CB Test Sets

[Dawn]

I've been in the land mobile business since the 70's. Most of the benches I've worked on have had Motorola, Singer, Cushman, IFR, and later HP service monitors. My benches are HP and I have some older Cushmans and Singers that still work. Nice pieces of equipment to get things done efficiently.

CB had an initial flurry of test sets made by Sencore, Hickok, B&K, Logimetrics, and Lampkin. There were a few others that were made for CB like Meguro and some garage operations. Unfortunately they were high in price and never delivered their return on investment for most shops. The B&K were probably the best known and reasonably priced and entered into the fray much earlier then the others as a dedicated set for only CB.

Some of these sets were efficient, some were literally Frankenstein messes like Hickok that looked impressive, but nightmares for shop service.

Oddly, the Hickok rack sets get premium prices intact by collectors. The B&K pairs have been so used and abused by generations, it's almost impossible to find a pair that hasn't been butchered.

There's still an allure to some to find pristine sets and like the antique radio folks, collecting an ensemble like the Hickok racks with a factory promotional material from the 70's and early 80's as a retro CB display is growing in collector circles.

Anyone care to vote for their favourites and what they have?

I'm happy with two HP's, an old Singer FM-10 with an AM plug-in and a BK 1040 panel. I have a 2040 in a box, but don't see the point in using it. Only the integral noise generator is an advantage in that unit that I have a Motorola unit that takes it's place for tuning real noise blankers.

 

[Retroradio]

Maybe a wee off topic but how do you rate the preponderance of "microphone" testers that are out there. As one who has been in the biz since the 70's would you rate them as a usefull tool and if so can you reccomend any?
Cheers
Retro radio

 

[Dawn]

It's not a piece of test equipment that makes much sense for a radio shop unless you have a box of microphones to check out. The best tool is the radio itself, otherwise a VOM and a scope will do just fine. Only one I've ever seen in a commercial shop was one made by Motorola during the 60's for their own products and they put some thought into the design with an acoustical coupler and a meter to read relative output.

There appears to be 2 CB types that I know of. They don't do anything more then show the PTT works and have a minimal amplifier so you can hear audio on the speaker. One version does have a switch to place a bias voltage on the element for mics that use an electret or carbon element. I think the other is now sold with spring clips on the side where you can use the amplifier to test noisemakers. Unless you're wiring mikes for others and don't have the corresponding radio, I don't see much point in owning such a tester.

 

[Retroradio]

Ack. Thanks for the reply. I agree then useing the radio makes sense. I saw them online and they looked interesting.

 

[Phreakin318]

I have an old Johnson transceiver tester that I got in a estate, it also is able to test crystals, but I have no clue how to use it.and it has a telescopic antenna built into it. pretty neat, if your familiar with it, let me know more info on it.

 

[Dawn]

Here's a link to the Johnson tester:
EF Johnson Test Equipment

I had one of those back in the early days, should be still around somewhere. Simple to operate as a SWR/Modulation/and power meter with a built in dummy load. In the signal generator position, you need a crystal plugged in and it will generate a harmonic signal suitable for peaking up a receiver or a reference point for checking your radio's sensitivity. What puzzles a lot of people is the S meter function. The manual provides some modifications to some of their older radios to bring out the AGC and used the meter in this tester. Nice little unit to go out to a vehicle and test with or as a minimal piece of bench test equipment. It was also sold under the Dynascan and Lafayette label without the S meter function, but otherwise the same.

 

[Phreakin318]

Here's a link to the Johnson tester:
EF Johnson Test Equipment

I had one of those back in the early days, should be still around somewhere. Simple to operate as a SWR/Modulation/and power meter with a built in dummy load. In the signal generator position, you need a crystal plugged in and it will generate a harmonic signal suitable for peaking up a receiver or a reference point for checking your radio's sensitivity. What puzzles a lot of people is the S meter function. The manual provides some modifications to some of their older radios to bring out the AGC and used the meter in this tester. Nice little unit to go out to a vehicle and test with or as a minimal piece of bench test equipment. It was also sold under the Dynascan and Lafayette label without the S meter function, but otherwise the same.

thanks for the link and the information on it

 

[JETDRIVER]

Hello Dawn, i have a couple of test units one i bought from the USA and the other from here in Australia
the American unit is a Knight-Kit TEN-2 CB Checker, CB Tester Kit;
2" meter, 40" telescoping antenna, 10 functions:
Measures:
SWR RF output power % of pos. mod & neg. mod. RF level Crystal activity
Operates as:
Signal monitor audio generator X-tal RF gen. Code Osc..
handy battery operated portable unit produced back in the '60s.
The other is the B&K 1040 SERVICEMASTER. A fantastic unit that does it all and has one of the best manuals you can get plus a great troubleshooting section on radios.
i found it advertised here on Gumtree for AUD $65 with frequency counter, and BWD 25mhz scope.
i nearly fell out of bed when i saw it as i didnt think i would find one here and to get one from the USA would be around AUD $400 including freight. i already had several scopes and old rf generator, when i saw an ad for a brand new RF generator same as the B&K 2005b model it cost me AUD $115 delivered.
i am now about to upgrade to new freq counter. as both of mine are very long in the tooth '60s - '70s era.
but my vote is for the 1040. Thanks

 

[NorthGA422]

B & K Cobra CB tester

I just picked up a B & K Cobra CB tester looks brand new haven't played with it yet other than the SWR function what does anybody know about these and where to pick up a manual on it would be great to use on a mobile radio I think
Thanks and 73's

 

[JETDRIVER]

Hello great stuff getting a CB SERVICEMASTER they are used by pretty much every good radio tech.
To locate a manual and a service manual check out Brian's Info Page for the manuals and download
Both manuals and print them.
The operation manual is extremely well written, and there is heaps of info on using the unit and Also
on radios in general. You can learn a heck of a lot reading the manual.
Also check out a channel on YouTube called MikesRadioRepairs, he is a really nice guy and watch his videos as you will learn heaps on there as he explains and shows you a lot of stuff with the radios he works on. Subscribe to his channel ITS FREE and go back and watch from the start of his videos as they usually have many videos to each radio as he repairs them. It is the best CB radio channel on YouTube .
TO USE A SERVICEMASTER YOU NEED AN OSCILLOSCOPE, A FREQUENCY COUNTER AND A REALLY GOOD RF SIGNAL GENERATOR one that you can change the modulation on and the amplitude on. Read the manual and you will see how it all goes together.
Cheers and '73s
Peter

 

[WA0CBW]

Checkout the Sencore CB42 test set. It is similar to the B&K 1040 and 2040 but with a few more functions.
BB

 

[Dawn]

The CB42, despite it's appearance is not a viable piece of bench test equipment unless you have all of the accessories supplied. It is not a stand alone unit as most others are for all functions. It fails on multiple levels as it's all digital, poorly documented for service, and originally part of Sencore's then incentive financing.

If you've ever tried to use a digital watt meter or dvm for service to follow a peak or trend, you would understand it's major shortfall. Furthermore, many functions require a special cable, "brick", or coupler to use it that were additionally supplied but are rare as hen's teeth almost 40 years later with a used unit.

Sencore made a point to make cables and external accessories proprietary back then. In addition, many accessories "bricks" that would have been standard with a unit like the BK-1040 such as TR switching to a load or envelope down conversion to a 5 mhz shop scope were additional expenses. The CB-42 manual didn't scratch the surface for available accessories. It was also just an operation manual unlike the service docs for BK. There were several versions from a 23 channel unit to several 40 channel units that had no documentation or service docs. If you didn't have the appropriate fold out for your unit, it would be hard to service and no service docs or parts exist. Any BK-1040 or 2040 can be repaired by a competent tech.

Sencore did their own financing back then and the accessories were the sales's rep "sweetening" to get a shop to buy into a product that was vastly overpriced to a competitive product. Unlike most Sencore products that really did facilitate consumer repairs into shorter service time, the CB-42 was a turkey dead in the water that most shops never realized a return on their investment considering the high price and interest. You couldn't charge someone a reasonable billable hour for a repair that you could buy a newer replacement CB for by the late 70's.

The CB42 did have some unique features though. Among them a unique sensitivity measurement system that used a pulsed modulation tone making a conventional 10 db measurement easy for a non-trained operator. Their method of PP power measurement and symmetry is unique as was it's direct percent error. That info in digital form would be great to show a customer they could understand, but hardly useful for a tech as was the symmetry that could be observed on a scope and peak envelop power.

In fairness, they did make a model CB49 that was analog and designed for mobile service. It incorporated a lot in the unit itself rather then external accessories for much less. That unit and an external frequency counter would have been a much more viable instrument for a bench tech.

No matter what. There was never a more economical combo then a BK1040 panel and a good signal generator. The BK2040 at the time was a good buy with an accurate attenuator, good shielding, and EIA standard noise generator. It would also do IF frequencies by crystal. The CB-42 had a tunable and limited IF gen that was no better then a cheap, kit generator like the IG-102 from heathkit. There were plenty of lab quality standard signal gens both surplus and off the shelf that would have been a better, but not as convenient signal source that covered the entire range for much less.