Vintage: Johnson 242-128

[Spearfisherlv]

I am a newbie to ham radio, with. An electronics background.
I have a Johnson 242-128 tube type cb radio. Can I replace the crystals with hf or vhf? I don’t think it’s possible but I have to ask.
This is a great radio. The previous owner added a meter and an antenna tuner ( I think)
I attempted to add pics but they didn’t attach.

 

[cmdrwill]

Johnson 242-128 the silver face Messenger, great radio in it's day. 1960's vintage.

Al tho they were made in several frequency ranges, other than CB 27 MHz, they will not do HF per say.

 

[K7MH]

You could make it work on 10 meters AM but it would be only on specific frequencies that you bought transmit and receive crystals for. Crystals are expensive these days as there is not much demand for them and I am not sure who is left that makes them anymore.
There are very few people on AM in the ham bands these days and 10 meters is pretty darn quiet at best. Anyone on AM is likely hanging around a specific frequency waiting for activity on that specific mode.
All in all it would not be worth the cost of the crystals. Especially if you bought enough sets of them to fill the channel slots up in the radio. 5 channel radio I think? Not sure.
Maybe just clean it up, get it working as best as you can, and make a "shelf queen" out of it.

 

[k9wkj]

one of the lcal guys has a stack of Johnnies all tuned up and crystaled up on 29.100Mhz
the AM calling freq
he got the new crystals from Quartslabs
and he is passing the old girls out to guys to have fun with

fyi it seems the Quartslabs is making Bomars custom crystals sssshhhh dont tell anybody

 

[prcguy]

The silver face Johnson was marketed and sold as a 10m radio in addition to a CB, check out some old QST magazines from about 1960 and you will see ads.
prcguy

 

[wb6uqa]

CB

You can build a 40 meter to CB converter. I heard one on the air.