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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment.

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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 5:52 pm   #1
electronicskip
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Default Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Went to the International Beaulieu Autojumble on Sunday as usual (been going for 35 years).
Picked up a few 2 way radios as I normally do for peanuts but I was wondering if they actually have any uses nowadays?
Cleartone Commando 235
Cleartone Commando 150
Tait T198 Miniphone.
All light up when connected to power but apart from that I've no idea of the operational condition.
All three cost me £10 the lot ,so I bought them as all the mics are worth that alone in my book.
Also picked up a working Kenwood TH-25E in working order but a bit rough for a fiver,and a Sony 7F-74DL radio for a quid in working order but minus its tuning knob.
L
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 6:44 pm   #2
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

How about you work out what they are from Ser# plates, pictures, or other means.
Then we see what we know rather than overload the search engines?
Best.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 7:52 pm   #3
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_G4MDC View Post
How about you work out what they are from Ser# plates, pictures, or other means.
Then we see what we know rather than overload the search engines?
Best.
And there lies the problem.
I've found little or no information on the Cleartones or the Tait units apart from a reference to the Cleartones in the Pye Museum online and the Tait has some Marine connection.
That's pretty much all I can find out.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 8:08 pm   #4
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Any idea of the frequencies they are used on, may be able to be converted to the amateur bands, if crystal controlled-too expensive. I seem to remember the Tait was programmed by a diode matrix. but again what frequencies are they on?

Cheers, Billy.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 9:55 pm   #5
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Tait T198 is crystal control. Possibly 40 years old now? (The Pye westminster is 50 years old!) I think diode matrix started with the Tait 500 series.
I have quite a few Vhf/Uhf Tait 2000 series here. Another recent thread about programming made me think briefly about offering them on here, but shipping is the killer due to weight when packed properly.
A radio rally seems the best place these days.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 9:59 pm   #6
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Electronicskip, if you have a dummy load and a frequency meter, juice them up and see what frequency they transmit on on each channel. If your frequency meter is sufficiently sensitive a pick-up wire near / around the transceiver should do.

What about the channel crystals which are fitted? If you read the marked frequencies off each of them, the TX crystal frequencies will typically be some fraction (a half, a third, a fifth, a seventh, etc) of the TX frequencies.

The RX crystals will be some fraction of the local oscillator frequency which itself will be offset from the intended RX frequency typically by 10.7MHz in VHF transceivers and 21.4MHz in UHF transceivers. If you post the numbers here we can amuse ourselves working it all out.

The bad news is that it is unlikely to be economically viable to get these working even on one amateur frequency, as a pair of crystals - you will need one pair per channel - will be a minimum of about £15, more than you paid for all the radios put together.

There is so much synthesised / reprogrammable PMR gear out there that you should only ever buy crystalled radios for their historical interest now.
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 10:05 pm   #7
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by robinshack View Post
I have quite a few Vhf/Uhf Tait 2000 series here. Another recent thread about programming made me think briefly about offering them on here, but shipping is the killer due to weight when packed properly.
Yes, that's my thread, the enquiry was on behalf of a colleague whose Tait 2015 that is. It's a shame we aren't closer in place or in time (...I was down your way for the Duxford airshow a couple of months ago) as I wouldn't mind a low band version for 4m, having seen one up close now.

That's definitely the sort of PMR radio to go for now, rather than the very old crystalled sets.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 3:16 am   #8
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

The Cleartone 235 was made under license to AWA New Zealand around 1980. It was an AM radio aimed at Police and some other specialist users.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 6:30 am   #9
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriusHardware View Post
Electronicskip, if you have a dummy load and a frequency meter, juice them up and see what frequency they transmit on on each channel. If your frequency meter is sufficiently sensitive a pick-up wire near / around the transceiver should do.

What about the channel crystals which are fitted? If you read the marked frequencies off each of them, the TX crystal frequencies will typically be some fraction (a half, a third, a fifth, a seventh, etc) of the TX frequencies.

The RX crystals will be some fraction of the local oscillator frequency which itself will be offset from the intended RX frequency typically by 10.7MHz in VHF transceivers and 21.4MHz in UHF transceivers. If you post the numbers here we can amuse ourselves working it all out.

The bad news is that it is unlikely to be economically viable to get these working even on one amateur frequency, as a pair of crystals - you will need one pair per channel - will be a minimum of about £15, more than you paid for all the radios put together.

There is so much synthesised / reprogrammable PMR gear out there that you should only ever buy crystalled radios for their historical interest now.
I do indeed have a dummy load I could use and I'm sure I can borrow a frequency counter from a colleague at work.
I will try and post a couple of pictures of them.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 7:38 am   #10
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Without wishing to hijack the thread is the Cossor Commando CC302 PMR related in any way to the Cleartone or do they just share the name?

Cheers

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Old 4th Sep 2018, 9:40 am   #11
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

8 years old now but an idea of what the Taits can be used for:

http://www.zl4aa.org.nz/2010/10/29/t...n-kit-project/

If you do a search for 'Tait T198' with out the Miniphone part, plenty more shows up, including the service manual.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 12:24 pm   #12
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

That looks very interesting Terry.
Thank you!

Pictures as requested here. but absolutely no serial numbers info on the rear of any of the equipment .
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 2:32 pm   #13
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

The 150 looks like a single channel set so that would be a good one to start with as it should have just one pair of crystals for TX and RX respectively.

Can you read the frequencies off those? (There may be one or two other crystals in there as well, but it should be obvious which are the TX/RX frequency determining crystals).

The 235 has a 5-position channel switch but not all of the channel switch positions will necessarily be populated with crystals. The movement of the switch may even be mechanically limited to restrict it to those positions which do have crystals associated with them.

Good pictures, can we see the insides now?
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 3:54 pm   #14
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

If possible please capture a photo which shows the crystal frequencies, usually stamped on top or side. Very useful for working out the frequency possibilities.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 5:09 pm   #15
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

A few of us locally had those Tait T198's running on 4m (70MHz) a number of years ago. They were AM as I recall. I did have the service data around somewhere, but they were dead easy to align.

They used the same crystal multiplication as the lowband Pye Reporter because I remember swapping the crystals between them. Power output was somewhere between 6 and 10 Watts IIRC.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 6:13 pm   #16
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

40.48 MHz for RX then (x2-10.7)
and 35.13 for TX (x2).

It is a pity more use is not made of 70.26 MHz AM.
Skeds are welcome in Hertfordshire.

There is MB7AM-L on Echolink from Amersham.

Once it could be heard over much of the South East but then the aerial went faulty.
Fixing it has been troublesome. It is still there but ERP must be 10mW at best at the moment.

And should it have a revival I am ready to field the following

PYE P5001
PYE PF2AMB if I can find the bits/crystals of it
PYE/Philips M293
Pye/Phiips MX293
Pye/Philips T/R401 (maybe 4001)
Pye F30AM
Yaesu FT221 ex 2m
Pye W15AM
Pye W30AM
Pye AM10P

there could be some more...
There was one.

Marconi RC690 if someone has the programming gun / gen.

Last edited by Jon_G4MDC; 4th Sep 2018 at 6:41 pm.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 7:40 pm   #17
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

I used to have a T198 on 70.26, there was quite a busy local net in the Hitchin area about 15 ish years ago
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 7:51 pm   #18
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Hello Sean - again!
Do you still have it? Marvellous if you have.

Special visit to Red Coats in order to work you!
(OK that is a bit off topic - last comment about that)
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 8:50 pm   #19
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_G4MDC View Post
It is a pity more use is not made of 70.26 MHz AM ...Pye/Phiips MX293
I have a VHF low band MX293 set up on 4m AM. Programmed with 3 frequencies, with the reference tweaked downwards to put the channel programmed as 70.2625MHz on 70.260Mhz. I think I worked one QSO on it by prior arrangement when I first got it up and running in the late 90s.
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Old 4th Sep 2018, 9:21 pm   #20
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Default Re: Cleartone/Tait 2way radios (any uses?)

Next time I come to Whitley Bay we can have a sked.
Don't throw it out!!

There is some hack fix under the HEF4750 to make 12.5k spacing 10k - but I can quite understand if you don't want to do that!!
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