I was first exposed to CB back in the late 60's or early 70's by my brother. Never got into them till mid 70's. First radio was a Midland, it was a 13-895. Had several since including a SBE straight SSB, a real quiet receive and good power TX. Also had a Tempo One Ham radio I used back in the 70's & 80's with a Super Penetrator and a Moonraker 4. Then got out of it till 2000 and got a Uniden 78 in my truck for use while traveling with others. I have really gotten back into it this last year and have had Grant LT, 2 Grant XL's, Cobra 148 GTL, Magnum Omega Force and now since I got my Ham License I got a ICOM IC-751A.
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Early 2000's for me. dad came in w/ a 29 ltd classic, firestick on side of the house, and a battery for power supply. I was 13-14. Been after it every since. Now have 80 ft tower, maco 4 element, cd 45 rotor, 4 cobra 2000's, 2 or 3 RcI's, 14 d104s. everything from golden to night to silver and k eagles. 8 or 10 amplifiers. lots of browning III's too. Those are going to ebay soon tho! rci ranger 6300f150 w/ 102" steel whip in the mobile. The list could go on forever....
I got bit by the cb bug when I was around 14, in 1976. My much-older-than-me brothers were both truckers that ran from Connecticut where we lived to Iowa/Maine and back every week. I loved catching them passing through on I-91 when they were headed either way.
I lived on enough of a hill that with my elevation, an Astro Plane antenna up in an oak tree about 30 feet, and an old Lafayette HB23? tube base, with a Turner desk mic... boy, was I king of the mountain...I got QSL cards from Colorado, Texas...used to got to "coffee breaks" and gather with other cb'ers. Funny how you picture someone on the radio, then you meet them and YIKES!...nothing like I pictured hahahahahahaa....
Had to pay $20.00 for an FCC license which was like 20K back then to a 14 yr. old kid, then the following year they did away with them.
The neighbor 200 yards away had a big Browning base with an Avanti Moonraker beam on his lawn that used to kill my little rinky dink operation when he turned up the heat. He was a lot older, and used to scold me for messing up his TV, but it was OK for him to point that beam at me and drown me out, the old coot.
I had Johnsons mobiles, Radio Shack specials, Hi Gains, etc. Never really got a good radio and actually left the sport from around 1985 until around 1991 when I got interested in bigger radios with that strange "echo sound" coming from them. Had to have one, so I bought a new Uniden Grant XL and the guy peaked, tuned and put echo and uppers and lower channels in it. A Wilson 2000 Trucker which I still use today, and I'll tell you...I was putting some fire to the wire then, so I thought.
Now I have a General Lee in a truck which I'm learning about every day. Great radio, really quiet, no static, excessive noise...I really like it a lot.
Thanx for letting me ramble about the past 34 years...
I lived on enough of a hill that with my elevation, an Astro Plane antenna up in an oak tree about 30 feet, and an old Lafayette HB23? tube base, with a Turner desk mic... boy, was I king of the mountain...I got QSL cards from Colorado, Texas...used to got to "coffee breaks" and gather with other cb'ers. Funny how you picture someone on the radio, then you meet them and YIKES!...nothing like I pictured hahahahahahaa....
Had to pay $20.00 for an FCC license which was like 20K back then to a 14 yr. old kid, then the following year they did away with them.
The neighbor 200 yards away had a big Browning base with an Avanti Moonraker beam on his lawn that used to kill my little rinky dink operation when he turned up the heat. He was a lot older, and used to scold me for messing up his TV, but it was OK for him to point that beam at me and drown me out, the old coot.
I had Johnsons mobiles, Radio Shack specials, Hi Gains, etc. Never really got a good radio and actually left the sport from around 1985 until around 1991 when I got interested in bigger radios with that strange "echo sound" coming from them. Had to have one, so I bought a new Uniden Grant XL and the guy peaked, tuned and put echo and uppers and lower channels in it. A Wilson 2000 Trucker which I still use today, and I'll tell you...I was putting some fire to the wire then, so I thought.
Now I have a General Lee in a truck which I'm learning about every day. Great radio, really quiet, no static, excessive noise...I really like it a lot.
Thanx for letting me ramble about the past 34 years...
Old man bought me a Cobra 142 and a Super Penetrator...paired those with an Astatic desk mic and I was "talking big" when I was about 15....thats been almost 10 years ago and it seems like yesterday.
We all had "handles" and would meet everything Saturday morning for breakfast and exchange QSL cards - those were the days!
It must have been around 1964 or so. A friend gave me a 100mW walkie-talkie and I listened to it every night. I heard all the local CB'ers on that channel. About that time, I was developing an interest in electronics, so I read Popular Electronics, Electronics Illustrated amnd Radio-TV Experimenter, so I knew what CB was. At that time, I was also into shortwave listening too.
Fast forward to Summer, 1965. My mother's kitchen radio was experiencing some difficulty in receiving the local AM station, so I took a look at the radio. (I knew absolutely nothing about radio, BTW.) I decided that something was wrong with the large loop-type radio antenna mounted on the back of the radio, and carefully snipped it out, leaving enough wire to connect my own "better" antenna. Now understand, that the loop antenna in an AM radio is part of the oscillator circuits, and its size is crucial to receiving AM broadcasts. So in my infinite wisdom, I substituted a 100' piece of telephone wire instead of the loop. We lived in an appartment at the time. This wire went up the side of the appartment building, up to the roof, and over to a clothes line pole at the end of the roof. I went back down to my appartment, and turned on he radio.
No AM broadcast stations could be heard. Uh-oh!!! (Gulp). But it sure did pick up the local harbor master and some shortwave stations!!! I I now know that by replacing the loop with a long wire, I retuned that radio from the normal 520 Kcs to 1600 Kcs, to go to 2 Mhz to about 5. Mhz!!!! I could hear "Montreal Radio", the local harbor radio real well. As the afternoon progressed, I could hear real ham radio operators talking! I lived in Montreal at the time, and I could hear locals and US station from Vermont, New York State, and up to 700 Miles from my house. By 5:00PM, the 75M band was hopping, and I could hear stations from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and up to about 1000 miles. Loud and clear!!! The 75M band was hopping! And most stations were AM, but some were LSB , and you wouldn't believe the fights between the AM'ers and the emerging SSB'ers! (Ask me about some of the characters I heard with that radio!!!
In fact, I should open a new thread on just that topic!!!) I must have logged hundreds of stations with that radio! My mon didn't get that radio back for four months!!! Eventually, I was able to buy my own shortwave receiver with my paper-route money (a Trio 9R59, identical to the Lafayette HE30).
In 1966, I moved to another part of town, and started a new high-school. One day, while walking to my locker, I noticed a guy carrying a CB-3A CB radio to his locker. I went up to him and introduced myself. Steve mentioned that there were other CB'ers in the school too and I should meet them. I visited Steve and Dave often, and used their stations often. Being a poor teenager, I could not afford a CB radio myself, and my dad certainly wasn't going to buy me such a frivolous thing! I had to make do with listening to them on my Trio receiver! :sad: Eventually, via my paper route and other means (scams, actualy) I purchased a Heath DX-100 AM ham transmitter to go with my Trio receiver. Now, those of you who don't know what a DX-100 is, let me explain: 130W output (Plate modulated). It covers the 160M through 10M, and since this rig was built before 1958, it also covers... 11M!!! I was in like Flint!! Never mind Flint, with 130W, I was the "Channel Master"!!!! I had a blast with that set up, but I had to be careful, because in those days our version of the FCC, the Department of Transport was very active monitoring CB. I used that rig sparingly. The last thing I needed was a visit from the "Radio Police"!!! Eventually, later on, I acquired a Lafayette CB radio with a tunable receive and 8 transmit channels. That rig was my alibi. BTW - it would be three more years before I'd get my ham ticket in 1969.
Today, I am still very good friends with these guys. (We all eventually got our ham licenses too.)
Fast forward to Summer, 1965. My mother's kitchen radio was experiencing some difficulty in receiving the local AM station, so I took a look at the radio. (I knew absolutely nothing about radio, BTW.) I decided that something was wrong with the large loop-type radio antenna mounted on the back of the radio, and carefully snipped it out, leaving enough wire to connect my own "better" antenna. Now understand, that the loop antenna in an AM radio is part of the oscillator circuits, and its size is crucial to receiving AM broadcasts. So in my infinite wisdom, I substituted a 100' piece of telephone wire instead of the loop. We lived in an appartment at the time. This wire went up the side of the appartment building, up to the roof, and over to a clothes line pole at the end of the roof. I went back down to my appartment, and turned on he radio.
No AM broadcast stations could be heard. Uh-oh!!! (Gulp). But it sure did pick up the local harbor master and some shortwave stations!!! I I now know that by replacing the loop with a long wire, I retuned that radio from the normal 520 Kcs to 1600 Kcs, to go to 2 Mhz to about 5. Mhz!!!! I could hear "Montreal Radio", the local harbor radio real well. As the afternoon progressed, I could hear real ham radio operators talking! I lived in Montreal at the time, and I could hear locals and US station from Vermont, New York State, and up to 700 Miles from my house. By 5:00PM, the 75M band was hopping, and I could hear stations from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and up to about 1000 miles. Loud and clear!!! The 75M band was hopping! And most stations were AM, but some were LSB , and you wouldn't believe the fights between the AM'ers and the emerging SSB'ers! (Ask me about some of the characters I heard with that radio!!!
In fact, I should open a new thread on just that topic!!!) I must have logged hundreds of stations with that radio! My mon didn't get that radio back for four months!!! Eventually, I was able to buy my own shortwave receiver with my paper-route money (a Trio 9R59, identical to the Lafayette HE30).In 1966, I moved to another part of town, and started a new high-school. One day, while walking to my locker, I noticed a guy carrying a CB-3A CB radio to his locker. I went up to him and introduced myself. Steve mentioned that there were other CB'ers in the school too and I should meet them. I visited Steve and Dave often, and used their stations often. Being a poor teenager, I could not afford a CB radio myself, and my dad certainly wasn't going to buy me such a frivolous thing! I had to make do with listening to them on my Trio receiver! :sad: Eventually, via my paper route and other means (scams, actualy) I purchased a Heath DX-100 AM ham transmitter to go with my Trio receiver. Now, those of you who don't know what a DX-100 is, let me explain: 130W output (Plate modulated). It covers the 160M through 10M, and since this rig was built before 1958, it also covers... 11M!!! I was in like Flint!! Never mind Flint, with 130W, I was the "Channel Master"!!!! I had a blast with that set up, but I had to be careful, because in those days our version of the FCC, the Department of Transport was very active monitoring CB. I used that rig sparingly. The last thing I needed was a visit from the "Radio Police"!!! Eventually, later on, I acquired a Lafayette CB radio with a tunable receive and 8 transmit channels. That rig was my alibi. BTW - it would be three more years before I'd get my ham ticket in 1969.
Today, I am still very good friends with these guys. (We all eventually got our ham licenses too.)
* Phone or CW on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 11 and 10 meters.
* Built-in VFO, modulator, and power supplies. 5-point TVI suppression.
* Kit contains all parts—tunes—hardware—cabinet, etc.—Easy-to-build.
* Coils are pre-wound and cable is pre-harnessed.
* High quality components are used throughout for reliable performance.
This transmitter is a completely proven piece of ham gear. Amateur radio operators in the field are enthusiastic in praising its performance under actual operating conditions. It provides the latest and most desirable design features, and combines high quality with real economy.
The model DX-100 is a completely bandswitching rig for phone or CW operation on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 11 and 10 meters. It has a built-in VFO, or may be excited from crystals. Crystal sockets are built in. The easy-to-build kit contains all parts necessary for construction, including tubes, cabinet, hardware, etc. The detailed step-by-step instruction manual features plenty of pictorial diagrams for easy assembly. Pi network output coupling allows matching non-conductive loads from 50 to 600 ohms, and is only one of the design features of this outstanding performer.
This transmitter employs push-pull 1625 tubes modulating parallel 6146 tubes. RF output is in excess of 100 watts on phone, and 120 watts on CW.
The VFO credit consists of a 6AU6 tube operating as a clapp oscillator in the frequency ranges of 1750 to 2000 kc, 7000 to 7425 and 6740 to 6807.5 kc. An OA2 regulator tube stabilizes the B supply to the oscillator screen grid.
A 12BY7 tube is used either as a modified Pierce crystal oscillator, or as a buffer, depending on whether the function switch is on crystal or VFO. The plate circuit of this stage is untuned when operating 160 or 80 meters, slug-tuned to 40 meters for operation at 40, 20, or 15 meters, and slug-tuned to 20 meters when operating on the 10-11 meter band.
A 5763 tube drives the parallel 6146 final. Pi network interstage coupling is employed between this stage and the final grid.
The 6AQ5 clamp tube serves to protect the 6146 tubes by reducing screen voltage automatically if grid drive to the final tubes is removed.
A single 12AX7 tube provides two stages of resistance—coupled triode speech amplification in the audio section. A 12BY7 driver provides input voltage to the 1625 modulator tubes. The speech amplifier and the modulator stages have been designed to restrict the audio speech range. This provides a "hard hitting" audio modulation with plenty of punch.
Separate power supplies are used for low-level and high-level functions. The low voltage transformer contains all the filament windings, including the filament for the high voltage rectifiers. It has a tapped secondary to supply voltage for the bias rectifier. A 12-volt center tapped winding supplies audio and RF stage filaments. The low voltage supply delivers 360 volts at 160 ma to the low power audio and RF stages. The bias rectifier voltage is 75 volts. The high voltage supply provides plate and screen potential for the final RF and modulator stages. The entire power section of the transmitter is fused (both sides of the line) at the line plug. All power supply components, including transformers and chokes are well rated for their service.
The DX-100 has been "amateur designed" to incorporate all of the most desirable features for convenient and effective amateur communications.
Specifications:RF Power Output... 100-125 watts phone, 120-140 watts CW. Output Impedance... 50-600 Ω (non reactive). Output Coupling... Pi network (coaxial). Operation... Crystal-VFO, CW-Phone, Local-Remote. Band Coverage... 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 11, 10. Audio Output... 85 watts at 300-3000 cycles. Tube Complement: Power Section... 6AL5 bias rectifier, 5V4 low voltage rectifier 2—5R4GY high voltage rectifier, OA2 regulator. Audio Section. 12AX7 speech amplifier, 12BY7 audio driver, 2—1625 modulator. RF Section... 6AU6 VFO, 12BY7 crystal oscillator-buffer, 5763 driver, 2—6146 parallel power amplifier, 6AQ5 clamp. Power Requirements... 115 volts AC, 50 to 60 cycles. Standby... 150 watts. CW... 400 watts (intermittent). Phone... 450-600 watts. Cabinet Size... 20-7/8" wide x 13¾" high x 16" deep. Net Weight... 100 lbs. Shipping Weight... 107 lbs.
That's my baby! Still have my original, (plus several others). Mine is missing the kitchen drawer handles above the mic jack and CW key jack,
, and has the spotting switch just under the Heathkit emblem (in line with the VFO knob) and complementary to the meter switch. Did all the audio and bias mods on mine and she works and sounds great. Don't want to hijack the thread... so back to the program already in progress...
My first radio, a JC Penney Pinto (6213) 23 channel AM, was a Christmas gift from my wife Christmas of 1976.
My father in law was big into CB for a year or two before. The two of us moved to Dallas at the tail end of '74 and had to drive back for visits. Since he was in it she got me one for the car.
I really enjoyed hooking it up to a power supply that I built in school. It didn't have the current to handle transmit but I could listen all night long from about two blocks off of 75 at Fitzhugh in Dallas.
Ah, to remember those days....
My father in law was big into CB for a year or two before. The two of us moved to Dallas at the tail end of '74 and had to drive back for visits. Since he was in it she got me one for the car.
I really enjoyed hooking it up to a power supply that I built in school. It didn't have the current to handle transmit but I could listen all night long from about two blocks off of 75 at Fitzhugh in Dallas.
Ah, to remember those days....
My first radio was in 1974, Radio Shack Navaho Pro-Niner Base Station, With a CLR-2 ground plane antenna. Class D License KHQ-0126 Monterey Ca. Back then we had a lot of CB Breaks and clubs to join around the Monterey Bay Area. That was a great time in my life.
Since this will be my first post....I started with a Teaberry Stalker XX. Great radio. It was a great radio. This was about 1982. I stopped for awhile and back on again now. Caminokid has been my handle since 82. The hobby has changed but stayed the same in my absence.
I have over 80 radios now. The big ones are the Cobra 2000 GTL, 1000GTL, 142GTL, 29GTL, 29XLR, President Madison, Washington and my Galaxy DX959 and 99
I have over 80 radios now. The big ones are the Cobra 2000 GTL, 1000GTL, 142GTL, 29GTL, 29XLR, President Madison, Washington and my Galaxy DX959 and 99
As you post up your old radios you might want to have a look at the latest mag I posted - July 1981 
http://cbradiomagazine.com/S9%20CB%20Magazine/1981%20JULY%20S9%20CB%20RADIO%20MAGAZINE/1981%20JULY%20S9%20CB%20RADIO%20MAGAZINE.htm
My 1980 Toyota Celica ST was only one year old and shiny
http://cbradiomagazine.com/S9%20CB%20Magazine/1981%20JULY%20S9%20CB%20RADIO%20MAGAZINE/1981%20JULY%20S9%20CB%20RADIO%20MAGAZINE.htm
My 1980 Toyota Celica ST was only one year old and shiny
My first CB was a Cobra 19 plus... I think I still have it! From the late 1980s.. That radio was CLEAN! A weak signal sounded as strong as the strongest signal. noise rejection was great. I bought one of the newer of the 19 series.. the on with the lcd sisplay and am really disappointed. I need to get the 19 plus back in the car when I find it. Probably now though, the components are old and dried out from lack of use.
Very first radio was a Mustang II base tube type. My dad took out the tx tubes so all I could do was listen, that was about 1974. My second more modern Radio was a Hygain high range V 23 Ch AM/SSB I got that in 1977. I didn't really start using this radio till 1986 when I met another guy who was into cb. I told him I had a radio too. He told me to bring it over one day, so I did and he said whoo hoo this is a SSB Rig you want to sell it. Right then I knew I had something cool. He set me up with an antenna and I was off and running. I automatically took to Sideband and thats all I have been using to this very day.
- No one is chatting at the moment.
...runna pile-up on 6m SSB
W4AXW in the air