The Harrier CBX was a Cybernet chassis 40 channel UK FM radio similar to the Binatone 5 star, and came from the same stable as the legenday York JCB 863 and Rotel RVC 240.
These were, I am told, fairly straightforward to convert to multi channel use by way of "Midnight Boards" and could easily end up with 160 channels although this was of course illegal!
I know Talkdown-Frances from Broad Town used to have one of these fine sets, and she could always get through to Welsh CB operators who were out on the Welsh Mountains.
Sadly these fine radios are seldom found in great condition, although recently I had the fortune to find another very nice example of this classic radio. It can be seen here.
Harrier also made their own matching Power Supply for this radio. A picture of the Harrier CB Power Pack can be viewed here.
6 comments:
i gave one of these to my father in law last year, it had been expanded with the 40 mid block and was in mint mint condition, wish i had kept it.
i bought this CBX from hy girlfriends dad for 40 quid, its been modified to have an extra 40 channels by flipping the CH9 button up, lots of skip chatter in the summer from europe, i have this in my car with a PA speaker under my bonnet, lots of fun
Bear in mind that adding the 40 CEPT channels to a 27/81 set is illegal & definately reduces performance.
Over the past 25 years i've had a couple of these rigs, Still use one to this day. The Heart of this rig is a Cybernet PTBM134A0X PCB which is fitted to many chassis of that time eg Barracuda-HB940, Binatone-5Star-Speedway, Cybernet Beta3000, Fidelity2000, Ford Roadmaster, Harrier CB, Harvard420, Midland70-000,76-900,78-999b, Radiomobile CB201,CB202, Rotel RVC-220,230,240, Sapphire X4000, Smc Oscar. Some of these rigs suffer from weak modulation, a simple fix for this is to change R53 to 100ohms. Wildthing Portsmouth.
The harrier cbx is an icon of the cb world, it does indeed share the same board as many other radios.
I prefer performance over looks, for me a good radio is one that works, not one that looks good.
Having midblock (eu) fitted will bring it up to date and in many cases will outperform a lot of the modern 80 channel jobbies around.
Most people use t-cut to remove the horrible gray on the control panel and it leaves a nice silver finish that works better.
expect to pay around 40 notes for a decent working standard model and 50 for an 80 channel one..
Avoid the have not used it for years, use to work but no longer have an antenna to test ones offered up on e-bay..
They are normally being sold by cb users and are likely broken or faulty beyond economical repair.
However, a UK radio operating on MP1320 (CB27/81)may NOT be modified for any other frequency bands including the European set of 40. I was behind the UK Radiocommunication agency's idea to introduce CB 27/94 sped, thus paving the way for 80 channel legal CB sets.
Richard
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