Lafayette HB-444 25B
Many believe there is no such radio ever made named HB-444 25B but seeing is believing! The Lafayette HB-444 25B shown here really does exist and there are few known in existence. We believe the radio was made in the mid to late 60's by Lafayette Radio Electronics. The radio hosted the standard 23 channels plus channels 22A and 22B which makes this radio a 25 channel transceiver. To date there is little known about this radio. We have been informed by a couple of sources that there were only 2,500 HB-444 25B radios produced and only 500 actually made it to the Lafayette stores. We are also informed that The FCC stepped in and stopped the sale of this radio. The extra channels, 24 and 25 (22A and 22B) may have been the reason but these channels were also available in the HB-444 25 and HB-444 25A versions so we can not verify this claim. It could be the actual circuit design of the 25B as it is clearly different than the 25A model. We found notable differences between the HB-444 25A and the HB-444 25B radios produced. Please see our HB 444-25A / 25B Comparison Page for more details on the comparison. The HB-444 25B radio was an un-cataloged item and was never published in the Lafayette catalog.
Please e-mail us if you have any additional info or questions . Enjoy the pictures!
UPDATE April 2011
As luck would have it a gentleman by the name of John from San Antonio Texas saw this page and wrote to us stating he has this very same radio in his possession. John was in the process of selling the radio and asked if I was interested in purchasing it. Of course I said YES! John not only had the radio but also the original box, outer Lafayette shipping carton and even the original operating manual! This proves without a doubt that there is such a radio. Thanks John for allowing me to own this wonderful piece of history!
UPDATE July 2011
In July I purchased a Lafayette HB 444-25A from a gentleman by the name of Rich who saw this page and asked me if I was interested in buying the radio. I purchased the radio and it works great. I noticed some differences between the 2 radios and decided to take detailed pictures of each radio and create a page describing the differences. In addition, a gentleman named Paul also saw this page and sent me some photos of his radio along with a link to 2 You Tube videos he made about the HB 444-25B. I noticed some differences between his and mine. I also received some pictures from a guy on EBAY that was selling his. I decided to create a page describing some of the differences along with some photos. Please click on the link below to view the differences between the HB 444-25A and versions of the HB 444-25B.
HB 444-25A / 25B Comparison Page
Some Great Photos of the HB 444-25B
