All I remember was that in the early years, there was no CB radio equipment for sale, and the couple that the manufacturers came out with - were pretty poor excuses for a CB radio.

Especially the mobiles - they might have only had 1 - 5 transmit channels and the same receive.

At that time, the way i remember it, it was probably illegal for the manufacturers to sell Amateur Radio Equipment to anyone that did not possess a license.

The next generation of transceivers to come out was mostly kit form - Knight Kit, Heathkit, Lafayette, Eico - etc...
To put it in today's perspective - if a kit transceiver cost $80 - $160, and a fully assembled transceiver or any quality was $265 - $600/ and Gasoline was $.20 a gallon, and mininum wage was probably around $.50 a hour!

A new CB radio / by the time you bought the crystals - doubled the cost, and would be like $1000 - $7000 in todays money..

The Part 15 / now Part 95 rules was that you were not allowed to transmit more then 155 miles.
Unless you had a really good transceiver - Browning, Tram, Courier, Regency - you didn't have to worry about that anyways...
AND - the technology was there - as far as antenna's were concerned, that you just bought the largest antenna you could find and it was a very good substitution for the loosers with the amplifiers today...

Just think how much transmit and receive power a person had with a Long John - ( HY Gain ) or Duo 6 Beam antenna had...
Even a Duo 3 - was enough to turn your 5 watts - ( when all the tubes were new ) transceiver, into a signal which was perceived like a 120 watt transceiver...

In Western PA, if you wanted to talk Skip to Australia, you had to get up early in the morning - around 5 AM and listen to the SSB portion of the lower frequencies - channel 1 - 12.....

At that time, there was a observed band plan - channel 11 was the call channel, you called your CQ on 11 and then when you made contact with someone - you jumped up to another channel...
Hence my handle was the Channel Jumper..

We all had call signs and we all had to act like ladies and gentlemen.

Then the manufacturers got the bright idea that there was more money to be made by manufacturning solid state transceivers - since the tubes did not last long in a mobile enviroment with the spring / solid axle trucks and the fact that there was a million big rigs on the road and they could make a killing by selling everyone a CB radio....

After a couple of CB radio movies, it wasn't long before the truckers felt that no one could tell them what to do, and what not to do, and the call signs were dropped, the enforcement of the rules was dropped, the idiots from Texas and the southern states took over with their tall towers and huge amplifiers, and soon it wasn't possible to find a quiet place to talk...

By the 1980's = most people just shut them off and took down the antenna's and put it all away.
By that time, it was easier to get a Amateur Radio License and people had more money into their pockets and more disposable income and the price of CB radio got to the point of where it became disposable - $25 for a mobile / and the Amateur Radio equipment got cheaper - when Yaesu, Kenwood / Icom got into the business and all the quality went by the wayside..

Hammerlund, Eico, Johnson, National , Heathkit, Hallicrafters, Collins all saw the handwriting on the wall..

At the same time, no one was willing to spend hundreds of dollars on the Browning , Tram, Courier , Regency - when you could do the same thing with a $50 Teaberry, Kraco, Cobra, Midland, Pierce Simpson........

The golden age of CB radio was probably the 1960's due to the fact that there was several good band openings in 1965 - 67 and again in 1971 - 74..