the glovebox. Cut out a rectangle on the rear of the glovebox, slide it in, and mount there. Out of sight, but easy to access to change settings or such.

However, that leaves one hiccup. The microphone would be stored in the glovebox or the cord would come out of the closed glovebox. After doing some digging, I can purchase a panel mount 4-pin cb mic jack, and replacement cb microphone wire that has the male connector on one end and no connector on the other side, so it could be wired to the panel mount jack. That would relocate the jack out of the glovebox and allow me to plug in the mic under the dash and hang it on a clip there, which I think would look very clean.

My aftermarket stereo has an antenna jack, but also has a built in antenna, and I mostly use Bluetooth as-is. I have the mounting hardware for the factory antenna, but no antenna, so I believe I could mount a cb antenna in the factory antenna location and really conceal the fact that there’s a cb in the car.

any thoughts?
 
I’m leaning more towards a cobra 29 ltd or a galaxy do 979. Both are very classic looking rigs with the knobs and switches as opposed to a large lcd display taking up the face, which I think will look better.

The downside to a glovebox mount is that you really need an external speaker, which I didn’t want to do as it would take up space under the dash. However, after some digging I found this. This company makes a connector to hook up your front left speaker to be your external speaker. It leaves all other speakers alone and mutes your front left when a transmission comes in. They also have a product that mutes your stereo when you key your mic. Perfect. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Music keeps playing when a transmission comes in but the speaker closest to me switches, and I can mute it automatically when I key my mic. It’ll keep the install looking very sleek.
 
I don't often use vacuum tube transmitters, but when I do.............

Aurthur_A_Collins.jpg
 
If you guys get the time you really should read through the story about Art Collins. Many many advancements in radio communications, including the "mechanical filter" which is so common today nobody even mentions them. When I was a kid, you would involuntary drool if you came across a Collins mechanical filter

Arthur A. Collins
 
67Dart273 said:
If you guys get the time you really should read through the story about Art Collins.

Arthur A. Collins
Click to expand...

First the U.S. Government gave the High Frequency bands to the hams because the government thought they were worthless for communication. In doing so, they relied upon propaganda from private industry, which couldn't figure out how to make an oscillator that would operate above 2.5 Mhz. at prices consumers would be willing to pay, so they didn't want those frequencies at the time. But within about 2 years after the government gave them "200 meters and down" (the HF spectrum), the hams had built cheap oscillators that would operate up to 28 Mhz. Then private industry wanted the HF bands back, and pressured the government to steal them back from the hams, which essentially it did (notice the repeating pattern of betrayal here?), by restricting the hams to certain narrow segments of the HF bands and letting commercial stations operate everywhere else on HF.

Art Collins discovered that you could "work skip" on HF. Therefore he was the only station who could communicate with the MacMillan Arctic expedition in 1925. The government couldn't even contact its own arctic expedition because they still believed the industry propaganda that HF was useless. The government "experts" didn't even acknowledge that "skip" existed. Art was only able to do this because his father, who was a successful farmer, bought him one of the newfangled transmitting triodes that could operate at 14 Mhz. That tube cost $300 in 1924, which would be about $4,600 today.

So Del, obviously everything Art Collins did is totally invalid because it's strictly due to white privilege!
 
Actually the gobt finally has (helped) to make HF unuseable. By allowing devices to radiate (part 15) interference instead of requiring them to be properly shielded and filtered, and the awful debacle of "broadband over power lines" HF is pretty much dead.

I have some HV lines down my alley. Even so, years ago, I was able too enjoy some activity on 160--40, 20 and higher freqs not so bad. Last few years, 160-40m is about useless here The FCC is yet another regulatory body that needs to be bombed and re-done.
 
67Dart273 said:
...and the awful debacle of "broadband over power lines" HF is pretty much dead.
Click to expand...

But Del, BPL lost out. I don't think it is being used anywhere, is it?

In the BPL interference case filed by the ARRL, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals held that the FCC deliberately and intentionally misconstrued the evidence before it in order to justify a decision in favor of BPL (the Commission simply ignored all the evidence of the interference that BPL would cause). The Court of Appeals set aside the Commission's BPL decision and remanded the case back to the agency for reconsideration in light of the Court's opinion, which pointed out a lot of FCC perfidy. If anybody is interested in reading the case, let me know and I'll get you the citation. It will convince you that the FCC must be a really rotten agency if they would fake the evidence like that and then try to cover up what they did. And can you believe that on remand, the Commission reaffirmed its earlier findings, based on no new evidence (i.e., it essentially ignored the Court of Appeals' decision in an attempt to wear the League down)! But, as I understand it, by that time everybody had figured out how much interference BPL really did cause, and it fell out of favor. Fact-check me on whether BPL is actually being used, guys.
 
The problem as I understand it, along with "general inactivity" as to FCC enforcement, is that the FCC RAISED the allowable levels of interference for Part 15. This means that the "low rf floor" that used to be in place for any "such things as" microprocessors, any/ all switching device producing noise, etc, has been raised. The FCC attitude, some spokesman for them once suggested that if "hams are experiencing too much noise they should move."

Hey!!! Problem solved!!!
 
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