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..

On 8/3/2012 8:28 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 3 Aug 2012 09:56:51 +0900, "Brenda Ann"
wrote:

"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were around
were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until around 1971 or
72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a lot more powerful
than a 3W CB.

These were cheap crystal controlled transmit walkie talkies. The
receive as mentioned was wideband and in the late afternoon during
peak solar conditions (late 60's) WWV would fade in and out. I don't
know what path the signal took,or even what frequency I was hearing -
I assume it was 25 MHz - but I could hear it pretty well from
northeast Detroit, MI.

Jim (MI)

Jim.

As I remember, and don't take my memory to the bank, 11M came about
1958. I built a 5 crystal/channel Heath around 1960, I believe. Ch 9
was the call channel, this was before REACT came about. The only radios
out there were a Halli, Courier, and Heath. Near as i recall,
Allied came out with a rig around 1962. I remember taxi and some truck
company's on ch23. It was a real mess. Hams were ****ed, but most I knew
were in there with the rest of the noise. Lots of medical inside ch22A
and B. Which became ch24 and 25 when they opened up to 40. As I said,
9 was call, 10 to 15 was to anyone, other channels were inter-ticket
only. It was fun, but when it got busy, I walked away. Did make some
nice local friends on it. Lafayette, and then Allied/Radio Shack
really got it moving with reasonable priced radios. I still remember
my Allied with tunable receive and a spot for TX/RX. I was a 20Q
call. And that's about all I remember from back then. Or, I could
be wrong on some of this info.

Drifter...

As I remember, and don't take my memory to the bank, 11M came about
1958. I built a 5 crystal/channel Heath around 1960, I believe. Ch 9
was the call channel, this was before REACT came about. The only radios
out there were a Halli, Courier, and Heath. Near as i recall,
Allied came out with a rig around 1962. I remember taxi and some truck
company's on ch23. It was a real mess. Hams were ****ed, but most I knew
were in there with the rest of the noise. Lots of medical inside ch22A
and B. Which became ch24 and 25 when they opened up to 40. As I said,
9 was call, 10 to 15 was to anyone, other channels were inter-ticket
only. It was fun, but when it got busy, I walked away. Did make some
nice local friends on it. Lafayette, and then Allied/Radio Shack
really got it moving with reasonable priced radios. I still remember
my Allied with tunable receive and a spot for TX/RX. I was a 20Q
call. And that's about all I remember from back then. Or, I could
be wrong on some of this info.

Drifter...


E.F. Johnson also made early CB radios.

On Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:23:28 -0400, Drifter wrote:

On 8/3/2012 8:28 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 3 Aug 2012 09:56:51 +0900, "Brenda Ann"
wrote:

"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were around
were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until around 1971 or
72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a lot more powerful
than a 3W CB.

These were cheap crystal controlled transmit walkie talkies. The
receive as mentioned was wideband and in the late afternoon during
peak solar conditions (late 60's) WWV would fade in and out. I don't
know what path the signal took,or even what frequency I was hearing -
I assume it was 25 MHz - but I could hear it pretty well from
northeast Detroit, MI.

Jim (MI)

Jim.

As I remember, and don't take my memory to the bank, 11M came about
1958. I built a 5 crystal/channel Heath around 1960, I believe. Ch 9
was the call channel, this was before REACT came about. The only radios
out there were a Halli, Courier, and Heath. Near as i recall,
Allied came out with a rig around 1962. I remember taxi and some truck
company's on ch23. It was a real mess. Hams were ****ed, but most I knew
were in there with the rest of the noise. Lots of medical inside ch22A
and B. Which became ch24 and 25 when they opened up to 40. As I said,
9 was call, 10 to 15 was to anyone, other channels were inter-ticket
only. It was fun, but when it got busy, I walked away. Did make some
nice local friends on it. Lafayette, and then Allied/Radio Shack
really got it moving with reasonable priced radios. I still remember
my Allied with tunable receive and a spot for TX/RX. I was a 20Q
call. And that's about all I remember from back then. Or, I could
be wrong on some of this info.

Drifter...


I am talking about a cheap 100mw output crystal controlled (ch 14
transmit only), hand held walkie talkie. Japanese made (I seem to
remember the Alaron brand name). I don't know what it used for receive
but you could listen to a large part of the 11 meter band. There was
no tuning adjust. And once and a while, if you were lucky enough to
catch someone on channel 14, you could make a contact.

Of course I used to hook up 500 feet or so of transformer wire to the
whip antenna to try and improve reception. It did, overloading the
cheap receiver, but I heard all kinds of stations including WWV.

Now you know the rest of the story......

Jim (MI)

Channel Jumper wrote:


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....

What killed CB in the US was the trucker's strike. Every trucker had one by
then and they did not want to be tacked down and prosecuted, either for using
the CB to organize their activities, or for the activities themselves, so they
started using "handles" that were not close to their name, and not their
real callsigns or names.

It became a free for all, as there was a perception that the FCC and the other
police were powerless to stop them.

The FCC responded by raising the price of a CB license to $25 per year. Someone
sued them claiming the price was excessive and won. So for a few years you
could get a CB license for free. You could get permission for up to 25
radios on your license, so everyone did.

If you had a radio and no license, in order to get on the air you could
use a temporary callsign, which I think was something like KBG and your
zip code. I don't know what they did in a big city the day after christmas
when there were hundreds of new owners. :-)

By that time no one was using their callsigns anyway, so the FCC changed
their policy that any existing licenses would be valid "indefinately",
and anyone who had a radio was licensed by posessing the radio.

Current FCC regs require you to identify yourself, but don't specify how to do
it except that if you already have an FCC issued call sign, you may, but
are not required to use it.

I recently moved, and in the process found my old CB licences, one for voice
and the other for remote control, so I have added them for nostalgia to my
signature.


Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in message
...

If you had a radio and no license, in order to get on the air you could
use a temporary callsign, which I think was something like KBG and your
zip code. I don't know what they did in a big city the day after christmas
when there were hundreds of new owners. :-)



Geoff.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The system you are referring to was the use of the letter K or W (depending
on geography), followed by the first and last initials of the user, followed
by the zip code in which the user lived. e.g. KBD97214 (this was technically
only valid for a short time while an actual license was acquired.. but it
never worked out that way.)

On 8/2/2012 3:43 PM, Beloved Leader wrote:
On Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:24:52 PM UTC-4, (unknown) wrote:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html Kp=5 Jim (MI)

Using binoculars, I saw a huge sunspot at sunrise this morning, which
for me was right after 6:00 a.m. outside Washington, DC. It looked
like the transit of Venus. Really, it was that large and noticeable.

The atmosphere was so humidity-laden that I could look at the sun
through the binoculars without any needing any glass from a welder's
mask. YMMV.

I hope you realize that amongst the rods and cones on your retina, there
are NO pain receptors.

It is really easy to damage your retina and not realize it -- and
looking through a telescope or binoculars without a solar filter (not
depending on clouds) can quickly cause serious damage.

NEVER look at the sun without a solar filter. Do NOT depend on clouds or
fog.

Oh, did I mention NEVER?

On Mon, 6 Aug 2012, Joe from Kokomo wrote:

On 8/2/2012 3:43 PM, Beloved Leader wrote:
On Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:24:52 PM UTC-4, (unknown) wrote:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html Kp=5 Jim (MI)

Using binoculars, I saw a huge sunspot at sunrise this morning, which
for me was right after 6:00 a.m. outside Washington, DC. It looked
like the transit of Venus. Really, it was that large and noticeable.

The atmosphere was so humidity-laden that I could look at the sun
through the binoculars without any needing any glass from a welder's
mask. YMMV.

I hope you realize that amongst the rods and cones on your retina, there are
NO pain receptors.

It is really easy to damage your retina and not realize it -- and looking
through a telescope or binoculars without a solar filter (not depending on
clouds) can quickly cause serious damage.

NEVER look at the sun without a solar filter. Do NOT depend on clouds or fog.

Oh, did I mention NEVER?

That was why during the eclipse of 1970, everyone was told the safest
method was to pit a tiny hole in a box and watch the projection against
the other side.

Michael

(top-posting, which the new inteface makes more understandable than any alternative)

Thanks for the information. When I observed the transit of Venus back in June, I used a really dark piece of glass from a welder's mask. Whatever the number was, it was dark enough that I could not see surrounding terrain.

On Monday, August 6, 2012 7:42:18 PM UTC-4, Joe from Kokomo wrote:
On 8/2/2012 3:43 PM, Beloved Leader wrote:
... The atmosphere was so humidity-laden that I could look at the sun
through the binoculars without any needing any glass from a welder's
mask. YMMV.

I hope you realize that amongst the rods and cones on your retina, there are NO pain receptors. It is really easy to damage your retina and not realize it....

On 8/7/2012 12:46 PM, Beloved Leader wrote:

Thanks for the information. When I observed the transit of Venus back
in June, I used a really dark piece of glass from a welder's mask.
Whatever the number was, it was dark enough that I could not see
surrounding terrain.

Humph! Even an 8 or 10 is "dark enough that I could not see surrounding
terrain."...but that is not a high enough number.

The recommended number is #14...and they are additive if you can't find
a 14.

For the recent transit, my welding supply shop did not have a #14 but
they did have a #10 and #4, which I taped together.

Additional note: Put the #14 glass in FRONT (input side) of your
binoculars. If you put it on the output side, the concentrated heat
could leave you with a face full of shattered glass.