Motorola's Marketing Of LEO CB's

[Dawn]

I thought I'd bring this question over here. It would probably go nowhere on the CB board and I'm not a member of the batboard.

Back in the 70's I worked for a large GESS that had some local municipal contracts for their maintainance. Some vehicles had identical, but non-Mocat branded CB's in them from a while as did the Highway Patrol around the mid 70's. Some dispatchers had an AM base that sort of looked like similar between a remote and Flexar base, but smaller. I never recall anyone selling Motorola CB's retail or seen them in catalogs, especially under the Mocat name. I did see some years later in the 80's. None of the law enforcement ones I seen were branded except for Motorola on them.

While I worked for a GE dealership, their own CB's never crossed into our territory, never were promoted in municipal sales or sales reps, nor were we ever approached about working on them. That seemed to be a separate consumer product that Lynchburg wasn't part of.

Does anyone know the background how Moto sold their CB products and what the distribution channels were? They certainly weren't the MSS's or their sale's reps, as I know for a fact that they didn't handle them either. Were the CB's direct sale to the departments under the Motorola name? Who or where were the Mocat labled products sold? Only retail mention I know of, was in a marine catalog of then Trident and Nautilus that had two CB's listed and I don't remember the designation if Mocat or other name was listed.

There's always many models on E-bay as well as some SAMS that cover some of the models. I also see Moto labled CB test equipment that look like relabels of current retail import SWR meters except in familliar silver faces with blue moto logos dressing. Identical products were being sold under Radio Shack, Sears, Vanco, and Midland brands among others. Again, something I never seen in their test equipment catalogs although they carry the "S" designation like the comm sector products. Some products on E-bay have very obvious retail packaging unlike anything sold commercially, so I would venture a guess that there was retailers outside of commercial and marine sectors.

Can anyone take a shot at this from a trade perspective?

 

[Otis413]

I had a Motorola CB back in the day, the best sounding CB radio I ever had. I still have it, in a box somewhere, the ptt button on the mike quit working and I never got around to fixing it. I have another for parts, somewhere.

I don't remember it saying "mocat" on it anywhere, now that you mention them, I think I'll hunt it up and get it working, add it to my "shack".


Looked just like this one, 'cept for the bracket...

 

[thassler]

We had those same Moto CB Radios, Otis413 pictured, in our patrol cars in the mid/late 80's. Best I recall they came to us by some type of state/fed grant program.

 

[steve9570]

I had one of those to they were good rigs. Bought it in RI at a CB shop about $150.00 I think.
Wish I had kept it.

 

[mformby]

Mocat radios

I was at a Motorola training seminar once when some guys did a presentation on Mocat radios. If I remember correctly they were commercial grade 100 watt mobile and base transceivers and were on the AM band, not FM like everything else I sold was. The market was to disaster operations like the Red Cross and Civil Defense departments because with a 30 foot crank-up tower they could talk 100 miles. They were not CB's.

I thought I'd bring this question over here. It would probably go nowhere on the CB board and I'm not a member of the batboard.

Back in the 70's I worked for a large GESS that had some local municipal contracts for their maintainance. Some vehicles had identical, but non-Mocat branded CB's in them from a while as did the Highway Patrol around the mid 70's. Some dispatchers had an AM base that sort of looked like similar between a remote and Flexar base, but smaller. I never recall anyone selling Motorola CB's retail or seen them in catalogs, especially under the Mocat name. I did see some years later in the 80's. None of the law enforcement ones I seen were branded except for Motorola on them.

While I worked for a GE dealership, their own CB's never crossed into our territory, never were promoted in municipal sales or sales reps, nor were we ever approached about working on them. That seemed to be a separate consumer product that Lynchburg wasn't part of.

Does anyone know the background how Moto sold their CB products and what the distribution channels were? They certainly weren't the MSS's or their sale's reps, as I know for a fact that they didn't handle them either. Were the CB's direct sale to the departments under the Motorola name? Who or where were the Mocat labled products sold? Only retail mention I know of, was in a marine catalog of then Trident and Nautilus that had two CB's listed and I don't remember the designation if Mocat or other name was listed.

There's always many models on E-bay as well as some SAMS that cover some of the models. I also see Moto labled CB test equipment that look like relabels of current retail import SWR meters except in familliar silver faces with blue moto logos dressing. Identical products were being sold under Radio Shack, Sears, Vanco, and Midland brands among others. Again, something I never seen in their test equipment catalogs although they carry the "S" designation like the comm sector products. Some products on E-bay have very obvious retail packaging unlike anything sold commercially, so I would venture a guess that there was retailers outside of commercial and marine sectors.

Can anyone take a shot at this from a trade perspective?

 

[Dawn]

It's a bit late on this as I was hoping for someone to post some information on the distribution.

Up to about '76 or so, I do recall Pace and Hygain still selling high power mobiles, bases, and amplifiers in the 27 mhz range as single channel AM business radios. Anything pre-micom that was AM or SSB was probably rebadged Communication's Associates which they were part owners of and I don't think the Moto name went on any products in the states, just export. I don't recall anything of the early 70's made by CA that was full carrier AM except some aviation transceivers.

Only 27 mc AM business band system that I ever seen was an old legacy system that we still were servicing around '74 made up of hybrid KAAR mobiles and a base by a marine welding company. Other companies like Browning also made type accepted AM business band equipment for those few interstitial channels allocated to LM and the rest were IRAC allocations in and around the band.

Moto had a bunch of TEK-like test equipment in little plastic boxes made by other OEM's that were also part of the CB offerings. I have a tiny, battery operated, xtal IF oscillator, identical case, but 400/1k audio gen and have seen import versions of impuse noise gens similar to the tek-21, wattmeter/swr and modulation meters that were obvious rebadge of consumer type units, as well as CB antenna tuners and portable test boxes. It was all imported though, but in Moto brushed silver and knobs of the period. They also had a cb line of antennas. They also had some 80's, post CB boom Japanese import transceivers that were way out typical cb price point range with a very heavy build as the 51xx and 54xx with some advanced features built closer to commercial spec and type accepted. What market those were targeted at is a mystery as well unless it was LE or they had export demand which wouldn't explain the type acceptance.

Where/who was this equipment sold and what channels for retail? It wasn't the LM dealers or MSS's.

 

[Fast1eddie]

A extremely interesting post and excellent rig pic. I also had a Mocat, and gave it to the owner of the Motorola shop I once worked in. Terrific radio with excellent audio.