On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:52:33 -0700, Dick wrote:

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:48:31 -0400, William Warren
""w_warren_nonoise\"@comcast(William Warren).net" wrote:

William Warren wrote:

The Ranger II added Six meters in place of Eleven. It was introduced at
about the same time as the Class D citizen's band, IIRC about 1964. At
the time, Six meter AM was very popular, since technicians had full
privileges on the band, so six meters was a good "mid life kicker" and
the Ranger II was produced for several more years.

I stand corrected: according to http://www.radioing.com/museum/tx4.html,
the Ranger II was made from 1961 to 1965. I didn't know the class D
citizen's band was that old.

William

(Filter noise from my address for direct replies)

The Citizen Radio Service began in 1947, and the first Class D Citizen
Band licenses were issued on September 11, 1958. Not sure when they
were discontinued.

There was some sort of Citizens service throughout the 50's as you
say, but it wasn't on 11 meters, or at least not on what had been the
11 meter ham band. I know there was some sort of licensing. If you
bought a CB rig, it usually came with an FCC form inside to send in
for a license. You were supposed to wait until you got the license and
you were issued a callsign. The callsign took the LLLL#### format. The
callsign scheme was almost universally ignored and most folks
transmitted anyway using personally derived "handles" e.g. "Rubber
Ducky" of the Convoy Song fame. There were even some entrepeneurs who
proclaimed to "register" your handle for a fee, but of course that was
meaningless. Not terribly long thereafter the FCC appeared to give up
and did away with individual licensing. (In theory, There is one
"universal" license issued nationally for the entire CB band. The
samething happened to the pleasure boat VHF marine licenseing. Shortly
after I had gotten an FCC Marine VHF ticket (at a fee) the FCC simply
said that there was one VHF Marine license issued for the country and
as long as you operated within the US and territorial waters you just
had to ID youself by your vessel name. You were supposed to have a
license if you took your boat to Canada or the Caribbean for example.
I suspect this is widely ignored. A marine HF license still is
required though at the individual level according to the marine press
(I don't have one, only the domestic VHF.)

Jon W3JT

Dick