Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 3:56 pm
As has been suggested, find a radio you want (try RT-66, RT-67, RT-68 cheap) for parts, gut the inside, install your CB radio and discreetly run the microphone and antenna out the back of the RT case.
well, all the radios I would want are around $1,000 on the internet. There are quite a few jeep and antique car shows near me. Anybody have any luck at these?
I picked up a pair of PRC-6s (banana shaped walkie talkie from about 1951) along with a bunch of field telephones and an RT-70 at a recent hamfest but the OLD radios are very difficult to find any more. ESPECIALLY ones that haven't been bubba-fied! Batteries haven't been made for many of them in probably 40 years. I had to built battery packs for the PRC-6s out of stacks of 9 volt, AAAs and C cells. It took about 20 different batteries to make one PRC-6 battery!
These aren't like CBs where everything is in a single unit, there a lot of different bits and pieces and many of them are unique to that set and it takes a LOT of work to assemble a complete set and a lot more work to make it functional! A FULL radio set including the mounting plates, transmitter, receiver, amplifier, antennas, antenna mount, power supplies and all the special interconnecting cables typically does run close to $1000! Individual military connectors frequently cost nearly $100 each! WHEN you can find them!
FWIW I'm currently trying to collect enough bits and pieces to built an ART-13 and ARC-27 for my radio jeep.