Looks like it would have been an interesting project.
I was looking for something similar, a remote head CB radio that could be mounted well out of the way since I rarely need it. I usually only need it on longer road trips.
I'd been looking for years. The few "all in the mic" units were not what I was looking for, wanted the RF section remote'd and just a control head up front.
Took a long time, but one day surfing the net I ran across the Uniden CMX560. It was what I was looking for. Since I did not need SSB, SWR meter or any of the bells and whistles, it worked for me. They sell a higher end version with weather, etc. CMX760, but I've already got a VHF in my truck. Anyway, since I primarily wanted it for listening to highway traffic, I wasn't really too concerned if it was not "the best". Just needed to to receive locally and transmit occasionally.
Turned out to be a pretty good radio. All the controls are in a hand held control head type setup. The big benefit is it used 8 conductor cable between the RF deck and the hand held control head. It's got an RJ-45 jack on the RF deck, and an RJ-45 plug on the control head/mic. So I was able to mount the RF deck behind the rear seat of my truck, where all the radios are, tap into an unused NMO mount and 12 volts off an ignition switched timer. I used an old Ethernet cable to run from behind the rear set to under the dashboard. I cut off the RJ-45 plug and installed a jack. Plugged the mic in and it works just fine.
No issues with extending the control cable. The Ethernet cable I used is just plain old category 5, not shielded.
I was able to reuse a Motorola speaker that I already had under the dashboard, so it sounds pretty good.
Works just fine for what I needed. A simple, low profile CB radio. There when I needed it, out of the way when I didn't.
Did some research, and the radio itself is made by President and sold under the President Williams name.
