Royce cb radios

Royce had their own way of doing just about everything. Many of their circuitry and engineering choices were different from their competitors. Some of their radios weren't too bad. If you search for their advertising copy for their first 40-channel radios you'll encounter their claims of "wireless" construction. Individual pc-board modules that were soldered to a main "motherboard" pcb. The basis of this pitch was that wires come loose and cause failures. The reality was that this reduced labor on the assembly line. Also made accessing the circuitry to troubleshoot a fault into a nightmare of things you couldn't quite reach with a meter probe or 'scope probe. Anyone who wanted one of these repaired got told how stupidly expensive the labor bill would be.

Brilliant.

One of my all-time favorite "features" was the modulation limiter in some AM mobile models. Remove the diode to open the transmit audio and the receiver audio would be gone. A clever trick that I found annoying.

There is more than one good reason they went under the waves forever after the 40-channel market disaster.

73

I bought a Royce in 1978 and it lasted a month.

My very first cb radio was a Royce mobile and it must have been cheap because I didn't have much money to invest. It never gave me any trouble But then again I didn't know much or push it to it's limits. And it was a 23 channel radio. I can't remember what ever become of it. Some said they were good radios but you know what they say about Opinions ! LOL

My first CB as a young teen in like 1999 – 2000 was a 1977 Royce 1-621 base. Used it for like 5 years and it worked well, someone also modified it so it had 40 channels below one and had like 15 channels above 40. The power supply eventually blew a transistor which I swapped out with something I had on hand, but I already had other radios so wasn’t really using the radio by that time.

I still have this radio somewhere in the basement, have not used it since around 2005 or so, and haven’t hooked it up in at least 10 to 15 years now. I will say I could not figure out why, but the lower channels eventually stopped working, the switch and wiring was good, they had one leg of the switch grounded, the other went to a pin on the PLL chip if I recall. Also, someone swapped the knobs with Sears Roadtalker knobs, the one with the black rubber for the grip; useless tidbit I remember.

Perhaps not a great radio, but I miss those days of me and my cousin late at night chatting on that CB, I had a Turner Plus Three desk MIC which worked okay, and then got a Cobra CA75 hand power MIC which did not seem to sound very good, everyone said to get a D104 hand MIC and I did not listen . The receive audio sounded decent enough, transmit was nothing special but was able to chat with it. At any rate, that radio gave some fun times, worked okay for local chit chat and the occasional skip.

Years later had the larger 1-625 base, but eventually sold it when getting rid of stuff I was never going to use, and think I got another 621 base at a hamfest really cheap which I also eventually sold. I still may have some old Royce mobiles, but were probably parts radios.

edit: you may notice the numbers in my name, those were my DX numbers I got from that Royce radio when I was learning about skip / DX.

I was looking at a Royce 642 on ebay and was toying with the though of buying it. I'm glad this post brought me back to my senses ! LOL

I have the mobile Royce SSB radio I picked up for $40 a few years ago. Really didn't know what I was getting into. It works, but the receive is for sure not the best. Noisy for what it is and struggles to pick up as good as lets say a Cobra 146 GTL.
I got some 23 Channel Royce radios from the local auction, but only because I threw like $3 at them? lol. I figured maybe harvest the driver/finals off them and whatever else might be useful and throw out the rest of the radio.

Was in the basement to look at a bicycle I have down there to see what I needed for it, and spotted the Royce off in the corner, so figured I'd snap a photo. I thought it was actually in a different area, was like "oh, there's that Royce base" lol.

I have one Royce, a 1-600 that I got to honor my father in law. That is what he used back in "the day". He had that with a Turner JM+2U and a Turner Signal Kicker antenna and, i remember it being a pretty decent performer. I don't have his... but I did buy one just like it... just to have it.

Wouldn’t take for my Royce 619. Hears great and the locals say my audio is outstanding - loud and crystal clear.

Most vintage Royce do not work. The model 619 is an exception. I believe the entire IF section was an IC. Ok but not sensitive receiver. I heard final RF amp was like a driver thus not smart to turn up power.