  Hardhat Member Username: Hardhat Post Number: 236 Registered: 10-2003 |
I've still got my Cobra base station, 40-channel Citizens Band radio, and often consider setting it back up. For those under 40 or so, CBs were huge in the late 1970s. I enjoyed talking (very briefly and very lamely) to truckers passing through Detroit on I-75 near our house. Better conversations were had with other neighbors in SW Detroit. I'm embarrased to say my handle was the "Imperial Wizard" - I heard the name somewhere and as a 17-year-old, I thought it sounded pretty cool. Curiuously, no one ever pointed out the name's ties to the KKK. My CB was purchased from the Electronic Connection in Canton (which looks to still be in business). I later had my CB converted to "sideband," which allowed you to talk in-between frequencies, and somehow, much farther. I recall that being quite illegal, but it was a lot more fun. Instead of being able to talk to someone in Troy or at best, Keego Harbor, I remember being quite the hotshot in talking to fellow "sidebanders" in Iowa, Puerto Rico, Newfoundland and other far-away places. Anyone else care to share their handle and CB memories? Anybody (besides truckers) still use one? | ||
Gtat44 Member Username: Gtat44 Post Number: 176 Registered: 02-2007 |
My handle was Magic Dick for years, until I burned the house down on Rolyat that I lived in with my ex-wife. I got "blamed" for it because I was the only smoker in the house although everyone in the family knew the track lighting in the basement was faulty. From that point on I adopted the Flamethrower as my handle. Can you tell whom my favorite band was? Anyway we also had a man on our block Bob Smith (no really that was his name) who was a big ham radio operator. I remember late at night listening to my clock radio to the Tiger games he would break through the broadcast while talking to his fellow operators around the world. It actually was kind of cool; to listen to. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5911 Registered: 10-2004 |
I remember back when the CB band was the 11-meter ham band. I used to operate a KW on 11 meters--before and after... | ||
Belleislerunner Member Username: Belleislerunner Post Number: 405 Registered: 12-2003 |
How's it look over your shoulder eastbound? Couple piggies lurking at the 227 yardstick in the median. One with a customer. Ahh, good times. Saved me from many a speeding ticket down 75 or I-80 across Ohio. I was Thunder. | ||
Eriedearie Member Username: Eriedearie Post Number: 1324 Registered: 08-2007 |
We had a blast with our CB. My husband was Canadian Bacon and I was Lady Liberty. | ||
Tetsua Member Username: Tetsua Post Number: 1545 Registered: 01-2004 |
Imperial Wizard ... Magic Dick, I think I'm on the wrong thread lol. | ||
Mcp001 Member Username: Mcp001 Post Number: 3372 Registered: 11-2003 |
There was a conversation going back and forth between Eight-Ball & Magic Dick along US-223/US-23 last week. Any relation? | ||
Bigb23 Member Username: Bigb23 Post Number: 1288 Registered: 11-2007 |
I hooked up a base station back in the early 90's and all I could pick up were two ladies up in Lapeer who used the CB like a telephone. I never had a handle, because I mainly just listened to that and a Police scanner. I also picked up a lot of cell phone chatter in the 800Mz range. The funniest call was a guy who showed up at a wedding rehearsal dinner with his wife, and almost everyone was nude! It was a nudist wedding. | ||
Ragtoplover59 Member Username: Ragtoplover59 Post Number: 246 Registered: 09-2006 |
Back in the day I was JackRabbit.   | ||
Yaktown Member Username: Yaktown Post Number: 336 Registered: 02-2006 |
Yeah Roger that...Back in the early 90's my friend and I got into CB for some unknown reason. This was pre-internet and pre-drinking age, legally anyway. My handle was Hawk, back in high school all my computer friends had "bird" nicknames (Raven, Phoenix, etc). I bought my CB at the Oasis Truck Stop on M-59 and US-23 in Hartland. I eventually hooked up a PA speaker under my hood and would have a load of fun with that! My friend Jim (Animal) eventually had his radio freaked and peaked and had a homebase unit set up. I still have my radio and have thought of hooking it back up, just need a new antenna since my dad threw mine out when I moved. | ||
Downriviera Member Username: Downriviera Post Number: 288 Registered: 02-2008 |
Crazy but fun times. Didn't some one even do a cb song that got some airplay back then? | ||
Rid0617 Member Username: Rid0617 Post Number: 66 Registered: 03-2008 |
Oh too cool. I too was a big CBer with all the things your not supposed to have. Got my first CB license in 1967. Still have it for old time memories. Even though I was out of state my handle was Wolverine. In the late 60s I went into sideband because I got the distant signal bug. In 1972 I went for the big one and got my first ham ticket call (WA4SNR). Sold my equipment to divorce my nightmare, let my license expire and in 1986 re-tested and was issued my current call KB4YKJ. A bunch of hams are snobs so when I want to talk to real people I still get on CB (Cobra 148-GTL) | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1216 Registered: 12-2006 |
Wow, such memories. Back in '79 I was White Afro (because I'm white, yet my hair would do that). I had a ham license at the time as well, long expired, Whiskey Bravo 2 Oscar Hotel Sierra. I can still do the Morse Code to that, not that it matters. My stepdad had a CB before everyone else and was disgusted with some of the meaningless prattle in 1978 or so. He would hear "Breaker 1-9 for a radio check" and respond with "Yeah, mine still works". The CB craze in the late 70s did help me avoid speeding tickets on the NY Thruway while traveling back and forth between Schenectady and Detroit. | ||
Rid0617 Member Username: Rid0617 Post Number: 68 Registered: 03-2008 |
Professor if your interested you don't have to know code to be re-licensed. They even have online study of the actual questions with the answers at qrz.com. A lot easier than it used to be when we first went into it. Your old call is still available | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5916 Registered: 10-2004 |
The ham-radio hobby essentially died within a couple years of the ill-fated incentive-licensing scheme pushed by the ARRL and the FCC in 1964. Within two years of that fiasco, over 90% of the manufacturers of amateur radio gear either went bankrupt or decided to quit that line of business. In 1966 or 1967, when I was the chief engineer of Wisconsin's second-highest powered radio station, a couple broadcast buddies and I were cruising a number of Chicago surplus-parts warehouses after returning from the Museum of Science and Industry. At one such older, high-rise warehouse on Halstead Street, we came across apparently what was left of the laboratory of the recently defunct Hallicrafters company, and I purchased several hundred pounds of their lab gear for less than a penny on the dollar. | ||
Rid0617 Member Username: Rid0617 Post Number: 69 Registered: 03-2008 |
Livernoisyard you have my total jealousy for having a chance at that. I have my old Yeasu 101E and that's about it for oldies. Talking about what will really kill it, when they did away with the code the bands are going down the drain. 80 meters sounds like CB at its worst. That's why I stay with CB. Real people not trying to out do the other one in terms of money or equipment. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5917 Registered: 10-2004 |
I somewhat tired of ham radio by the 1980s, as I first was licensed in 1956 or 1957 (eighth grade). Got my FCC First-Class Radiotelephone license in high school, and eventually got into commercial AM/FM/TV broadcasting by accident (while studying electrical engineering in college) as a DJ at an FM station in Milwaukee. The FM radio stations couldn't get sponsors back then (middle 1960s). My second station, where I worked as a staff engineer, was the only 50KW AM station in Wisconsin back then, and later that year I got employed as a DJ at the second-highest 10KW and became its chief engineer shortly thereafter. That station was a daytimer on AM and a 20 KW full-time FM. So, when the AM signed off, I would plug in my homebrew 4000 watt ham rig into the three towers and go on 160, 80, and 75 meters and use its three towers with my own power divider and phasors--giving 5 db gain over one tower. And each of the three towers had 120 ground radials, and the towers were in a peat bog of sorts--giving excellent ground conductivity. So, working DX in South America was a snap on 75 meters with those 5/8 wavelength verticals, and most of those stations outside the US would often say that they couldn't hear any other US hams. Even used my own RCA 44DX mike--the bidirectional ribbon mike that you might see in some old-time radio pictures. | ||
Grumpyoldlady Member Username: Grumpyoldlady Post Number: 58 Registered: 06-2005 |
I was and still am "GraLady". CB often works better in rural areas where cell phone towers are few and far between...unless there are lots of truckers running linears which will just about blow out your speaker if they are close by. | ||
Aiw Member Username: Aiw Post Number: 6619 Registered: 10-2003 |
You don't live in Lapeer do you? | ||
Ltdave Member Username: Ltdave Post Number: 136 Registered: 09-2006 |
my family never bought into that. we had handi-talkies though. they were pretty good Midlands though. they required individual crystals for whichever channel we were going to use. i think the channel was 11 or 13. i dont really recall... my dad had a channelmaster that was all aluminum. he ran channel 11 or 13 and 5 (i know 5 for sure). he once hooked the TV antenna (we had those big serrated aligator clips on the 300ohm flat antenna cable) to the radio antenna and he and i actually talked to a guy in Bar Harbor Maine, late at night... my buddys grandfather had one in his basement but i dont know if he ever put it in his car... | ||
Pgn421 Member Username: Pgn421 Post Number: 512 Registered: 02-2005 |
Starship here. I still get out my old radio, when im driving up north. I listen to see where the Smokies are. Ive been a truck driver here in Detroit for 30 years. Those speeding tickets are expensive now, Roger?! | ||
Cambrian Member Username: Cambrian Post Number: 1850 Registered: 08-2006 |
I was a wee youngin' in the 70s but I do recall that the CB was quite popular on the Indian Reservation. Many would have that instead of a telephone in the house. I loved all the trucking related TV shows like BJ and the Bear. | ||
Huggybear Member Username: Huggybear Post Number: 320 Registered: 08-2005 |
"Convoy" movie reference in 3 - 2 -1 - | ||
Django Member Username: Django Post Number: 163 Registered: 10-2003 |
Yaktown, were you from Hartland. Back in 86 and 87 I spent a few late nites at the oasis truck stop with friends after a party or whatever. I went to school just down the street. ahhh memories. | ||
Detroitfats Member Username: Detroitfats Post Number: 41 Registered: 05-2007 |
Downriv- I thing the song was "Convoy" by C.W. McCall. | ||
Bulletmagnet Member Username: Bulletmagnet Post Number: 1202 Registered: 01-2007 |
Back in the 70's CB craze I was "Psychotic Instigator" for a while. Later in the mid-90’s we had a CB patrol in our neighborhood called DARE. I still have my ID and a commemorative mug from back then. The "Hillbilly Internet” was lots of fun then. Now all you get is a bunch of punk ass red necks with foul mouths. But I still drop in about once a year as I travel over the road. I have some hacked radios that I still listen to phone calls on, but since the freq’s changed not many come through any more.  (Message edited by Bulletmagnet on April 20, 2008) | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 3041 Registered: 01-2005 |
When I moved from Detroit to Las Vegas in '84, my son drove my T-bird following the Ryder Rental Truck I had. A CB was mounted in the Bird, and I had a portable for the truck. It made that long trip a lot better being able to converse back and forth and agreeing on gas, food, and potty stops. Other than that, the trucker BS turned me off on CB. I'm no prude, but some of those guys are wackos. | ||
Sludgedaddy Member Username: Sludgedaddy Post Number: 33 Registered: 01-2008 |
Red Sovine was a country artist who did a lot of truck driver tunes back in the day when country music was real country and not the "urban sprawl" it is today.His ode to the citizen's band radio was a sentimental tear jerker called "Teddy Bear" about a handicapped kid in CB contact with truckers. Those CB transmissions from 30 years ago are now probably reaching the planetary systems of the nearest stars. "Keep your ears on" for a reply from Lot Lizard Wookie, good buddy. | ||
Pgn421 Member Username: Pgn421 Post Number: 513 Registered: 02-2005 |
we should fire up the cb's and start a club! | ||
Yaktown Member Username: Yaktown Post Number: 339 Registered: 02-2006 |
Django, sorry I did not grow up in Hartland. I only bought my radio from there because it was the best place to buy one. I grew up in UNION LAKE, not many places to go to buy a CB there! LOL at the "hillbilly internet" crack up there. We also used to play "hide-n-seek" on our mobile units. Someone would hide in a parking lot and the rest of us would have to track him down. We also used the radio once when we were on a road rally, soliciting info from friends. Ahhh, good times! Over and out...rolling mobile in my Kenosha Cadillac. | ||
Grumpyoldlady Member Username: Grumpyoldlady Post Number: 59 Registered: 06-2005 |
AIW...if it is me you are asking if I live in Lapeer, the answer is "no". I live in rural west central Minnesota. Lived in Detroit 40 years and the Thumb for 5 years. | ||
Zrx_doug Member Username: Zrx_doug Post Number: 114 Registered: 03-2008 |
Hey, Bulletmagnet, your story sounds familiar.. I was "Green Monster" when doing the local CB Patrol thing here in Detroit. Did my patrolling in a green & white '67 Dodge A-108 van that featured a nicely built 360, hence the name.  Our group was originally the S.O.S. (south of six) patrol, but somewhere along the line we changed our name to "Redford Park." Sorta faded away in '04 or so..it'd be a good thing to get started up again. (Message edited by ZRX Doug on April 20, 2008) | ||
Gaz Member Username: Gaz Post Number: 112 Registered: 04-2008 |
I worked for an old Italian-American redneck. He owned a fire and safety company, and had lots of CB's. He decided his handle would be the FBI. I cautioned him against that, but he was a very stubborn man. Not long afterward, the FBI showed up at the office, looking for ol' Tony. When they confronted him about his handle, he said "Hell yeah! I AM the FBI! Full-blooded Eyetalian!" They actually let him keep the FBI handle, as long as he qualified it with full-blooded Eyetalian. | ||
Eriedearie Member Username: Eriedearie Post Number: 1334 Registered: 08-2007 |
Sludgedaddy - yeah I remember "Teddy Bear" - always brought a tear when I heard that song. | ||
56packman Member Username: 56packman Post Number: 2195 Registered: 12-2005 |
I have a friend somewhere in the metropolitan Detroit area that has an old 50s vintage Halicrafters (tube) Ham rig (he has had his Ham ticket since the early 60s) that rig could be tuned down to the CB band. A big source of fun was to hook his reel-to-reel tape machine into the Halicrafters and treat Channel 6 on the CB band (custom van club of Noe-west Detroit channel) to the psychotic ramblings of the reverend Al Svatcka (sp?) a hellfire and brimstone Baptist radio preacher active then (late 70s). He would just issue short (very short--least the "federal candy company" find him) bursts of Rev. Al preaching--the "babies are a gift from Jesus" sermon was good for this. He'd drop one of those bombs and then lay back and listen to the response. When I went to electronics school (70s) the ultimate "thing" seemed to be radio--everyone wanted you to become a Ham and get your first class ticket so you could be a broadcast engineer (a very worthy goal, and a good occupation) but I just couldn't get excited about radio the way they were. | ||
1st_sgt Member Username: 1st_sgt Post Number: 145 Registered: 11-2006 |
Did any one stand-by on channel 4? | ||
Karl_jr Member Username: Karl_jr Post Number: 252 Registered: 06-2007 |
RED EYED BANDIT - KAHY 2289 (Message edited by karl_jr. on April 21, 2008) | ||
Kahnman Member Username: Kahnman Post Number: 49 Registered: 02-2006 |
We had a starduster base antenna and 2 mobiles. Went by the handles "Ridgerunner" and "Cyclops". I still have some QSL cards stashed away somewhere. I was also into AM DXing and made all my altazimuth antennas. My pride and joy that I spent $200 hard-earned dollars on was a Hammarlund HQ-180 receiver. I also have a "new" Yeasu FRG-7 but you know what? They are all gathering dust...sad. Oh well, keep your shiny side up and your dirty side down - catch ya on the flip-flop, 10-4? | ||
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell Post Number: 4770 Registered: 10-2003 |
"Breaker one nine, we got wall-to-wall bears at the 233 sticker and one in the bush at the 235." The CB craze hit big time when I was driving trucks for Sears. It was all anybody talked about for awhile. I remember that there was some BS license you were supposed to fill out and send to the FCC, but after a while no one did. I think they finally dropped it. So I got one and still have it somewhere. Your stories are making me want to dig it out, plug it into the cigarette lighter, slap the magnetic base Radio Shack antenna on the roof and see what's out there, especially for an upcoming run into Chicago. It came in handy for staying in touch when some friends and I drove, in separate cars, down to the west coast of Mexico in the late seventies. We had 19 all to ourselves. I remember picking up some crazy preacher on some monster CB whose sermons followed us 100 miles into the Sonoran Desert after we crossed at Laredo. Soon the craze devovled the airwaves into a foul-mouthed, racist-filled airwaves with illegal linnears blasting away all over the place. [Like some unmoderated internet forums that came along later. heh] The truckers ground their teeth at the newbie invasion and disappeared off to side channels. But, in time, the mob tired of it and now the truckers have 19 back all to themselves. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5954 Registered: 10-2004 |
Hammarlunds were nice receivers... I had three Hammarlunds, including a Super Pro SP-600JX14 boat anchor. But I still liked the BC-348R by the Belmont Radio Company in Chicago, the receiver used in the B-17 bomber, that I used when I was 14. I must have worked close to 300 countries as a ham on CW with it before age 17 or 18. The transmitter then was the BC-375E, the one also used in the B-17. Together, they probably cost less than $50 back then. The XMTR had its ancient 211s replaced with Eimac 250TH tubes (tripling its power to over a KW), also military surplus--the tube in the picture along with an ART-13 and a couple BC348s. Another XMTR was the famous Collins autotune ATC13 (the very rare Navy version of the Army Air Force ART13) rig I ran as a sophomore in HS. Cost around $30. Most of my rigs were homebrew, including the one transmitter that ran around four/five times the FCC "legal" power (4000 to 5000 watts). But, busted is what you see. Never had a problem. (Message edited by livernoisyard on April 22, 2008) | ||
Hpgrmln Member Username: Hpgrmln Post Number: 422 Registered: 06-2007 |
12 or 13 years ago, my dad got ahold of a cheap, lower-end cb and hooked it up in our old van. We drove down to Ohio and could hear truckers, only within a few miles. They seemed pretty impressed with the minidress the girl in the Corvette was wearing in Monroe County, which we soon learned was one of the topics truckers liked discussing.Then we got into Toledo, a cop saw our antenna as we passed him, and he apparently had a cb as well. We're pretty sure he was the one that got on the station we were on and kept clicking his mike on and off rapidly to block others from talking and letting speeders know where he was. | ||
1st_sgt Member Username: 1st_sgt Post Number: 146 Registered: 11-2006 |
We were very much into CB radio. I had to check in with my Dad while using his car at the drive-in, Had to park in front of the concession stand or the last row to put the whip antenna up to talk. If I used the linear what II was saying would bleed over into the PA and sound system. (Very embarrassing). We had a Starduster for local use and a Moonraker antenna with rotor on a 35 ft extendable tower using 1Kw and 500w linears to talk skip. Used a Tram Titan II, couple of Regency Golden Eagles (Ping), an SBE SSB with slider, some Lafayette Comstat 25 B's, Cobras, and a Johnson base station radio. We used Lollypop and +2 mikes. I still have it all (except antennas and tower) in storage. I have about 20 different radios (some new in boxes and most like new plus linears (mobile and base). In SW Detroit on channel 4 if you remember the Longhorn and BW then you know Popbottle (me). | ||
Huggybear Member Username: Huggybear Post Number: 322 Registered: 08-2005 |
quote: And guess what just popped up on cable on-demand? Awful. | ||
Larryinflorida Member Username: Larryinflorida Post Number: 1103 Registered: 02-2007 |
KBW 5826...Michigan Emergency Patrol! On the Fisher Bldg, it sure got out. BTW like a typical mid life crisis dude collects hot rods, I collect Browning Golden Eagle CB's. I could only afford a Lafayette Comstat 25a back then, lol. Have about 8 now..once a year, I hook em up and "ping" for a few hrs..then I'm happy again. | ||
Larryinflorida Member Username: Larryinflorida Post Number: 1104 Registered: 02-2007 |
Remember "Firebird" "15000 watts" on ch6? I knew him and timidly knocked on his door one day. He was cool. He let me talk skip on his Eagle and stacked Hygain 3-elements powered by a Phantom 500 amp. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 6022 Registered: 10-2004 |
quote:A Phantom 500 did not have an output of 15000 watts. Instead, it ran 500 watts out as an AM rig and 1500 watts SSB. Running AM through a linear amplifier was only about 25% to 30% efficient, while running SSB it could be around 70% or so. Therefore, the AM rig was an effective room space heater. Many hams might use their 1 or 2 KW 10-meter rigs on 11 meters until the FCC restricted many such rigs from being sold that could do so on 10 or 11 meters. However, that wouldn't stop any ham from building his own home-brew 10/11 meter rig. One of mine could suck all the juice from a 240 20 Amp power circuit (~5000 watts input). But, I rarely did 11 meters (CB band) in my three element Hy-Gain tribander on a fifty-foot tower. | ||
Larryinflorida Member Username: Larryinflorida Post Number: 1105 Registered: 02-2007 |
I'm pretty sure old firebird was doing a little ERP math in his head. In the case of the Phantom, it's dozen sweep tubes in parallel made the output Q so low, it took out every television for blocks and maybe miles. Pretty broadband, for a tube rig. He had a LOT of enemies. They pulled his tower down once, as was the fashion back then if you made enemies. He lived on 7 mile and Fenelon, btw. Jeff Clark. (Message edited by LarryinFlorida on April 25, 2008) |
