[R-390] OT: Question re: speaker mic for walkie-talkie

[n4buq at knology.net]

Sorry for the OT post, but I looked in the CB newsgroup and it is truly a 
cesspool.  I'd rather not post there.

I have a yard-sale CB walkie-talkie that my mom gave me several years ago.  
I thought it had major problems, but I discovered last night that the 
internal speaker/mic isn't working.  It works (kind of) with an external 
speaker connected and I still need to see if it modulates with an external 
microphone.

The question I have is if there is anything special about the speaker 
design in this thing?  Is it likely that the internal speaker is just an 
ordinary speaker and it is supposed to function (probably poorly) as a 
microphone as well or is the speaker specially designed to handle 
microphone duty as well?

I'm hoping the speaker isn't really shot but that it might just be 
connections gone bad, but I may end up having to replace it to get this 
thing working again.  No, I don't really intend to get on the CB bands and 
do anything with it beyond testing it.  I just like to tinker with things 
like this.

It's a Lafayette Dyna-Com 23 with the owner's manual copyrighted in 1976.  
It's a pretty ruggedly made unit and I don't want to trash it (nice, long 
sturdy internal antenna).  Any help with the speaker/mic issue would be 
greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Barry - N4BUQ