Just a short question,
How much is CB Radio used over in the US, these days?, from its heydays in the 70's.
Just curious.

Trumpy;
I was one of those kids in the 70s with a CB.. Everyone had one. There were CB organized meetings at local PapaGinos(get to know your friends on the CB kind of thing). I don't know anyone who has one now except for truckers. Seems like cell phones took over most of that too. Then microsoft came out with the WebTV. Everyone started chating from their living room using there TV set, still popular cheap investment, a fraction of a computer cost.
If I remember right, I had purchased one of the last 5 or 4 watt CBs, I think the FCC droped the watts down to 2 1/2, because there was so many people on the band. Also a 5/8 wave ground plain anttena. Trumpy, you mentioned those skips, I seem to recall every once in a while what they called a cloud skip here, I could get communications to Texas from Mass for example, but it wouldn't last. Is this similar to what you descibe?
[This message has been edited by Wirenuttt (edited 11-18-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Wirenuttt (edited 11-19-2002).]

Wirenutt,
Thanks for your reply.
I started out using 26MHz CB equipment,as a
pre-cursor to Ham Radio, it was real fun,
talking to people from the other end of the
country and from Australia, during the Skip season of 93, loved it.
Have also worked Indonesia from here too,
just goes to show how a properly Tuned Aerial
(Antenna), can help you, all with 4 Watts of AM power.

Still have my Uniden Madison base station, Sadelta Echo master plus, 35' free standing tower with Moonraker IV directional beam antenna, topped with an Antron 99.
I haven't had it on in 5 years or so. Got a web TV too, real easy to surf with that little remote.

VHF radio is still used extensivly in the boating and fishing world.

[This message has been edited by spyder (edited 11-19-2002).]

cb radios are cheap less then $100.

mj,
Interesting you should say that,
why are kids just going straight into the Net?.
Of course we never had the Net, but were has the experimentation gone?, I remember making my own Aerials to see what would work best.
Maybe the Net is just too easy on the mind, just like TV and PlayStation.
At the same time, kids wan't real experience when they go for their first job.
What gives?, a little bit of Electronics and Radio experimentation, never killed anyone, at least outside, my home town.

I haven't had any cause to use CB here for several years, but last time I listened in the band seemed quite busy, though nothing like it was say 15 years ago.

CB only arrived in a legal form in the UK in 1981, and then largely because the govt. was forced to act as many U.S.-specification sets were being smuggled in and used illegally.

There was something of a boom here in the early/mid 1980s, but it settled down a bit after that. I used to service the equipment regularly in my local area up until about 1992/93.

In 1992 I dug out and dusted off my old 40 Channel mobile CB Radio + Antenna, powered it from my low voltage power supply, and fired it up just to see what's up in the realm I dabbled with in the '70's.

Set to Channel 19. Two Truckers trying to find their way around town. This was fine - and kind of normal from what I remembered.

Within three minutes, some guy figured it was time to be a D**K!!! Obviously had a high powered Base unit.
First he just kept stepping on the Truckers while they were transmitting. One of the Truckers asked the joker - very nicely I must add - to please hold back for another minute so the Trucker could get directions, then they would end usage and channel would be clear.

Next thing done by the joker was to echo-plex Channel 19 - making any transmissions on the channel impossible to understand.

Changed to Channel 21, tried for a "Radio Check" to see if I had any output. Got a hostle reply.

Put the set away and haven't even looked at it since!

Total time: 5 minutes.

What's the community like now?

Scott s.e.t.