CB RADIO in the 1970s...

[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.