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.......
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.......
