Jeep Update I: CB Speaker Upgrade

Broken plastic bracket on old CB external speaker

At RadioFest earlier this year, I picked up what appeared to be an OEM version of the Icom external speaker that I use for the ham radio in my Jeep. It cost a small fraction of the Icom-branded speaker but I wasn’t sure it would work as well. Still, it seemed a sure bet that it would work better than the smaller Radio Shack speaker I’d been using for the CB.

Because the Jeep interior tends to be pretty loud (although much less so as of yesterday – more on that in another post) an external speaker for any radio is pretty much a necessity. Built-in speakers tend to be small, or as is the case with my Cobra 75 WXST, minescule. The Cobra relies on a microphone that is jammed into the bulky handset, along with the the radio controls.

So I needed an external speaker, but because I don’t use the CB often I didn’t want to spend the money for another Icom external speaker. I’d settled on an inexpensive ($15?) Radio Shack external speaker, which worked OK and was easy on the wallet. That solution proved adequate until several months ago when someone’s head broke the cheap plastic speaker bracket while they were climbing in or out of the Jeep.

The broken bracket gave me incentive to upgrade. At RadioFest, I figured I’d have a good chance of finding an old, used speaker at the swap meet. The unlabeled Icom-like speaker was even better though, and I picked one up for the princely sum of twelve bucks.

Fast forward to today, when I finally made the swap. It was very simple, although I ended up having to stop by my local Radio Shack to pick up an extension cable for the speaker. The built-in cable was too short to make a proper run to the CB, which is up between the gear shifters and the dash. I also changed the position of the external speaker to mirror the one I already had in place for the ham radio.

Finally, I added a small Velcro strap to hold the map light in place. This should be a more satisfactory solution than the tiny eye screw I had on the old speaker, which held the map light in place behind it – most of the time. The light escaped its place a little too regularly, particularly when offroading. Hopefully that will no longer be an issue.

The new speaker sounds great. It’s much louder, and clearer. The steel bracket and higher position of the speaker should also make it relatively passenger-proof.

The old: original speaker in place, with map light resting on it

The new: new speaker in place, map light velcro’d to bracket

Images link to larger (600×800) versions.