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Was there, " A Golden-age for CB radios"?

J

Joe50

Member
Mar 30, 2011
7
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I got to thinking about it after my first, " I don't know what to do please help me post". It does seem that there is a Golden-age for most things that I get into and those posts are usually the ones that I learn form.
Anyway, from your point of view when did the CB craze start.....end etc.
What were the high points etc??

For me it was when I left Arkansas, (1974) and followed a truck driver friend of mine to Huntington Beach Cali. I was used to talking on a car CB but when I dropped of the mountain into the valley it was like crazy. I loved it cause no one could speak. Totally anonomous, I loved the quiet of millions of people making nothing but noise and saying nothing.

Any thoughts on the golden age...Breaker...Breaker...Chuck Norris, Smokey and the bandit, ConVoy?????
 

Joe50 said:
I got to thinking about it after my first, " I don't know what to do please help me post". It does seem that there is a Golden-age for most things that I get into and those posts are usually the ones that I learn form.
Anyway, from your point of view when did the CB craze start.....end etc.
What were the high points etc??

For me it was when I left Arkansas, (1974) and followed a truck driver friend of mine to Huntington Beach Cali. I was used to talking on a car CB but when I dropped of the mountain into the valley it was like crazy. I loved it cause no one could speak. Totally anonomous, I loved the quiet of millions of people making nothing but noise and saying nothing.

Any thoughts on the golden age...Breaker...Breaker...Chuck Norris, Smokey and the bandit, ConVoy?????
Click to expand...
I guess not, thanks for the gumballs.
 
I suppose it was big in the 60's, peaked in the 70's, began to fade alittle in the 80's. And then here we are today with just a small sect.
 
Many people will say that it is an outdated means of communicating. I won't argue that. I do it for fun and learning. It seems to be making a bit of a comeback through people who used it back in the day. Just turn on that radio and listen to it during the day - especially the last two months. Seems as busy as I remember it to be back in the early 80's - maybe even more busy - IMO.

Technology and mfr's have kept it up and maintain its use. It has changed it into a hobby rather than a necessary mode of communication. The trucking industry has also supported it all this time, and will continue to do so - so long as trucking is needed. Which seems to me will always be needed. At least in my lifetime. Hard to say.

Golden age? Perhaps the best of it is yet to come. I suppose it depends on your definition of 'golden age'. Present radio technology will tell you that this is the best it has been so far. Who cares if it is 'popular'? That is not why I do it. It seems to have gotten MUCH better - on the whole - than it ever was back in the 80's.

Perhaps NOW is the 'golden age' of radio.
Time will tell . . .
 
1970 to 1974 was fun for me and I learned some basics about radio and electronics. Enough to know I wanted to do more, move forward and get my Amateur Radio license. the band was quiet and when it open up you could actually have a normal conversation with someone in another state! After the truckers got started on channel 10 things got out of control very quickly. That's when the cursing and seed for the BS we hear now on all 40 channels was planted.

It's been 24/7 Asshattery ever since...I've enjoyed the maturity of Amateur Radio since but always have a CB or two around to keep my soldering skills up and use on the road for traffic info.
 
mackmobile43 said:
Those who live in the past are destined to repeat it.
Click to expand...

The past as in when CB was a place where people were courteous and friendly to each other? When most people we not cursing, playing tweety birds, toilet flush roger beeps and fart sounds? That's the past I would definately want to repeat.
 
Boomtime for cb in the uk was the late 70's into the early 80's when uk fm was made legal and destroyed most of the high band for ssb use above 27.600, since then its dropped off in popularity massively, in the 80's i had a couple of thousand breakers within a 10 mile radios, now there is but a handful in the whole city of glasgow and its suburbs. you still get the odd surge (two handfuls) when decent skip shows up which suggests many who went amateur are still sitting on 11m listening but only picking and choosing who they talk too. Being a small city the radio ivestigation services have been pretty active in the past against 11m ssb users and those that run power, (no surprise seing as most of them are amateurs with a grudge against cb'ers) talk about conflict of interests.
 
RatsoW8 said:
The past as in when CB was a place where people were courteous and friendly to each other? When most people we not cursing, playing tweety birds, toilet flush roger beeps and fart sounds? That's the past I would definately want to repeat.
Click to expand...

How far back was that? even since the earliest days of cb here in glasgow it managed to draw the biggest nutcases in the community. ssb was slightly better but not much and nothing has changed in the past 3 decades.
 
Depends on how you want to define "golden age."

Time of maximum participation? Probably 1974~78

Best operating practices? MAYBE early to mid 70's while FCC still licensed the service. At least then there was a threat of enforcement and some actual enforcement. But even with that there was far too many actual nutjobs and folks who just liked to have fun and raise cain multiplied by the enormous sheer number of operators during the fad years that it became too much for the FCC and they walked away and washed their hands of it.

There have always been pockets of good operators and hell raisers and still is to this day. Depends on where you are and what channel you operate on.

If you don't like the hell raising and noise toys then become a ham. CB is no place to let your kids listen or for the faint-hearted.
 
In the 1970's few people ran any power, everyone asked to use the frequency before talking and identified with their FCC call sign. If you didn't use your call sign, no one would talk to you. You never heard any foul language on any channel. Around the Christmas holidays parents would let their kids use the CB to talk to Santa Clause on the trucking channel. Nearly any truck driver was more then willing to play along and pretend to be Santa without ever spoiling the fun.

State Police departments had CB radios in Highway patrol cars. Local Police and React stations monitored channel 9 from base stations long before we had 911 and cell phones. You can still find a few rusty old street signs in rural areas that say "Local Police Monitor Channel 9." Even when there was 20 db of DX on all 22 talking channels, channel 9 remained quite except for emergency traffic. Most people would avoid talking skip since rules state we are not allowed to attempt contact with stations over 150 miles away. The CB radio has changed but I think the bigger change was in us as people.
 
Shockwave said:
In the 1970's few people ran any power, everyone asked to use the frequency before talking and identified with their FCC call sign. If you didn't use your call sign, no one would talk to you. You never heard any foul language on any channel.
Click to expand...

Maybe where YOU live or lived.

I was in the metro Atlanta area at the time and there was every manner of rule breaking and bad behavior. It was Redneck City in about 75% if the area.

Pockets of fine behavior...pockets of every type of behavior you can name.

Depends on where you were and what channel you were on and at what time.
 
jazzsinger said:
How far back was that? even since the earliest days of cb here in glasgow it managed to draw the biggest nutcases in the community. ssb was slightly better but not much and nothing has changed in the past 3 decades.
Click to expand...

In 1970 when a license was required to operate and the FCC (The man) was actually policing the CB band then. It was a better place then and not crowded with the welfare drunks who plant their behinds on channel 19 and make it impossible locally for even the truck drivers to use anymore. Once the license req was dropped and the CB craze of the mid 70's hit, 11m began to de-evolve into what it is now. I went inactive until 1987 when I passed my Novice exam and became a ham.

I do miss the "good old days" of CB. That's when people were inspired to become hams because CB radio was a good experience and not to get away from it as it is today.
 
Last edited:
The CB explosion was born of the first gas crunch in what 72? Before that lots of truckers had CBs to pass the long hours on the road. But when fuel became hard to find a CB was a necessary tool to find out where fuel was available. Not the best price on fuel but where it could be found at any price. So every trucker got a CB as fast as they could be found if they didn't already have them.

I was in Oregon at the time. The worst hit state in the nation. No refineries at all. Fuel had to be tanked in from Cal. or Wash. I remember sitting in a line for 2 hours to buy a max of $2.

As far as I can remember that's when the 2-Way really became popular. My 2 cents.

Ted
 

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