• To anyone looking to acquire commercial radio programming software:

    Please do not make requests for copies of radio programming software which is sold (or was sold) by the manufacturer for any monetary value. All requests will be deleted and a forum infraction issued. Making a request such as this is attempting to engage in software piracy and this forum cannot be involved or associated with this activity. The same goes for any private transaction via Private Message. Even if you attempt to engage in this activity in PM's we will still enforce the forum rules. Your PM's are not private and the administration has the right to read them if there's a hint to criminal activity.

    If you are having trouble legally obtaining software please state so. We do not want any hurt feelings when your vague post is mistaken for a free request. It is YOUR responsibility to properly word your request.

    To obtain Motorola software see the Sticky in the Motorola forum.

    The various other vendors often permit their dealers to sell the software online (i.e., Kenwood). Please use Google or some other search engine to find a dealer that sells the software. Typically each series or individual radio requires its own software package. Often the Kenwood software is less than $100 so don't be a cheapskate; just purchase it.

    For M/A Com/Harris/GE, etc: there are two software packages that program all current and past radios. One package is for conventional programming and the other for trunked programming. The trunked package is in upwards of $2,500. The conventional package is more reasonable though is still several hundred dollars. The benefit is you do not need multiple versions for each radio (unlike Motorola).

    This is a large and very visible forum. We cannot jeopardize the ability to provide the RadioReference services by allowing this activity to occur. Please respect this.

Resurrecting the Midland CB "phone"

Status
Not open for further replies.

FPR1981

Active Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Messages
597
Last night, an historical relic of the CB radio era re-emerged from the ashes, after decades out of service. The newest member of my collection of white-faced Midland CB radios was powered up and back on the air after about 25 minutes on the bench.

Perhaps not widely known, Midland was always trying to be on the cutting edge, with space-age looking designs and innovations. There are few better examples of this than their series of white-faced mobiles and base stations with hard outer plastic shells that looked very little like anything else on the market at the time.

The Midland 13-884 boasted the usual white plastic exterior, but unlike the others, it was made to look like a car phone. Although manufacturers like Johnson Messenger and Sears Roadtalker released similar designs, Midland made a few mobiles and bases with telephone receivers as their microphone/speaker combo.

Mine rolled off the assembly line in August 1976, just less than a year before the approval of the 17 new CB channels that began the 40-channel revolution. As evidenced by the model number beginning in “13” this radio was only 23 channels.

Following the approval of 40 channel radios in 1977, later models were retrofitted with new tuners and channel dials and the model numbers changed to “77,” and in some cases “76.”

I own a few 13-858 base stations, which came as 23 channel. Cosmetically identical is the 77-858, which is the exact same radio, with a 40-channel dial. I own a few of those as well.

The 13-884 is my first of the radio telephone series. For a meager $15, I was given the chance to resurrect this odd piece of history. After the unboxing, though, I had work to do to make it air worthy.

Did it even work? I didn’t know. But I was determined to find out.

Upon turning it around, I realized my first obstacle was the power jack. Rather than the standard 3-prong mobile power jack, or even two wires coming out the back, it had a push-in 3-pin connector that would put you in the mind of a 5-pin DIN microphone. I’ve never seen one like this, and didn’t figure anyone had one lying around.

Thinking resourcefully, I decided that the easiest option was to open the radio, remove the jack and run a power and ground wire. To clean it up, I’d buy a few rubber grommets from the local hardware store.

Once apart, I realized it was going to be easy. I de-soldered the wires from the jack, cut a red and a black wire and soldered them to the wires inside. I used hot glue and electrical tape to seal the solder joints. It was a bit tricky getting them through the hole once the case was put back on, but a pair of tweezers solved that.

After pulling them through, I walked it over to my 30-amp, 13.8-volt power supply. Attached the wires, and boom. She came to life.

Although the dip switches, tuner and most of the knobs are experiencing intermittent loss of function due to dirt, it’s nothing some tuner cleaner and manual working can’t fix.

I re-connected the 5-pin Uniden/Cobra/SBE SSB-style mic/phone receiver to the radio and on came the audio.

The features by way of knobs include VOLUME, SQUELCH, RF GAIN, and SWR & CAL.

Dip switches, from left to right, are:

SWR, CAL and S-RF
PA, EXT CB and OFF
HAND and SP
TONE: HI and LOW
ANL and OFF

Upon power on, the meter lit brightly. For kicks, I decided to check my SWR with the built-in meter. To my shock and awe, it was on par with my external SWR meter!

Some of the dip switches make intermittent contact due to being dirty. The push to talk on the mic has a similar anomaly.

The channel dial required quite a bit of back-and-forth work to get it to tune clearly. I hopped on channel 15, where some folks a county or two over were talking. I hollered for a radio check and was informed by a man who lives a good 30 minutes away distance-wise that the radio sounded good. The modulation, he said, could come up a bit but by no means did it sound bad.

The majority of white-faced Midlands come set at roughly 50 to 60-percent modulation from the factory. They’re very conservative talkers, but with a turn of the screwdriver, they sound great at 80 to 90 percent. That’ll get done when I open it up to clean all the switches and pots.

People got a kick out of what I was talking on when I told them. I had fun messing with it. Although I won’t use it often, my power supply has three taps, and I’ll keep it closeby for occasional use.
 

Attachments

  • 20210223_221708.jpg
    20210223_221708.jpg
    74.1 KB · Views: 89
  • received_3870524446347690.jpeg
    received_3870524446347690.jpeg
    65 KB · Views: 82
  • received_2737499533182718.jpeg
    received_2737499533182718.jpeg
    60 KB · Views: 69
  • Screenshot_20210223-164358_Messenger.jpg
    Screenshot_20210223-164358_Messenger.jpg
    36.8 KB · Views: 71
  • received_171532121225053.jpeg
    received_171532121225053.jpeg
    53.3 KB · Views: 73

RFI-EMI-GUY

Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2013
Messages
6,859
If you want to keep the power connection stock, try this, you can get a 5 pin male DIN plug and remove the pins that interfere with the molded body of the 3 pin socket.
 

FPR1981

Active Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Messages
597
I kept the socket and the plug. It can be restored. For now I opted to do two wires and a grommet
 

spongella

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 21, 2014
Messages
945
Location
W. NJ
Lafayette Radio also made these way back when. Great post about a vintage radio, thanks.
 

spongella

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 21, 2014
Messages
945
Location
W. NJ
I wonder if that design was borrowed from the original radio telephones that were used by businesses back in the 50's and 60's? I think they were somewhere around 151 mHz.
 

press1280

Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2020
Messages
107
May very well be. I remember movies from the 70s where some wealthy guy or politician had something like this in the back of a limo.
 

WB9YBM

Active Member
Joined
May 6, 2019
Messages
1,390
Midland's made some interesting ham equipment in the past, as well: I remember two meter and 220MHz rock-bound 12-channel rigs in the 1970s. Still got a 220 version in operation today. Not fancy by todays' standards but great in the day and still useable today.
 

FPR1981

Active Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Messages
597
They always wanted to be on the cutting edge somehow. I have a collection of the white faced bases - the 13-858 and the 76-858. Same radio, only one is 23 and one is 40 channel.

They're every bit the radio of a Cobra 89 XLR, but no one wants them because they're white plastic.
 

WB9YBM

Active Member
Joined
May 6, 2019
Messages
1,390
They're every bit the radio of a Cobra 89 XLR, but no one wants them because they're white plastic.

Especially some of the off-brands I've seen are plastic, too--at least the front panel. Not only does it look cheap I wonder how they manage to keep stray RF from getting in or out...unless they put some kind of metalic substance into the plastic?
 

FPR1981

Active Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Messages
597
Especially some of the off-brands I've seen are plastic, too--at least the front panel. Not only does it look cheap I wonder how they manage to keep stray RF from getting in or out...unless they put some kind of metalic substance into the plastic?

If you're looking for an AM only base station with quality parts inside (well, except the power transformer) they're unaffected by the stupidity of vintage base station prices. They come only modulating just barely above 50 percent, but you can adjust it with ease to the point that a Galaxy has nothing on one.

They will get very loud, and loudness with clarity. But they're plastic and they're white. I've considered taking the hood off on one and using Krylon fusion to paint it black, then putting it back together and throwing it on Ebay to see if people would respond differently to it if it wasn't white.
 

WB9YBM

Active Member
Joined
May 6, 2019
Messages
1,390
If you're looking for an AM only base station with quality parts inside (well, except the power transformer) they're unaffected by the stupidity of vintage base station prices. They come only modulating just barely above 50 percent, but you can adjust it with ease to the point that a Galaxy has nothing on one.

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing in radios made within the last 30 years or so...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top