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That is one HECK of a first radio!!
If I recall correctly, my first radio was a Megatone 23 channel mobile. I won a Church Raffle with a $1.00 ticket at the age of 10. Only thing I ever won. Cut plenty of neighbors yards and saved for a Radio Shack power supply, a 1/4 wave ground plane and 50' of RG-58U coax. All total in those days I probably had $40.00 invested ( including the $1.00 Church Raffle ticket!) Scrounged about 15' of 1/2" EMT conduit and put the 1/4 wave on it. Had the time of my life for 6 months or so.
Waiting on more memory details for the next radio/trade…………….
73's
David
David, you you have piqued my interest.
It appears Megatone CB's are one of the great unsolved mysteries of all-time. The only proof of their existence is a grainy video of Bigfoot walking through some dense woods in the Northwest with what appears to be one in his hand. Or paw.
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My first radio was a 23 channel Kris tube set. Chimney mount antenna. It was lots of fun back in the 70s. Always someone on every channel. We used to go to the local clubs coffee breaks.
I think it was 1973 or ? when I got my first radio. It was a mobile unit with a 12 volt power supply. I didn't know anything about radio's but they intrigued me. Dad had a Hallicrafters SW receiver I listened to when I could get anything except an antenna hooked up. I tried all kinds of things. Most worked. Since then my knowledge has expanded, I have great radio's now. I am in a class for my Tech lic. \ I have learned a lot. I have my HF radio's and will fire them up when my lic. is in the database. I have learned to work on PC boards and have repaired a couple. Very rewarding. It don't matter what you have CB or HAM, if you are into it then you get enjoyment out of it. Playing with radio's has been a major good thing for me. I would hope all who try keep with it. 73's to all
It started back in 1962 or 3 when I was 10 or 11 years old with a set of Penncrest (JC Penney) walkie talkies I got for Christmas.
Then in 1964 my Dad brought home a Hallicrafters S120 receiver. I had that until about 1969 when I traded it for a couple Heathkit CB-1 "lunchboxes".
I strung up some wire around the inside of my room for an antenna but had no idea what I was doing with it. I finally talked to a kid a block away with it who came over and explained a few thing on how it worked.
It was just a few months later that I acquired my cousins CB base, mobile and Super Magnum antenna. A whole new world! The radio was this Mesur Matic Saturn CBX-15. Way Cool! The mobile was the Hallicrafters CB-10.
Later on I had a Comstat 25B
After that I had a Midland 13-877.
Colorful lights, meters and a clock!! OH YEAH!!
These are just pics I have collected over time. I don't have many pics that were of my own gear from back then.
Then in 1964 my Dad brought home a Hallicrafters S120 receiver. I had that until about 1969 when I traded it for a couple Heathkit CB-1 "lunchboxes".
I strung up some wire around the inside of my room for an antenna but had no idea what I was doing with it. I finally talked to a kid a block away with it who came over and explained a few thing on how it worked.
It was just a few months later that I acquired my cousins CB base, mobile and Super Magnum antenna. A whole new world! The radio was this Mesur Matic Saturn CBX-15. Way Cool! The mobile was the Hallicrafters CB-10.
Later on I had a Comstat 25B
After that I had a Midland 13-877.
Colorful lights, meters and a clock!! OH YEAH!!
These are just pics I have collected over time. I don't have many pics that were of my own gear from back then.
For me, a pristine Cobra 32XLR... unhacked for $40 back in 1990. Ran on a bought new Archer Crossbow base antenna, (from Radio Shack), on tripod about 15 ft on the roof of the apartment my mother and I lived in. We were in the lower unit which ticked off the upper tenants when I would talk on the radio! A lot of floor stomping and yelling occurred!
My first CB was an old Lafayette 444 that you had to put crystals in I think it only had six or seven channels and I had crystals in three. A CB radio license at that time was $20 for five years I think maybe four years and it was a big deal if you transmitted without a license they put that on the radio instructions in very big lettering so I guess I started 67 or 68 somewhere in that area had a $14 RadioShack ground plane out my bedroom window on the third floor of my house worked pretty good and AM wasn’t that bad then, then in the mid-70s I bought a Johnson 352 sidebander The only channel we had was 16 but nobody else using it so that was it for sideband guys when it was still 23 channels
TRC-11 I inherited from my dad. 6 channels of fun, until I learned that one of them was channel 9. Also got the twin mobile antennas and the coax harness that had been on the car when he was alive. Ran it off two 6v lantern batteries and had a radius of maybe two blocks.
Forgot to add the year, 1979.
Forgot to add the year, 1979.
my first was a Royce gygrolock 23 channel mobile run it on car battery to a big stick ant it got out there pretty far for a Royce
I wanted walkie-talkies in the worst way I remember looking hours on end at the Allied Knight magazines that resided under my pillow for most of my youth. Well, Dad was a hard worker but making $2.27 an Hr didn't translate to me getting them but, one day I was walking by the dump where the town disposed of all they didn't want and there on the pile of trash looking like the most magnificent thing I ever saw was a Gonset G-11 truth is I didn't know at the moment it was single channel 27.085 Mhz lean mean talking machine but it was certainly going home with me since I was supposed to be at school instead of walking around the dump I had to hide it in the woods. It was like magic because when I went back to get the Gonset I noticed someone had dumped an antenna sometime after I had been there on my lunch escape and low and behold it was an old antenna that just happened to be in my eyes about 9 feet long well this was the most incredible find for a kid my age back in the early 60's but not one single friend of mine could see the same vision they all thought I was a bit crazed. Anyway, this turned out to be the first CB and my first fixer-upper my Uncle who was an amazing tech guided me through the process and forced me to learn what I needed to know to fix it, It was agonizing in one way because it took me about 6 weeks to fix it. But WOW! what a thrill when that old Gonset came on line! Me 12 years old, 12 years old! and had fixed my first CB radio. Since I had already installed the antenna on a tree outside my bedroom window well it was about 30ft outside my window but that is what ladder cable was made for Yea that's right my first vertical almost 9ft long stainless steel antenna which I found out was actually a 39 Mhz police antenna was majestically sitting in the middle of a tree 20ft off the ground and being fed with 300 ohm ladder cable and balun fashioned with old coax also found on the same dump. So when you hear someone call a radio a piece of trash today I was actually running trash way back in 1964. There many more trash finds to come as I made it my path to school via the town dump every day for several years and found a total of 18 radios "Lafayette, RCA, Raytheon, Midland, Johnson Messenger, Courier etc" I had 8 radios fixed by me and on a bench setup that my dad helped me build in my bedroom, numerous antennas and microphones and other equipment much to my Dad and Moms dismay but they allowed it since my Uncle was always around helping learn he "my Uncle" helped me wind a center load for my 39mhz antenna turning it into a center loaded end fed and later I found enough coax that I was able to tack it all together back then all that was available was RG8 I had to run a support line for the coax as it was too heavy later I allowed to put the antenna on the house roof with a tripod that my dad an I built together. OK, I'm done except to say even after the radio was working it took me nearly a week before I made contact with anyone on it as the CB'ers in town only got on the radio about once a week and there were only 3 of them.