Citizens band (CB) Radio: Who still uses it?

[Janitor Tzap]

Back in the Mid 1970's up into the early 1980's I got into the CB craze.
Putting up a Quarter Wave Antenna on my father's Garage, and running the RG8X Coaxial Coax Cable with UHF Connectors on it,
to the Base Station in the back bed room of the folk's house.
I'd talk to friends around the area, and even some of the guys who would be many miles north, or south from me.
When the weather conditions were right.

In the early 2000's, I sold off all my CB gear.
Because most people were no longer using CB's, in favor of smaller hand held cell phones.

Seems the only people still using them are the long hall truckers.

I'm still seeing CB's being sold on line.
But, local auto, and retail stores have stopped selling them altogether, and the accessories for them.
The last time I saw one in a store, was at a RadioShack.

For that matter......
Ham Radio's aren't being sold around here any more, unless it's at a specialty electronics dealer.
And they have to order them in, including the parts, and accessories from online distributors.


Signed: Janitor Tzap

[Externet]

Not me.
Last thing I learned is the 23 channel units are illegal to sell, but legal to use.

It would be nice if something new develops with ~100m range, clipped to your sun visor, vox, 1 channel, as to converse with nearby drivers only.

[Janitor Tzap]

Not me.
Last thing I learned is the 23 channel units are illegal to sell, but legal to use.

Well....
That's because they went to 40 channel units.
Retailer's are just not allowed to sell the older 23 channel units.

STORY:
I was at a Hamfest some years ago.
A local electronics dealer {Now Defunct}.
Had shown up with boxes of new 23 channel CB's, that had been sitting in his back room just collecting dust.
He told me that once the 40 channel CB's came out, he just couldn't move them.
Thus, he was selling them for about $10 each.
A couple of guy's bought up a bunch of them.
So they could strip out the frequency crystals, and use them on some of the old "Hand Held" CB's that were only 3 or 6 channel units.
These "Hand Held" CB's only had one channel installed when you bought them originally.


Signed: Janitor Tzap

[CeaSaR]

It's been a good few years since I've used mine. Both units are sitting in the basement. Kind of hard to use a gutter mount antenna when you no longer have a gutter to mount it to.

[dacflyer]

I used to love the CB radio,, but there was always some drunk asshole with a high power linear amp. putting the foot on all 40 channels with bleedover.
But over time things got worse.. the CB has now become Mexican telecom, During the day, it's all you can hear on all the channels,, hard to talk above the noise floor during the day.. things got so bad, that i lost interest and sold off all my gear.
I used to have some real collectables.
I used to have a old 5 channel white face Johnson radio ( tube type ) and also an old Browning mobile radio.
and i also had an old johnson 23 ch mobile radio.. had a D104 Lollypop mic. with 2 PTT functions. one on the neck and one on the base..the base was great if you wanted to key up with your foot, the mic was very sensitive.

[Janitor Tzap]

It's been a good few years since I've used mine. Both units are sitting in the basement. Kind of hard to use a gutter mount antenna when you no longer have a gutter to mount it to.

Didn't have a gutter mount, I went with a magnetic mount.
Also, since CB was so HOT at the time.
I could remove the whip antenna, and hide it, and the magnetic base in the trunk.
When I had to park in a lot, or in an area that was known for thieves targeting CB radios.


Signed: Janitor Tzap

[jwax]

In the late 60's, I spent a good piece of a paycheck on two 1-watt handheld, 2 channels CB walkies.
Got over 3 miles range in the almost-noise-free environment of southeast Asia. Got a half-mile in western New York due to the heavy electrical traffic.
That with a 4 foot long telescoping antenna.
Good times.

[gerty]

I'm a member of a county rescue squad, we use VHF (high band) we have the occasion to go up on the montain to get 4 wheelers and side by side that wreck. Most of them use CB's. They cannot contact our dispatch, but can call others to relay info for our help.. Because of my Electronics/Programming background I was elected/appointed as the communications officer. That was 25 years ago, still doing it, I'm also a TN State Constable and I program for them as well. I ronic thing is I rarely ever talk on a radio..

[Janitor Tzap]

I used to love the CB radio,, but there was always some drunk asshole with a high power linear amp. putting the foot on all 40 channels with bleed over.
But over time things got worse.. the CB has now become Mexican telecom, During the day, it's all you can hear on all the channels,, hard to talk above the noise floor during the day.. things got so bad, that i lost interest and sold off all my gear.

Hah yes, the "Skip Landers".
Yeah, when those guys would come on.
The bleed over too the adjacent channels would kill most local conversations.

I belonged to a club of CB'ers, and we had a set of rules that we used.

First off.
The person who had the best receiver/transmitter base station at the time they were on.
Would act as traffic controller, giving certain amount of air time to someone.
{I sometimes did it, but a lot of times I'd hand off too someone who had a better rig than me.}

2nd.
If that person, or persons could not wait, tell them to take they're conversation to another open channel.

3rd.
Be civil while conversing with one another.

4th.
No swearing, because their were a lot of young kids listening in, and parents didn't want them to be learning new swear words.
{Thou, there was still some of it going on}

Well, by the late 80's the club disbanded, because people were switching over to cell phones.
The cell phones were more compact, and you didn't have to wait, or struggle to hear someone over the back ground noise.


Signed: Janitor Tzap