• You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.

Original CB License......

WX2MIG

Still Alive & Well
Dec 10, 2008
730
5
28
39° 19' 23" N X 74° 36' 30" W
Don't know how old the rest of you guys are, but I'm well over 51, and have been in and out of the radio hobbies since the CB craze of the mid 70's.

Back then you had to fill out a fairly extensive form, mail it into the FCC in Gettysbug, PA, with a promise that you were going to join REACT or some other public service organization, and wait to see if they would issue you a license. I even remember buying my first Radio Shack 23 channel Tandy CB, and the guy behind the counter wanted to see my FCC license before he would sell it to me.....

This got me thinking about a couple things from back then......

#1 - can you remember your first CB Radio call sign......?I was issued KML4815 some time around 1975 or 1976. It took some digging around to find that piece of information, I had long since forgotten it....

#2 - what were some of your first CB radios......?
The one's I remember having owned at one time or another were the 23 channel Tandy mobile, and later a 40 channel Uniden of some sort. As for base station radios I had a 23 channel Laffayette Comstat with a D-104 modulated mic, a 23 channel Johnson Viking with the same D-104, and later a 40 channel solid state Hy-Gain. I ran them through a Shakespear BigStick antenna that was grounded into the bay....(I lived on a barrier island near the back bay. you hit ground water at less than 2 feet)...this gave the BigStick over the water qualities, and I was often accused of running a linear amp with this set up.......

#3 - How about your first CB handle, I assume CB'ers today still use them, and you probably use the first one you picked for yourself.....?
Mine was "Water Brother", I was then, and still a surfer, I had a surfboard at the time that was made by a small company called "Water Brothers local 109", it sounded like a good CB handle so I ran with it.....

CB was a hell of a lot of fun back in those days, we had our whackers, jammers, and general pain in the ass's to contend with, but for the most part it was a blast. Long before cell phones or computers with instant messaging, we all kept in touch via our CB's. Where kids today sit up half the night playing mindless video games, we sat up half the night ratchet jawling on the 11 meter air waves. It also came in real handy as a surf fisherman, we all had them in our beach buggies, and could keep track of where the birds were working and the fish were biting all alone the beach.

It would be cool to have that old Laffayette Comstat, or Johnson Viking tube powered radio and D-104 mic sitting in my new HAM shack.......
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shadetree Mechanic

Old CB call KHQ-2787
Had a Realistic Navajo with a D-104 up to a home made mono-band 11 meter 2 element quad.

Mobile was on my ten speed bike with a converted Tenna single channel radio that I added crystals for a total of 6 channels with an external channel box and a Telex head set that I rewired from the original speaker/microphone that came on the rig. Ran the radio off of a motorcycle battery and mounted a special rack on the back of the bike which had a Hustler fold over. Which BTW I still have. They were made much better back in the 70's than they are now. I used it a year or so ago with 10m, 20m and 40m resonators on my truck until I installed the HS1800Pro.

I sold off most of my CB stuff before going away to college.

I never had my own HF rig but was able to use a Heath Kit CW rig during study hall in high school in our school's Ham Radio Club shack which was located in a book room adjacent to the library. First amateur call WN4IOH.
 
I came into radio in the same era as most of you mentioned. Didn't hook up with the FCC thing; as I was told at the time that it wasn't necessary any more. Had a cheap GE 40 ch and a 102" steel whip with a bumper mount on a old 63 Ford Falcon convertible. Used to drive up near the dam up in the foothills and talk down into the Santa Clara County valley. Walked the dog...
 
KQV6070, mid-60's. Later KUI3001, Oilwell-143, I think. No idea what happened to them in the last 40 years. Only thing I still have from then is one pair of blue-jeans. Oh, and two scars.
- 'Doc
 
HI
wel i was on my late dad's call sign as we did the famly one first time was 1973 then again for free in 1975 call sign KIY-5988 when dad started out he used the handel rocking goos then to unit 988 in a pinto with a 102 wip and johson 123 a turner mike and palamor tx 100 box that you could fry an egg on lol me in 76 i took over the johnson as a base with the pig stick 25 feet in the air til it fell and we taped it up got 3 more years out of it
we also used a radio shach ground plain at other side of house for my bedroom
radios new johnson 123 a ney lafayette 625 midland 13 882 then 77 882
first base 123 a then midland 13 882 then my first base boght new was a com phone 23 then when lafayette went out i baught 2 telstat ssb 140 and a black and chrome d 104 gosh those where some good times
 
A thread was started on this topic about two years ago.

KBE9817

A GM, 23 CH. that's right a General Motors mobile CB! Star Duster antenna.

"blue streak"
 
I honestly Cannot remember if i ever held a CB license
( too many hallucinogenic and psychoactive agents):D

seriously, i dont recall , ive slept a bit since the mid 70's
I seem to remember that i may have , but then i got in
right around the time it wasnt neccessary anymore

my original exposure to 11 mtrs . was when i was
about 16 yrs , i got involved in the local storm spotting agency
and they were still using channel three locally

(this was when you could ask someone to clear a channel and they would qsy) :glare:

anyway , i remember going through radio and storm spotting training
and then getting called out back in late spring 1976
some of you may remember this , it was coined the "day of the 100 tornados "
i got mobilized with a high school chum and we were sent to a southwestern portion of our county

we got to watch an f-4 tornado, form and wipe out a small
agricultural community here in central illinois

this was the same day Xenia Ohio got blasted off the map
after that i was hooked , did the bicycle mobile thing w the motorcycle battery,
a Sekai ten speed dont provide much of a ground plane ;-)
did the 5-8 wave on the top of the house ,
i do remember all the crystal controlled stuff

ahhh the good old days :p

i owned several different radios, but i seem to remember a siltronix 1011c ?

handle was "Island Son " after i returned from a 18 mo stint on Maui !
 
Last edited:

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • dxBot:
    Tucker442 has left the room.
  • @ BJ radionut:
    LIVE 10:00 AM EST :cool:
  • @ Charles Edwards:
    I'm looking for factory settings 1 through 59 for a AT 5555 n2 or AT500 M2 I only wrote down half the values feel like a idiot I need help will be appreciated