Craig Brand CB Radio Question

[secret squirrel]

Does anyone remember anything about the Craig brand CB radios? I remember Craig Electronics; car radios, car radios amps, speakers. My question is was Craig a house brand at one time. I seem to remember Craig products being sold at K-Mart and auto parts stores. I had found a Craig 23 channel with a round power meter for 3.99 at local Good Will. The microphone has a pretty heavy housing and I figured I could put a new mic element in it to make a cool looking modern microphone. Its a 23 Channel and says, Made in Japan, I am assuming its a Cybernet board that goes with the time period. I have not had a chance to do an internal biopsy yet. Many thanks.

 

[Cable Guy]

I vaguely remember my uncle had a Craig 23 channel base at the farm house, he used it to talk to the folks driving tractors on his land. He aged and gave up farming and he gave it to me when I was about 16. I can't help you, but your post unlocked an old memory. I had no real experience with cb radio, I didn't have an antenna and the wire hanger only got me to the highway some 2 miles away so I gave it to an old friend who used a mobile antenna atop his porch to talk to local traffic. He said it was a great radio and cherished it until his death some 10 years afterwards. I haven't seen a Craig radio since.

 

[TM86]

Craig was... different. Straight out of Compton. They made radios with a lot of visual appeal. They seemed to like to buy their boards from NDI, the same manufacturer SBE used. They held on in the CB market long enough to churn out some 40 channel models, then bailed when the craze died. As far as I know they're still selling consumer grade audio gear.

 

[w9cll]

Craig was... different. Straight out of Compton. They made radios with a lot of visual appeal. They seemed to like to buy their boards from NDI, the same manufacturer SBE used. They held on in the CB market long enough to churn out some 40 channel models, then bailed when the craze died. As far as I know they're still selling consumer grade audio gear.

They did make cool looking radios.

 

[BC Coyote]

I remember Craig audio gear for cars, but only vaguely remember them making CB's. Perhaps they weren't sold up here in Canada. When I got into CB in the mid 1980's up here Realistic gear, especially the Navaho line were by far the most common radios. There were plenty of Cobra & President radios around. Also many folks ran stuff made by Courier, Hy-Gain, Kraco and Lear-jet. I suspect that many radios sold in the US were never sold over the counter up here in Canada and are rarely seen today up here as a result.

 

[w9cll]

Not my image or radio

 

[BC Coyote]

That mobile is a beautiful radio! Is that a Cybernet board with a PLL02A in there?

 

[TM86]

That mobile is a beautiful radio! Is that a Cybernet board with a PLL02A in there?

Nope, that's the late NDI chassis. Same as used in the SBE Sidebander VI and the Johnson Viking 4740.

The base is a Uniden uPD2824, IIRC.

 

[nomadradio]

Craig's CB line was a fairly-big deal until 40 channels. They got flushed down the same drain as 95 percent of the other brands that had sold 23-channel CBs. They were mortgaged to the hilt to fill the pipeline with 23-channel models. When the FCC announced the expansion, you couldn't give a 23-channel away, let alone get money for one. And then when 40-channel radios finally arrived, the price they could get for one was hammered by all the two-for-a-buck 23-channel radios being liquidated for whatever they could get. My favorite was a Courier/Fanon 40-channel AM-only mobile selling for $40 at RatShack. A year and a half before that, a 23-channel Cobra 29 sold for $175. The flushing sound was deafening.

73

 

[SuperLid]

Craig's CB line was a fairly-big deal until 40 channels. They got flushed down the same drain as 95 percent of the other brands that had sold 23-channel CBs. They were mortgaged to the hilt to fill the pipeline with 23-channel models. When the FCC announced the expansion, you couldn't give a 23-channel away, let alone get money for one. And then when 40-channel radios finally arrived, the price they could get for one was hammered by all the two-for-a-buck 23-channel radios being liquidated for whatever they could get. My favorite was a Courier/Fanon 40-channel AM-only mobile selling for $40 at RatShack. A year and a half before that, a 23-channel Cobra 29 sold for $175. The flushing sound was deafening.

73

The FCC really screwed a lot of manufacturers when they imposed a deadline to sell off any remaining stock of 23 channel radios, simply because the new compliance specs were not met. The one that really hurt us here in the NE US, was Lafayette. That FCC mandate, put them out of business. Lafayette was my candy store of choice. When they closed, it was as if someone close died.

SL