Sidebar Sidebar
  • You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.

Colt Radios

D

Dave W

Member
Oct 24, 2009
2
0
11
Peterborough. Cambs. UK
I'm an old hand at Cb and have been tx'ng since the late 70's, mainly a mobile set thrown in the Car or works truck, However, I'm just setting up a small shack and have started with Colt 355 FM, General Electric AM & a Euro AM band set.
My question is: Does anyone know who originally built the Colt? Wasn't Midland was it?
I'm trying to find a manual for it to assertain the correct frequency band.

If anyone can help it would be much appreciated!
 

I had a Cardon radio that was built by a division of Midland called Midland International. It was an Iroquois 40. It was 100% identical to the Colt 1000. IIRC Midland radios were made in Missouri USA while the Midland International radios were made in Japan. Same company,two divisions.One domestic and the other international.In short,yes,the parent company of Colt was Midland.
 
Cybernet made many/most of the Midland Circuit boards (late 23 channel production-40channel), It has been a few years but from what I remember Cybernet also made most/all? of the boards in the Colt radios, not positive on the AM/FM only radios though. I would be looking at some of the other Cybernet boarded radios from the same era if your having trouble finding.

I guess your definition of built may be the question, at the component level it was pretty much Cybernet...
 
I think you'll find some colts (210) and many midlands (2001,3001,100m etc) were made in korea by if i remember correctly maxon,the rest were mostly cybernet japan chassied radios.

If i'm not mistaken the colt 355fm was one of the korean made colts.I havent seen that model but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a colt 210/295/vice president roy/cobra 19x/21xfm clone with a fm mod/demod board fitted.may be an exact clone of cobra 21xfm.
 
Ya I probably should have clarified I think they changed over from Cybernet sometime around when they started with the Pro series radios... What was it, late 80s, or early 90s? think that was about the end of the Cybernet popularity. Have to admit, I stayed away from the Cybernet chassis radios as much as possible, mostly personal preference, but I always much preferred some of the other chassis available at the time, Mostly Uniden stuffed boards I guess...
 
MisterFatty said:
Ya I probably should have clarified I think they changed over from Cybernet sometime around when they started with the Pro series radios... What was it, late 80s, or early 90s? think that was about the end of the Cybernet popularity. Have to admit, I stayed away from the Cybernet chassis radios as much as possible, mostly personal preference, but I always much preferred some of the other chassis available at the time, Mostly Uniden stuffed boards I guess...
Click to expand...

very understandable as cybernet and maxon chassis:thumbdown: ain't known for being quality compared to unidens and ranger chassis(y).i still avoid them like the plague.
 
Interesting that you mention the board qualities. I had a Midland 13-898-B 23 ch SSB base that was a Midland International made in Japan. A friend of mine also had a 13-898-B but it had simply Midland on the front panel and was made in Missouri USA. The board quality was like night and day. The board in my radio seemed thicker and heavier and had all the component leads clipped before soldering making for a nice neat and smooth solder connection whereas the board in his radio had long component leads still sticking out of the solder pads. They were cut off at differant lengths and just plain looked like crap compared to mine.The wire harness in mine was also dressed neater and tighter as well.Not sure if they were differant boards or just a differance in quality control.
 

I agree with you QRN,
I've had lots of cybernet boards and thought the quality was very good. on the other hand Maxon built boards were awful
 
Funnily enough going by all the korean parts numbers and some units having made in thailand on them it wouldn't surprise me if most of cobra's recent calamities have been made by maxon too,build quality certainly suggests that is the case unless korea and thailand have more than one crap radio maker,sooner cobra swallow their pride and get either uniden or ranger to make their radios the better for their reputation which is now almost in tatters after the 200 gtl dx,sad how a company so renowned for quality in the past has lost the plot and is now trading on a reputation alone,how long can that reputation last with the quality they are putting out now?
 
The quality of the Cybernet boards wasn't really an issue, they seemed solid enough, and were no more troublesome then any other. Was more of a performance issue, as a whole. The average Cybernet built radio just wasn't capable of the performance level of the average Uniden built radio, were some rare exceptions, but not often...
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.


      Top Bottom
      Back