Storno Southern CB.SS.12/1. Value?

[mowerman]

Hi,

I have 4 sets of Storno southern CB.SS.12/1 radio equipment that were installed in cars during the 1960's. Has anyone got any idea of what they may be worth.

[G3VKM_Roger]

Originally Posted by mowerman

Hi,

I have 4 sets of Storno southern CB.SS.12/1 radio equipment that were installed in cars during the 1960's. Has anyone got any idea of what they may be worth.

Hi,

Is it just the control boxes you have? A Google image search shows the radio and cabling that make up a vehicle installation.

Regards

Roger

[mowerman]

Hi Roger,
We have all of the equipment that we used in the 1960's.
These were purchased from new; 3 units were installed in cars and the 4th unit was situated in the office. They were in fully working order when they were removed from the cars in the early 1970’s.
I have attached photos for reference.

[Malcolm G6ANZ]

My first amateur tx was a Storno Viscount. I used it as a base station running from a car battery on float charge. When I wanted to I installed it in the car.

Malcolm

[Station X]

I don't think there'll be any demand for these. Anyone intending to use them on two metres will need to purchase new crystals and crystals are expensive. They also only have two crystal sockets and trimmers, one TX and one RX, which wouldn't be useful for multi channel working.

They used a rather strange method of determining the receive crystal frequency ie

Crystal frequency = (Receive frequency in MHz-0.455)/17.

To this day I remember that a receive crystal for the mobile calling channel, then 145.00MHz, had a frequency of 8,502647MHz.

16 times this was 136.04235MHz which when mixed with 145.00MHz gave the first IF of 8.95765MHz.

This was then mixed with 8.502647Mhz to give the second IF of 0.455MHz.

[G6Tanuki]

The frequency 'spread' would make converting them to 2M a bit of an issue too; generally there were separate "low band" "mid band" and "high band" tuned-circuit specifications, so reworking these radios from 'mid band 'to 'high band' would probably involve quite a bit of coil/capacitor substitution.

Back in the days when I was doing this stuff with Pye Vanguards, Cambridges and the like, I generally told someone who turned up with a mid-band radio and asked 'can this be put on 2M?' that 'yes, evweything is possible - but it would be cheaper to throw it away and buy another that was designed for high-band'.

Crystals, as mentioned, are these days the big issue; it can easily cost you £60 to get a couple of crystals ground... if you can find someone to do it! QuartSlab - the last remaining supplier I remember from the 70s/80s - having seemingly exited the market a year or so back.

[electronicskip]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

The frequency 'spread' would make converting them to 2M a bit of an issue too; generally there were separate "low band" "mid band" and "high band" tuned-circuit specifications, so reworking these radios from 'mid band 'to 'high band' would probably involve quite a bit of coil/capacitor substitution.

Back in the days when I was doing this stuff with Pye Vanguards, Cambridges and the like, I generally told someone who turned up with a mid-band radio and asked 'can this be put on 2M?' that 'yes, evweything is possible - but it would be cheaper to throw it away and buy another that was designed for high-band'.

Crystals, as mentioned, are these days the big issue; it can easily cost you £60 to get a couple of crystals ground... if you can find someone to do it! QuartSlab - the last remaining supplier I remember from the 70s/80s - having seemingly exited the market a year or so back.

Diddnt Quartslab get taken over by Klove? of Belgium.

https://www.klove.nl/quartslab/ looks like they still make crystals too.

[G3VKM_Roger]

I can think of a couple of areas where these sets might arouse interest, film props and vintage car enthusiasts, particularly emergency service vehicles. I have sold common or garden Pye Westminsters for good prices for use in ex-police cars.

Crystals; VMARS have had recent dealings with a Czech company who have produced crystals to order for frequencies like the AM spot of 3615kHz. Looks like these Stornos use HC6/U types?

Cheers

Roger

[electronicskip]

I also have 4 or 5 of these Storno units kicking around as ive always had an interest in these early in vehicle radio/telephone type systems.

Apologies for the poor pictures.

[Radio Wrangler]

Usually high band PMR sets were the ones in demand for conversion to 2m, midband and lowband sets wound up on 4m.

2m is more octaves away from midband than it is from highband, so the fiddling could be done with adding capacitors across existing ones. But the world is awash with very cheap synthesised 2m/70cm rigs from China. These would have value only for someone wanting them for appearance or for nostalgia and the single channel operation would be discouraging unless it was to be simply left on a local club net frequency.

Stornos were always nicely made sets, but nowadays I don't see them having much value except as film/tv props. Having 3 matching ones and a base setup might be an advantage there.

David

[Jon_G4MDC]

I reckon the OPs sets are high band in any case.
165.85T 170.65R, 4.8MHz Split

Type is CQF 130-14 which is more like usual Storno model numbers