On Feb 10, 2:25�pm, Leo wrote:
On 9 Feb 2007 03:56:19 -0800, wrote:
On Feb 9, 2:17?am, "
wrote:
From: Leo on Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:49:50 -0500
wrote:
From: Leo on Thu, 08 Feb 2007 17:35:00 -0500
wrote:
From: Leo on Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:03:16 -0500
On 7 Feb 2007 15:29:04 -0800, wrote:
On Feb 7, 4:40?pm, Leo wrote:
On 7 Feb 2007 03:25:23 -0800, wrote:
* ith some the 'box' looks so pretty unopened that they
*.ever do remove the pretty wrappings. shrug
You mean like the box your license is in?
The A and B classes dies a horrible death because - they were'nt
useable by the target audience. *ure, there were transceivers
available for 450 MHz in 1945 - but they would have cost big bucks,
and been massive beasts as well. (as Ptoooey so aptly points out,
there were handheld units available for these frequencies in the
'50's, but they would have required King Kong's hand to hold them! And
King Kon's wallet to buy them, as well.....) .
* ell he said, assuming a serious mien there was ONE
*"simple" 400+ MHz transceiver...el cheapo modulated
*/scillator cum super-regen detector. *orgot who made
*)t but it was really cheap in everything inside.
Do you mean the Vocaline unit?
There were others.
...of equally unpopular units. *Gross may have been a pioneer, agreed
- but the CB service he built units for never got off the ground.
According to various sources, he sold over 100,000 units for UHF CB.
That's not as popular as 11 meter cb, but it was considerable.
By comparison, in 1950 there were only about 100,000 US hams.
Al Gross was W8PAL, btw.
Google "Al Gross".
Here's what some others have to say about him:
MIT:
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/gross.html
IEEE:
http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/org/ope...lgrossmem.html
Others:
http://hamgallery.com/Tribute/W8PAL/
http://www.retrocom.com/Al%20Gross.htm
UHF CB HT
http://www.retrocom.com/algross2.htm
I had
*'otten one free from another who wanted to set up a
*,ink down in Inglewood, CA. * t would reach, at best,
*! mile and a half. *hat was in the later 1950s and
*4he UHF bow-tie and reflector aluminum wires had
*!lready started to crystalize enough to snap off easily.
* till had it when I moved into this house in 1963 but
*4he steel chassis and steel cabinet were so rusty I just
*4ossed it a year later. :-(
The Vocaline unit was not made by Al Gross's company.
If my sources are correct, in those days it was also legal to build
one's own UHF cb unit, or to convert surplus, if the person had the
required commercial license. Conversion of inexpensive units like the
BC-645 or AN/APS-13 to UHF cb was possible, for those with the
knowledge and skill to do so.
But, because there was a regulation in place that said "Citizen's
Band" (regardless of whether it was usable by the "citizens' without
exorbuiant expense and superhuman effort), then CB must have existed
in 1945.
1948 is the date the rules were in effect.
So Len was wrong. Thanks for admitting that.
Brilliantly, you are agreeing with my paraphrase of your own
assertion! *Nice reading comprehension.... *
Yes, Len was wrong about UHF CB.
* ot quite. *ur FCC was struggling mightily with all
*3orts of post-WW2 regulation, radio service changes
*"ack then...and preparing for the onslaught of TV in
*'orgeous black and white. *M broadcast was about to
*-ove to double its pre-WW2 frequencies and the various
*0ublic safety agencies wanted to get to "low band"
*(30 to 50 MHz) and, maybe, "mid band" (150 to about
*160 MHz). * * t would seem that the original US Citizens
and on UHF was a sort-of afterthought.anufacturers
*3tarted to lobby for lower frequencies in this tube-
*/nly era and the post-WW2 FCC looked at the amateur
*"11m" band (not an International allocation) and the
*2est was history. *adio-wise, the fit hit the shan
*!fter 1958 with all sorts of different radio services
*7anting this and that plus the electronics industry
*(ad to step in to stop the color TV "war" between
BS Labs and RCA (neither one would have been *3uitable). *ur FCC was barely keeping up with the
*#hanges everywhere.
gain, "CB" was an afterthought
*2adio service and NOBODY really anticipated the surge
*)n off-shore design and production that would flood
* . America by a decade later.
So you admit, Len, that FCC did indeed create CB long before 1958.
They created an impractical CB service which would later be replaced
with a far more practical one in '58.
100,000 units sold by a single company isn't practical?
Thanks for owning up to your earlier factual error.
LOL!
Whether or not UHF CB was "practical" in Len's or "Leo's" opinion is
besides the point, too. The fact is that CB was created by FCC in
1948, not 1958, and it *was* used. It just wasn't as popular as 27 MHz
cb would eventually turn out to be.
---
btw, Len old chap:
The number of Technician class amateur licenses has never exceeded the
number of licenses of all other amateur license classes combined. You
were wrong on that too, some days back.
A fact, perhaps....at last!
Check out the numbers. Technicians amount to less than half the total.
Even if one considers Technicians and Technician Pluses combined, the
total is less than half.
Jim, N2EY