CB telephone
Jmorgan12003
Hey everyone! First time poster here.
I was wanting to convert a CB radio into a telephone. I don't want to
use a patch, just replace the CB's innards with telephone so I can use
the CB in place of my current phone. I know dialing would be difficult
but I can always use one of the other phones for that. Basically, I
figure I can use the on/off toggle (or another toggle) to pick up the
line, use the mic as usual, etc. I do a lot of work from home and I
thought it would be pretty cool to be able to use an old CB with the
added bonus of not having my voice transmit when I'm holding the PTT
button so clients, co-workers, etc. won't hear me when I laugh at the
dog or something, lol.
Has anyone ever done something like this before? If so, can you point
me in the right direction? Currently, I haven't started the project
yet and haven't bought any of the equipment so it's a blank slate so
far. I was looking at getting an old CB off ebay or something for the
unit. Any help y'all could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and have a good one!
--
Jmorgan12003
Stuart Longland VK4MSL
<Jmorgan12003.61d6...@radiobanter.com> wrote:
> Hey everyone! First time poster here.
>
> I was wanting to convert a CB radio into a telephone. I don't want to
> use a patch, just replace the CB's innards with telephone so I can use
> the CB in place of my current phone. I know dialing would be difficult
> but I can always use one of the other phones for that. Basically, I
> figure I can use the on/off toggle (or another toggle) to pick up the
> line, use the mic as usual, etc. I do a lot of work from home and I
> thought it would be pretty cool to be able to use an old CB with the
> added bonus of not having my voice transmit when I'm holding the PTT
> button so clients, co-workers, etc. won't hear me when I laugh at the
> dog or something, lol.
By the sounds of things, a telephone with a mute button is really what
you're after. A lot of cordless phones with headset jacks have such a
button.
Alternatively, have you considered a voice modem connected to a
computer, and just plug a headset into that? Some modems can act as a
telephone when fed the right AT commands -- to mute, just unplug the
microphone, or wire in a series switch.
The difficulty you may strike using a CB microphone on the telephone
is largely due to most phones (around here at least) use an electret
type microphone capsule, which has different characteristics to the
dynamic microphones typically used in CB microphones. There are
circuits for interfacing a dynamic-type microphone to a circuit that
uses an electret microphone -- such as computer sound cards, this is
the sort of thing you'd have to look into.
In addition, you'll also want to check that what you propose to do is
legal. Yes, there's a high probability that if you do everything
right (technical sense) then no one will notice and you'll get away
with it, but this is dependant on the local laws and authorities in
your area, some of whom may be more proactive in looking for and
acting upon such activities.
Nostalgia aside, I really do think you need to consider whether this
is *really* necessary, or if there's another (perhaps better/easier)
way to go about doing things.