[Techman]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

That's a first for me, I've never heard of the controls seizing like that

I think it was actually a first for me too. Its owner rides a trike and had transported the radio in a side pannier, but when he called later last evening he was a bit worried about putting the now working radio back in the same pannier, as he said it was bouncing about a bit on the way down. After trying to fit it inside his jacket without success, he gave it back to me and said he'd rather not take the risk with it on the trike and would call for it another time in his car, he phoned me and called earlier this evening to pick it up. I have to admit that the control was still a little stiff to turn, but I advised him to keep it turned full on and use the gain control on his microphone that he intends to use with it. I suspect that the issue with this control shaft could be down to the old 'monkey metal' degradation/expansion problem, and if I hadn't been able to free it off, I would have disconnected the wiring from the rear and hard wired it on permanent maximum, although I might have been able to find another control in a scrap radio. I found that the fixing nuts on all the control pots were slightly loose and needed a turn with a small spanner. The radio was actually very slightly off frequency to the high side which was so little that I wasn't going to bother with, but in the end I did just tweak it down. It was outputting about 3.5 watts, which he's happy with as it will nicely 'under drive' a small amplifier if he wants it to.

You're right about the 'characters' that are on in this area. Some of them are certainly 'larger than life' and many of them are certainly 'vintage' and as you say, stuck way back in 1983, but maybe not always in a good way, I could certainly tell you a few stories, however, most of them are ok. People say that in some areas CB radio is dead, well it's not dead around here. Most only use one channel, ie, 19, but if you know where to listen there are a couple of channels where all will be quiet until a little voice pipes up asking if anyone is there and the next thing you know there's a whole group on there having a chat. The folk that monitor these channels at different times of the evening, virtually never, ever use the 19.