CB RADIO in the 1970s...

[N2NH]

...From 8 to 10 million more CB sets will be sold in 1976, which with extra equipment could amount to some $2.5 billion worth—nearly as much as total sales of TV sets. One of the biggest manufacturers, Hy-Gain Electronics Corp. (maker of Betty Ford's rig), reported that 1976 first-quarter sales quintupled those for the same period in 1975. A $2.95 paperback CB dictionary has sold more than a quarter of a million copies. "CB Land," as enthusiasts call it, is served by a babel of newspapers, magazines, thousands of clubs and a lobby in Washington. The cult's most celebrated recent convert after Betty Ford is Snoopy, who has found solace with CB in the Peanuts strip.

Three of the biggest U.S. electronics manufacturers decided this year to enter the lucrative market for what the song The White Knight described as "that Japanese toy, that trucker's joy." Most 1976 American cars can be bought with the sets installed; nearly half of all trucks in the U.S. are CB-equipped. The cost is relatively low—from about $90 to $350 for a serviceable set and antenna—and CB is simple to install in a truck, car or boat, drawing its power from the vehicle's battery. The same units can be plugged in at home with inexpensive DC inverters to cut house voltage down to the 12 volts needed to go on the air. Portable units cost even less. The FCC estimates that in time there will be 60 million licensed CB sets in operation. As one industry executive says, "The more people are on the air, the more people want to join them on the air."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914194-1,00.html

[W2NAP]

Potentially even more annoying is the widespread abuse of the channels —especially by so-called potty mouths using obscenities.

^that part hasnt changed...

[W7XF]

Yeah... at times I wonder if 147.435 is cleaner than 27.185......

[WZ7U]

Yeah... at times I wonder if 147.435 is cleaner than 27.185......
Or is it vice versa

[WV6Z]

I don't see where there is an issue with either of those frequencies as the dip wads who had factory installed CBs in their new cars in 1976 are all now on 3.913 and 14.275.

[n8ats]

ya rank 3.913 with 14.275? in that i beg to differ, i hear many intelligent conversations as well as helpful info come off the freq. but what would i know

[WV6Z]

We live in different parts of the country....... or do you really consider the dip tards in Atlanta to be capable of intelligent banter?

[kb2vxa]

"The FCC estimates that in time there will be 60 million licensed CB sets in operation.

It was round about that time they gave up on licensing and enforcement.

"As one industry executive says, "The more people are on the air, the more people want to join them on the air."

Yup, that's when everything snowballed out of control and CB stood for Chop Busting. You think stirring up the hornets on teh zed is fun?

I met some devil CBers,
They took my mic away
They said I had it coming to me
But I wanted it that way
I think that any bustin' is good bustin'
So I took what I could get
I looked at them with big brown eyes and said

You ain't seen nothing yet
B-B-B-Baby you just ain't seen n-n-n-nothing yet
Here's something that your never gonna forget
B-B-B-Baby you just ain't seen n-n-n-nothing yet

You just haven't been AROUND!

[N5RLR]

I happen to miss those days. Of course I was a teenager, but what the hell. The world seemed a lot simpler then. :boohoo:

[KC8TCQ]

I happen to miss those days. Of course I was a teenager, but what the hell. The world seemed a lot simpler then. :boohoo:

I grew up right on US 6 in N.W. Ohio. m font porch was less than 20 ft from the road. My foster brother used to get a kick out of going on channel 19 and giving false "smokey reports".

[n8ats]

oh ok,lol no i dont, and do not usually hear the southern crowd on 13

[N9FE]

In the 70's there were side band clubs in northern and southern wisconsin that had many many members, Like 1200 in total. There used to be picnics in the summer, snowmobile race get togethers. Messages of real importance were passed. People had lisence's and respected one another and helped each other out. I know i called in a few car dear crashes, and folks stuck in a snow storm. But now thats all gone. A few continued on and use two meters today. But the Cb of the past will never return....

[kb1qkq]

I also got my first CB, and FCC call sign in 1975. Had a Pace 23 channel, barefoot and legal. Persons were respectful on the air, the radio was useful. Times sure have changed.

[kb2vxa]

EH? Maybe in 1965 when I was licensed but in 1975 we could tell the newbs from the seasoned pros by the fake Texas accents, lewd remarks and goofy lingo. Static Island will always be full of static and Brooklyn full of... weulll... John... deah da deah deah deah!

I'm almost embarrassed to tell you what was on "the dirty side" but the truth is somebody will probably kill me. :dance

[KC8TCQ]

In the 70's there were side band clubs in northern and southern wisconsin that had many many members, Like 1200 in total. There used to be picnics in the summer, snowmobile race get togethers. Messages of real importance were passed. People had lisence's and respected one another and helped each other out. I know i called in a few car dear crashes, and folks stuck in a snow storm. But now thats all gone. A few continued on and use two meters today. But the Cb of the past will never return....

There was a sideband club in N.W. Ohio up until about 5 years ago when the older guys who originally started it started dying off and nobody was really interested in keeping it going.

[n2ize]

ya rank 3.913 with 14.275? in that i beg to differ, i hear many intelligent conversations as well as helpful info come off the freq. but what would i know

I can't hear 14.275 anyway. My network switch puts out a narrow band of really nasty ugly QRM right on that frequency. Maybe the manufacturer knew something,

[kd6nig]

I think for some people it stayed a good radio service even amongst the garbage. Heck, in 1990 me and my friends lived in Rural N. CA and instead of getting on the phone for hours, we'd get on the CB. Sure, during the day all you'd hear is "HELLO SKIPLAND" and stuff like that, but once the sun started going down it vanished. Heck, most of the time I'd run open squelch and you'd just hear an occasional static crash.

But with that it was a large partyline. Sometimes nothing would go on, but most of the time at least one or 2 people would be out there, and you could have a roundtable of sorts. But I never tied up the phone that way.

Course, there were some drawbacks to it. One girl I liked in high school found out that I did by one of her friends listening to me and a buddy talk about it on the air one night. Well, maybe it was not a drawback as I did date her for a few months, and her finding out via a friend kinda got us talking. But you had to keep in mind that anyone could tune in.

But it was fun though. Had one by the bed, had one in the car. We knew the limitations though, and during the day, you were lucky to talk a mile. But at night when it got quiet, anyone in the valley was very loud, and we could even talk to people in the county seat about 17 miles away or so, though they would be much lower.

Not bad for someone running a Radio shack 40 channel into a magmount outside on the roof stuck to a metal pie pan. :) One of my friends ran off one of those "rubber coated sticks" like you'd find on a truck-mounted to the fascia board outside of his room. No groundplane either-but my RS "SWR" meter showed low SWR. (and it must have been-he talked more than anyone, and his radio was still working when I graduated in 92 and beyond-I'd hear him all the time still when I came up to visit). Another guy used a glass mount on his bedroom window.

Sure you'd hear idiocy during the day, and once I moved to the city it stayed off (and after about a year I would only put it in when I was going to my parents house, till my friends stopped using them) but up there, they worked great. Probably still would too since the area hasn't changed much.

The groundplane on the metal plate on the roof got the ham who lived behind me to talk to me about ham radio, which got me on the path into that a bit quicker (I knew about it already but the little I had read about it sounded way too complex to a 16 year old, but him talking to me about it made me realize it was something I could easily attain, and I did before I graduated). Once I had the ham ticket and started meeting people on it (moving to the bay helped) I all but abandoned CB. Except for my trips up there.

But its funny how you brought up the hetrodyne. Many times we'd have to say "you got walked on" if 2 people tried to talk at once. The CB "hetrodyne" sounded pretty cool. You can get some good ones on the ham bands though as well, even on repeater outputs and the like. We get a few of them here at work on the work "system" as well.

I never did get into the whole leenyar thing and stuff, but I did have a few friends in the bay who had them, and I would be lying if I said I was never present when they used them :) They all had the catch phrases they did, one buddy of mine liked to say "walking the dog" a lot during his transmissions, and there were a lot of other guys who said different things too. I remember listening many times with them and recall one guy who must have been running something beyond large, he would love to just get in the middle of a conversation and say "STEP" and he would just block everyone else out. My friend thought he was local, but he could do that in a good portion of the bay.

I do still listen on occasion on the Yaesu at home though. Its mostly drivel and guys arguing that 17 is the truckers channel, so why don't the locals use one of the other 39, but it also reminds me of some of the fun I had in the days when I used it, and watched friends wreak havoc on it. Sure its not right, but "dropping the maul" on someone didn't hurt them usually. It just told them they had to get a better station. LOL :)

[WX7P]

I never did get into the whole leenyar thing and stuff, but I did have a few friends in the bay who had them, and I would be lying if I said I was never present when they used them :) They all had the catch phrases they did, one buddy of mine liked to say "walking the dog" a lot during his transmissions, and there were a lot of other guys who said different things too. I remember listening many times with them and recall one guy who must have been running something beyond large, he would love to just get in the middle of a conversation and say "STEP" and he would just block everyone else out. My friend thought he was local, but he could do that in a good portion of the bay.

Heah, sort of like when K6CBL used to hold court on 146.55. He had a KW on two meters and elevation in SF. Jack could be heard all over the place. He died a few years ago and some relative got his call.

Foster City, eh? Did you know AA6DE, Allen? He lived in San Mateo and was a good friend of mine. He was really active on a couple of the 2m and 440 boxes down in that portion of the world. I met him in 1984 when we were taking our General exams at the Battery St. SF FCC office. He passed away from cancer in 1994 in his thirties. His old call was KB6BZH. He had an incredible collection of 145.29 tapes, which unfortunately, had me on there back in the day. The family kept the tapes and wouldn't release them.

[n2ize]

I don't see where there is an issue with either of those frequencies as the dip wads who had factory installed CBs in their new cars in 1976 are all now on 3.913 and 14.275.

and 3892.

[n2ize]

When I think of CB in the 1970's I generally thing of the pre-CB-Boom days of 1976 and on. I think more of 1970-74. We still have people who used callsigns, they used to have "coffee breaks", some people actually used to have CONVERSATIONS, cab companies, volunteer fire departments and bussinesses actually used it.

[kd6nig]

Foster City, eh? Did you know AA6DE, Allen? He lived in San Mateo and was a good friend of mine. He was really active on a couple of the 2m and 440 boxes down in that portion of the world. I met him in 1984 when we were taking our General exams at the Battery St. SF FCC office. He passed away from cancer in 1994 in his thirties. His old call was KB6BZH. He had an incredible collection of 145.29 tapes, which unfortunately, had me on there back in the day. The family kept the tapes and wouldn't release them.

I didn't know him personally, but I knew him on the radio. I talked to him a few times and heard him often. I can't remember the repeater I was on primarily all the time, but I know they played Newsline two times a week-after a net on...Wed? I think it was, and Saturday morning. I would usually catch the Sat morning one as I was usually at work during the net on Wed. I know that I contributed to the repeater yearly and had autopatch access on it, which I think I used twice. Cellphones were just starting to become reachable for common folk then-I had an old motorola "bag" phone that I kept in the car with me when I was working and driving around. I want to say the machine was in San Mateo also, but I wouldn't know the frequency unless I looked it up again.

At the time I was going to school in Hayward and working nights at the Century Park 12 in Redwood City. Once I started doing security I would carry an HT and was able to get into the net more often.

I also got involved for a time in the San Mateo county emergency communications group and even went as far as getting the background check and had an ID issued. I went to a few meetings then my schooling ended, the job market was kinda odd right then, and I had to move back to N. Ca with my parents for a while till I found a job in Sacramento. I had job offers but $10/hr wasn't going to cut it in the Bay with housing. I had lived with my Aunt and Uncle for school, but the deal was once school was done I had to pay much more in rent or move out.

Those were the days though :) Had an Alinco dual bander, and an Alinco 2m mobile in the car. That, the Wilson 1000 on the roof, and the scanner antenna and HR antenna on the back of the car made for some looks from people. The Wilson didn't last long though. My car looked like a huge radio controlled car :)

Course, the Alinco in the car created some drama. I loaned it to a friend of mine, also a ham op, when he took a trip into the valley with his Dad. On the way back, for some odd reason, while talking on a repeater and going by the Oakland Airport, he for a moment came over one of the tower frequencies for about 3 seconds. Of course, at the time, he was giving his callsign. The FCC contacted him and me (since I owned the transmitter) and we were requested to go to the airport to meet with the local FCC person there. They tested that radio up, down, left, right, every which way. Found out it did 4.97W on low power and 49.85 on high (rated 5W/50W). Clean as a whistle. Then they had us drive my car to the transmitter site and do a series of tests with it on high power right next to it. Nothing.

A few weeks later me and my friend both got a letter from the "regional director" of the FCC thanking us for our cooperation, that some kind of fault was found in a receiver at the site and had been corrected and that our cooperation helped in finding and fixing the problem. I still have it in a file somewhere.

But at age 18, having a ham license for a year and having the mighty FCC send you a letter....oh what a feeling :mrgreen:

[kb2vxa]

Reading the posts I was reminded of the time I was situated in the foothills of the Watchung Mountains at about 350' AMSL giving me a commanding view of NYC and central NJ. When the evening TV was boring (as it usually is) I'd get on the old CB and talk to a few people in town with a bit of difficulty, the S meter hardly dropped below 9. At other times I'd be on in the wee hours when you could hear a pin drop and I'd get complaints from stations 30 miles away saying I was stepping all over them and wouldn't shut up. Some people don't understand that height is might and when the band is crowded they don't amount to so much as a bump in the noise level... oh well.

[n2ize]

As kids we played around with CB back during the late 60's / early 70's before it became popularized. In those days few people very heard of CB and most people thought it was ham radio. When CB exploded around 76 is began to really suck. Overcrowded, too many idiots and clueless types. At that pioint I drifted away from it.

[N8YX]

I've been involved with electronics and radio since 1970; CB was just another facet. Those of us who had SSB capability soon tired of the lugubrium that was inherent to the AM-only scene and found ourselves a nice, quiet refuge on channels 36-40.

I still keep a rig on 38LSB if I'm in the radio room. Not too many people left from the "good old days" but every once in a while I'll hear a familiar voice.

ETA:

One of my favorite rigs of the day. Yes, there are better sets available but this one is unique. Now if Royce would have incorporated a modulation monitoring function into those meters and added a mic gain to the front panel ... :chin:

http://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/royce_642.jpg

[WØTKX]

My first CB was one of these, it was free... probably where I got a fetish for orange stuff on radios...

http://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/efjohnson_vikingmessenger1.jpg

Used to "rep" this brand part time. Easy money for a while...

http://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/handic_43c.jpg

A lot of my friends had one of these as a CB. I forgive them. :pray: :lol:

http://www.rigpix.com/yaesu/ft101e.jpg

The cult of the orange dot...

http://odinn.org/radio/albums/Radios/Ten_Tec_Omni_D.sized.jpg

[N1BHH]

So when you had someone you tracked down who was giving you and your buddies a hard time, did you ever put a pin in their coax? How is that possible anyway? Have you ever tried it? :doh:

[WØTKX]

It was done to me, but it was a thin screw.. And only once. :twisted:

[kd6nig]

So when you had someone you tracked down who was giving you and your buddies a hard time, did you ever put a pin in their coax? How is that possible anyway? Have you ever tried it? :doh:

Heard of it happening many times, but didn't ever do it.

My buddy had someone chuck a lit flare under his mom's car one night though because of something that happened on the radio. I saw the flare go up the driveway and I ran outside and grabbed it before it did anything.

She called the cops but since she didn't know a lot about the guy they couldn't do anything. The idiot got on the radio though, bragged about it, and someone else who knew him disclosed his location. She gave the cops the info and I don't know if they did anything to him, but we didn't hear him too much on the radio anymore after that. The funny thing is when he bragged about it, he made it sound like he did it, stood there, and watched her car burn up like he was some kind of badass. The reality was he threw it, jumped back in his car and took off as fast as he could, which is why I only got the color and make of his car before he turned at the end of the block.

Oh, the massive white Wilson 2500 on the roof of it was another dead giveaway as well :)

But as was the case with most CB "talk" most of it was talk :) We had heard of people getting "pinned", but never knew if it was true. I did however, one night listen to a guy who burned up his "footwarmer." Every time he talked he got progressively weaker-started "pegging the needle" and gradually faded away into oblivion. Don't know what he did to it, but a few months later he was back and even louder, we guess he "upped the watts."

It was sometimes comical to listen to, but mostly annoying. The same stuff every night, and Friday and Saturday nights were always fueled by booze. It would usually degrade into 2 or more people just talking over each other. My buddy was a part of it too, it wasn't unheard of for him to grab his echo mike, turn it on full echo, put a rubber band around it (to hold the PTT) and just drop it-and let the "THUNK" it made just echo and reecho for a few minutes....

[N8YX]

There were (are still are) "CB wars" in this area.

Some of the stuff has been downright hilarious.

The WWCBSC (Worldwide Champion BSers Club) used to meet on 27.555 USB in the late 80s to early 90's. It once sponsored a bass-fishing tournament which was held at a local lake; the entrants were charged a fee and as soon as they were safely out of reach of the dock, the organizers absconded with the proceeds.

One wishes that the tape recorder was connected to the receiver that night ... :lol:

Some area swingers used to use CB radio to coordinate their activities with other couples, and with 3rd wheels. When jealousy reared its ugly head over the airwaves ... :mrgreen:

I could go on for days about the cr@p I used to hear in that narrow little slice of spectrum.

[kd6nig]

I cringe nowadays when I hear about guys on Ham Radio ripping people off too-on the CB, its been like that for years.

[n2ize]

So when you had someone you tracked down who was giving you and your buddies a hard time, did you ever put a pin in their coax? How is that possible anyway? Have you ever tried it? :doh:

Heard of it happening many times, but didn't ever do it.

My buddy had someone chuck a lit flare under his mom's car one night though because of something that happened on the radio. I saw the flare go up the driveway and I ran outside and grabbed it before it did anything.

She called the cops but since she didn't know a lot about the guy they couldn't do anything. The idiot got on the radio though, bragged about it, and someone else who knew him disclosed his location. She gave the cops the info and I don't know if they did anything to him, but we didn't hear him too much on the radio anymore after that. The funny thing is when he bragged about it, he made it sound like he did it, stood there, and watched her car burn up like he was some kind of badass. The reality was he threw it, jumped back in his car and took off as fast as he could, which is why I only got the color and make of his car before he turned at the end of the block.

Oh, the massive white Wilson 2500 on the roof of it was another dead giveaway as well :)

But as was the case with most CB "talk" most of it was talk :) We had heard of people getting "pinned", but never knew if it was true. I did however, one night listen to a guy who burned up his "footwarmer." Every time he talked he got progressively weaker-started "pegging the needle" and gradually faded away into oblivion. Don't know what he did to it, but a few months later he was back and even louder, we guess he "upped the watts."

It was sometimes comical to listen to, but mostly annoying. The same stuff every night, and Friday and Saturday nights were always fueled by booze. It would usually degrade into 2 or more people just talking over each other. My buddy was a part of it too, it wasn't unheard of for him to grab his echo mike, turn it on full echo, put a rubber band around it (to hold the PTT) and just drop it-and let the "THUNK" it made just echo and reecho for a few minutes....

Many years ago I heard a CB'er in the Bronx giving another CB'er also in the Bronx advice on how to keep people from messing around with his car. The advice went something like this... "when you see them at your car point that gun out the window and shoot them".

Me and a friend of mine used to drive some of the local pesky CB'ers crazy when we operated split frequency full duplex. This one kid in particular was perplexed... How come this guy never unkeys and how does he know I am trying to key over him while he is transmitting.

[N5RLR]

My first CB was one of these, it was free... probably where I got a fetish for orange stuff on radios...

http://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/efjohnson_vikingmessenger1.jpg
I'd love to find a Whiteface in decent-or-better shape. And that hasn't been butchered.


Used to "rep" this brand part time. Easy money for a while...

http://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/handic_43c.jpg
Whatever happened to Handic? I wanted any one of several of their models back in the day, but...cash-flow was the problem. :doh:

[kb2vxa]

Ah dunno, I had a Laughing Yet (Lafayette) and before that a Bonar (Sonar). Hey NH John, they were made in Brooklyn. ;)

[KC8TCQ]

My first CB was one of these, it was free... probably where I got a fetish for orange stuff on radios...

http://www.rigpix.com/cbfreeband/efjohnson_vikingmessenger1.jpg
I'd love to find a Whiteface in decent-or-better shape. And that hasn't been butchered.



I have one of those sitting around collecting dust, not sure what kind of condition it is in or what crystals are in it. I bought it years ago at a garage sale as part of a collection of old radio gear both ham and cb.

[N2NH]

Ah dunno, I had a Laughing Yet (Lafayette) and before that a Bonar (Sonar). Hey NH John, they were made in Brooklyn. ;)

Just saw this.

Yeh, there were quite a few CB Manufacturers in Brooklyn. I think they were getting their stuff from Japan and slapping their label on it. You couldn't get a deal from them though.

SBE was one of my favorites (Side Band Engineers - Whatever that was.)

Right now I have an old Realistic Sideband, A Lafayette mobile Sideband and a Realistic Cobra knock off that's the size of a paperback. Add a few vintage (1960s) units and that rounds it out. Would've had a Lafayette Comstat 140 (SSB) and a Lafayette HB-333 also, but a hurricane trashed them in a relatives house in FLA.

[suddenseer]

My dad got a cb in 1973 i think. I was hooked. We got into ssb, and 'sliders', then 'leenyeers'. I was a smart ass teenager. I started one of those many ssb numbers clubs. I meet some fellows that have been life-long friends on the cb. We would get on the freeband frequencies and carry on better than many hams I have heard on a few select 75M, and 20m ssb frequencies.

This activity sparked my interest in ham radio. I was first licensed in 1976. Got my 'first phone w/ microwave' a few years later. I never really stuck to a full time career in electronics. After video engineering, I went more in the production, and writing side of the biz.

I still listen in on the local cb freqs in sw ohio once in a great while. I heard a chap with a 40 khz wide, over modulated 'signal' that I could not even pick any english words out of the mess. Then I remembered why I don't listen very often.

The funniest thing I heard was around 27.585 lsb. These guys were yelling "QSK" instead of "BREAK". They were using Q signals that I had not heard before. One of the operators was apparently transmitting on a Yaesu ft-1000 pushing a full gallon amplifier. He did have a big signal. One of these fellows showed up at our local VE exams. He entered the hobby as a codeless tech, and a year later was one of the last 20 wpm extras from our area.

qawd, im rambling like an old koot (not K0OT)

cul de n8tb