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Jon Teske · March 12th 07, 10:01 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:14:04 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:

Jon Teske wrote:
The Citizen's band WAS that old, I would guess +/- a couple years
around 1960. It was not initially very popular and it was intended for
some low level commercial use...companies dispatching trucks and the
like at the local level. (Remember tube radios were still the rule and
were quite bulky.) It took until the mid-1970's when cheap
transistorized transceivers were introduced for the CB band and were
adopted by over-the-road truckers.

Actually CB was quite popular by the late 1960's and there were several
organizations founded to provide assistance to travelers and similar
functions provided by hams.

It was populated by pleasant. well mannered people until the trucker's
strike (1976?) when almost overnight it took on it's current form.

Interesting...I had forgotten that. The time frame seems about right.
I was aware that there was CB activity in the late 60's and many towns
even had little signs that said a local club was monitoring some
channel (other than 19) to provide help. That probably coincided with
the first all transistor tranceivers which made a CB rig practical and
small enough to mount in a car. But in the mid-70's when it really
took off things were pretty much bedlam. Even DX pile-ups were kids'
play compared to trying to communcate on a CB radio for a while. When
my carpool guy had one, he only made one conversation and that was
with a car that was directly in front of us. I'm not sure how the
legal ramifications of this worked, but our carpool passed over I-95
between Washington DC and Baltimore. The Maryland State Police
Barracks located on that highway had a lady passing out traffic info
to truckers. She clearly had a much higher powered station for she was
clearly readable. She seemed to become semi-legendary and it appeared
that every trucker going up and down the East coast knew her by her
first name. The other think CB was used for during commuting hours was
during the two gasoline supply crisies (1973/4 and 1978) many mobile
CBers were on trying to spot gas stations that had supplies and no
long lines. In the latter crisis, one of the radio station helicopter
spotters flew over the tank farms and noted that all the tanks were
filled to the top...the gas companies had created an artificial
shortage and were hoarding gas to drive the price up. When this news
got out the crisis subsided immediately. I have not trusted the
petroleum companies ever since.

Jon W3JT

Geoff.