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Nifty bells and whistles on Vintage rigs.

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ChetsJug

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Apr 19, 2014
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The last time I was in my friends CB shop he hands me this box and said "I've been waiting for you to come in, I have this radio I KNOW you're going to want". Since I bought my Teaberry and a 1977 Realistic, he figures I'm a catchall for his horsetrading.

White with blue and orange printing, it looks instantly vintage. Yup! It's a Caravan... 40 channel by Midland. Mod# 52-300. The plate says it was made in Japan in October of 1977.

Now the odd thing. There is no tuner knob? Just 2 little white buttons. Oh Look! There are also 2 buttons on the top of the mic.Hmmmm, what's this? A volume knob on the side of the mike. I soon find it's for the speaker volume not the mic volume. Being called Caravan, this rig was made to mount on a motor home dash out of arms reach and be able to change channels and volume in the remote mic.

Another SSB Midland I saw on YT had an odd thing. The clarified was on a slide on the side of the mic!
Then there were the silly telephone style CB's. And on eBay right now there is a motor cycle unit by Midland. The radio box goes in the saddle bag.

I'd like to hear of any odd things you ran across on older CB's. Controls or mounting style.
 

oldcb

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Jul 29, 2013
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Location
mantua, ohio
i have a vintage midland model 77-838 that also has the channel up/down buttons on the mic, i think it's for convenience and safety more than anything else, i do like it though, i also have a vintage sears cb/fm radio thats kinda cool...........
 
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oldcb

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Jul 29, 2013
Messages
107
Location
mantua, ohio
i have a vintage midland model 77-838 that also has the channel up/down buttons on the mic, i think it's more for convenience and safety more than anything else, i do like it though, i also have a vintage sears cb/fm radio thats kinda cool...........

a pic of the midland 77-838 and the sears "digital 40"...........
 

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Dawn

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Apr 5, 2003
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284
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Pinecrest,Fl
A friend of mine had the same Sears CB in his AMC Pacer. It matched the wood grain control panel and added an FM radio. There was a 23 channel version of this radio that used crystal mixing instead of a PLL chip. Those of your that remember back then, everything had wood grain vinyl either on the case or on the front panel


That Midland was also sold as a Royce in slightly differnt dress and the mic was different. It has a weird 12 pin connector that is the very same one used on the old Azden 2M radios. Actually it's the same mic, but wired diffently. There was a difference between the Royce and the Midland IIRC. The mic contolled the volume or squelch in one of them and the other used the on mic pot for it's power mic amplifier board. There may have been other radios using the same or similar chassis. Pretty beefy radio compared to most other AM/40 channel radios of the time.
 

oldcb

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Jul 29, 2013
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mantua, ohio
the RCA co pilot also has the up/down buttons on the mic, i've come close to buying one just to have.........
 

SpectreOZ

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Mar 31, 2013
Messages
185
Location
Mildura, Australia
I recall there was more than one Radio Shack CB that had the microphone channel up/down buttons...

Of all the features on the early CB's I thought the track transmit clarifier was the coolest although they locked them to RX only adjust on later products (legislative requirements).
 
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