Knight-Kit C-555 Walkie Talkie Kit

After mentioning the Video Toy Walkie Talkies yesterday:

https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/05/toy-video-walkie-talkie.html

I remembered when I was a kid one of my friends had one of these:

from 1965 xmas catalog, remember the need to buy the crystals and battery

This was a superhet, better than the blue Knight-kit C-100 super-regen walkie talkie.  The C-555 also had a volume control and an earphone jack.  Well the problem was that I didn't have the money for either a C-555 or a C-100.  Here is the closeout price:

Note that the buyer still had to buy 2 crystals and a somewhat unusual 9V batter so the actual price would inflate to this:

you have to add $5 worth of crystals plus a 62 cent battery to the $8.95 sale price

Even at the end of the C-555 product life it was just too much money.  Eventually my Dad bought me a pair of walkie talkies like this Midland:

The ones he bought were from Olson Electronics and were white but otherwise the same.  They were 50 mW super-regen walkie talkies sorta like the C-100 except no assembly required.

Since I couldn't seem to find a C-555 online manual here is a link to a pdf I downloaded a while back:

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZXiBU5ZaymEMhBCPeuVKkMKdMaiiSUfq0yV

I've also tried uploading the manual to BAMA, not sure when / if it will be posted there.

here's a schematic of the C-555 slightly different format than the manual:

source: https://incbtech.com/circuit-bench/25315-knight-c-555-transceiver-cb23576e.html

Here's an interesting page by a C-555 owner:

https://www.lesliewong.us/2025/05/17/knight-kit-c-555-walkie-talkies/

Eventually I did buy a pair of C-555 talkies on Ebay.  Here are some snaps of one of them:

I did change out the cylinder 9V battery snaps for a "regular" 9V snap

And just as I mentioned, I fooled with them for about 15 minutes BUT one of them was put to use as a part 15 Morse code beacon - I use it to keep track of the temperature at another house (I had trouble with the thermostat sticking there one winter).

So I beat the 15 minute "play with something new and then box it up forever" curse :)

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm