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CBer?? How Long ???

unit_399

unit_399

EL CAPO
Jun 17, 2008
2,123
3,028
273
ALEJANDRIA, COLOMBIA SA
I have always loved CB radio. My Dad was a Cber when it first started in the late 50s. We lived on a farm in Northeaat Georgia. He had a Sampson Cb radio with a Phantom 500 Linear. There was a PDL Quad on a 50' tower in our backyard. He would let me use the radio, and I talked skip all over the western USA. This was back in 1962. I remember the real bigtime stations out of the west side were Uncle Buster - Phoenix , Az.., Flyin' Tiger -SoCal.., TD(Truckdriver) - 'Frisco.., and many others. We talked almost every day on channel 22A during solarcycle 20. Since then, I've been hooked on Cb. Especially SKIP!!! And... I've been a Cber ever since. My first Cb was given to me by a neighbor. It was a Squire-Sanders 23er. The neighbor said that it always squealed in xmit, but maybe I could fix it. My Dad got me a Sams manual for it (I still have it) . Using my Dad's equipment, I aligned the radio, and it worked fine. I put it in my 1959 Chevy El Camino with a 102" steel whip. I got a Contex 200M Linear for my birthhday, and then I talked skip to all my friends everyday on the way to work and back home. I have had so many radios over the years that I wish I still had. To this day, I still have my radios set up to talk skip. Local stuff is OK, but it is mostly BS. With skipcycle 24 on the rise, I am looking forward to talking to all of my friends in the USA. Hopefully I can hook up with a lot of the folks in the Forum. Sorry to run my mouth like this, but I just want everyone to know (especially all the CBer out there) how much I love getting down on the radio, and how I look forward to talking to everyone out there.

- 399
 

I got into CB back since I was 10 or 11, and my grandaddy gave me one of his old rigs, and then me and some friends found anoter CB in a trashpile that would RX fine but transmit only noise and we put it in our 'fort' and ran it off a lawnmower batt. Then I got a new radio shack 3 channel handheld which on occacion could be heard by truckers on I-95, 5 miles away. I did alot of horse tradeing and eventually had a old, 1970s vintage base that been hopped up and had some kind of homemade circut board amplifier consisting of power transistors installed in the radio, supposed but out 50 watts but I think it was more like 30, and with this I could get about 30 miles with a very intresting and ugly dipole made of a 9' whip and 9' wire hangin down off our TV antenna. But by then most of the kids lost intrest in CB and by the time I got my drivers licence everybody had or wanted a nextel, and got rid of the CB's. I started playing around with it again a few years back for com. while hunting or exploring the wilderness.
 
CB Radios...

I'm GLAD cell phones made people choose to get out of CB radios.
More space for me and those who want to have it as a hobby.
Talking skip is only a bit difficult now; back then it was waaay too crowded.
Since more people have cable/satellite TV there is also less complaints about CB's messing up their TV sets - that is the way it used to be in the earlier days of CB...

I got into CB's in the late 70's/early 80's and learned little about the actual electronics of radio. I did it for 12 years (got out of it in '92) and then got back into it just last year. Got my Ham license now. Wow, radios sure have changed and gotten much better. I really like today's export radios. Sure would have been great to have the ones we have today - way back then. We just started to get export radios back then - but they were expensive and hard to come by.
 
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I got fascinated with CB back around 75-76 when a relative from my step-mom's side of the family visited for a week or two one summer. He had one of those customized vans with the swivel chairs, comprehensive carpeting (lol), the western scene mural on the side, and of course, the obligatory CB radio! He let us kids talk on the CB and I wanted one so bad!

My parents did not want to indulge this hobby, and I eventually moved on to other things. But then in '91 me and a couple of buddies were all living in the same town and all kind of struggling financially. None of us had phone service, but one friend, Webb, worked at a consumer electronics repair shop. He brought home a few old 23 channel CBs that the owner gave him, repaired them, and then we built some quarter wave homebrew antennas and installed them. He also bought a copy of "Now You're Talking!" and loaned it out to the rest of us and we all started to not only enjoy being able to communicate reliably with each other for free, but started getting into CB/Ham/SWL/Scanning and stuff as a hobby.

We all eventually got our no-code tickets and some 2 meter gear, but CB was always kind of more fun for us, especially given how we got into it in the first place. 11 meter SSB/Freeband was our HF, who needed code?

Now we are all doing pretty well in life, with nice homes and families, good jobs, healthcare, etc. Other hobbies and interests have eroded radio time for many of us, but we are all upgraded to General or Extra now, so we have more options when we do want to play radio. But for some reason I look back on those times quite fondly. Like I said, we all kind of struggled a little to make ends meet back then, but it was a time when you really needed your friends. When one of us was up, he'd help out one who might be a meal or a pack of smokes short that week, and so forth. And we always got by somehow.

I still get the same sense of awe and wonder with radio that I first got when I first encountered CBs way back when. Radio is real life magic. Even understanding how it works to some extent, it still seems like magic when you can key a 25 watt radio into what amounts to a piece of wire or two, and be heard halfway around the world!
 
I got in CB in the late 70's. I remember on my honeymoon I bought a RS mobile and the next day we moved to Lyons,KS . I drove straight through listening to the CB to keep me awake. The next morning after getting to Kansas my wife said I sat straight up in bed during the night and said "Break 19 for a 10-36" ! LOL ! I have always been fascinated by them. When I moved back to NY I found out my uncle had bought a new Washington base and was telling me how he talks "skip". I spent many hours listening to the DX and heard many throwing out their PO box #'s to get a QSL card. They didn't want to give their street address in case Uncle Charlie was listening.:tongue: I , like Dave, am amazed also at how you can talk into a mic and be heard somewhere in the world on a few watts and sound like yourself on the other end. I still have my CB license . I made a lot of friends on the air that turned out to be great people face to face . People that would do anything for you. I remember the REACT campers set up during the Holidays to give a cup of coffee and donuts to the travelers that needed a break from driving. It was a fun time. I since have upgraded to General and studying for Extra but still use my CB. There's something about CB that just is down to earth. You can be yourself and just have a good time with down to earth people. Not to say Ham doesn't allow the same but with CB it pretty much seems the norm. I just stay away from the characters that like to go over board and cause trouble. There is a lot of good memories back there when CB started. :)
 
Rob KI6USW said:
I'm GLAD cell phones made people choose to get out of CB radios.
More space for me and those who want to have it as a hobby.
Talking skip is only a bit difficult now; back then it was waaay too crowded.
Since more people have cable/satellite TV there is also less complaints about CB's messing up their TV sets - that is the way it used to be in the earlier days of CB....
Click to expand...

LOL...you guys are NOT old timers. When I started in CB you had to know someone to have someone to talk to, you needed a call sign and truckers didn't have CB's. It was pleasant though..after it got out of control I moved on to amateur radio. I still keep a CB around but I think the introduction of the "fart sound" roger beep did it for me. LOLOL
 
got into it around 1974 with an old midland 23 channel mobile used as a base and a rat shack 5/8 wave antenna..that was my x mass present
 
Peddler said:
Too damn long....
Click to expand...
LOL

older_driver.jpg
 
Ahh..

But the question is..
Do you "remember" your call sign from back then..

I do... KHD4303..
Got into CB in 71/72..
My parents were really good in supporting my various interests and hobbies...
My 1st cb was a 23 channel Realistic Navaho 23a ( i was 10 i think )
 

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