I have an ancient Radio Shack CB. It has a red, black and orange wire. the orange and red are fused. The red is power.. Duh and the black is the ground. WHAT THE HECK IS THE ORANGE WIRE!! As long as I have had the CB I never could figure it out (15 years now). I put it to ground and no difference in anything, put it to power.. same... Even left it off completely and it still did nothing!?!? Any ideas all you electrical nuts?

 

My guess is that it might be for illumination, you would have to tap into the right wire that will trigger it to come on when your lights are on.

 

i'm bout 99.9% on that as well...

 

I have a CB with an orange wire and it is for constant power, to keep the last channel in memory. Without constant power most CBs will default back to a certain channel

 

no illumination.. Just a simple channel display... It is fused so the constant power thing might be right....

 

Have dealt with quite a few older radios the past few years and the Orange wire is for constant 12VDC to retain last channel used and on some higher end model radios it is to retain the programmed frequencies....

OR 4x4

 

so i stand corrected....well at least i learned something!!! lol

 

I'd say it's the constant power wire, but Illumination is not a bad guess as both Ford and stereo makers use that color for Illumination.

http://www.stylestandard.net/oswego/...da-9847_om.pdf

http://www.installdr.com/Harnesses/Ford-Wiring.pdf

 

It was worth a shot..

 

Thanks guys... It is the memory preservationwire.