What Happened to Turner's Plus Two? 200 Workers Became 1,200

Turner made microphones in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from 1931 to 1979, in a company that grew out of a funeral home's sound system. Its best-known piece was the Plus Two desk mic, first advertised in November 1965 at $49.50. The Plus Two was a die-cast base in light blue and chrome, with a touch-to-talk bar, a lock lever and a two-stage transistor preamp on a nine-volt battery. A dial set the gain from zero to 35 decibels. The ads promised fifty times the output. Turned up too far, it bled over onto the next channel. The crash alone did not kill Turner. The boom did. Its payroll grew from 200 people in 1972 to 1,200 in 1976, and when the orders stopped, the buildings and the payroll stayed. Telex bought it in August 1979, and the Cedar Rapids plant closed that October. 73. #hamradio #cbradio #turnerplustwo #vintageradio #electronicshistory #microphone