On 08/02/2012 05:37 PM, 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.


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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.


There was a big CB boom when it was first authorized. 1961 or so. My dad
put a ground plane outside my window.

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012, dave wrote:

On 08/02/2012 05:37 PM, 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.



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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.


There was a big CB boom when it was first authorized. 1961 or so. My dad put
a ground plane outside my window.

People forget, it was relative. There had been demand, there had been
dreaming, of "personal radio" for a long time. If nothing else, all those
people who wanted to be hams but didn't want to take the test.

And I gather the rules or the public knowledge was ambiguous to begin
with. I've seen early issues of Popular Electronics where CB was promoted
as a hobby band, not just peripheral things like 'build your own monitor
scope" but outright columns about DXing.

And it was no wasteland. They soon learned it was a lousy place in the
spectrum for something like that, since even without people trying to work
long distance, the long distance signals came in when conditions were
good. One reason the Heathkit Sixers (supreregen receivers with simple
transmitters, a variant of the CB version) did so well at 50Mhz was that
when the band opened up, 5watts input was more than enough for DX, even
witha lousy antenna. At 27MHz, the same thing applied, except the band
opened up even more often.

Michael

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..

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.


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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.)