Are CB Radios still being used?? (Killeen, Orange: insurance, home, high school) - San Antonio - Texas (TX) - Page 2 - City-Data Forum

Sonny Chiba57 · 08-09-2011, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TowBar

My family used to be big into CB radios back in the 70s. Back then CBs used to be like the internet is today, as far as popularity goes. Flash forward to about 3 years ago. We were taking a road trip down to Orlando to go to Disney World. I bought a CB radio and put it in my van for the trip. I was really surprised by a couple of things. First there was practically no one, but what seemed to be truckers, talking on the CB. Second, people were using foul language on the air, which was a big no no back in "the day".

I used to have all my stuff hooked up in Killeen from the 70s till mid 80s untill I went overseas. Base station, mobile radio, echo box. It was like having company over without them being there cause we all knew each other. Some of them I talked to often but never met face to face. Recently I found someone on craigslist looking for old CB stuff. He looked to be in his early 20s and very knowledgeable about CBs but I don't know what he thought he could buy from me with only $10 so I kept my stuff. Thinking of hooking it all back up for old times sake..

Labamigo · 08-09-2011, 08:19 AM

They actually becamed available back in the 60s. My uncle had several old licenses which started with KEG, KEH and KKV. I guess no one bothers with a license these days.

TowBar · 08-09-2011, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Labamigo

They actually becamed available back in the 60s. My uncle had several old licenses which started with KEG, KEH and KKV. I guess no one bothers with a license these days.

I think maybe the requirement to have a license to operate a CB (not Ham) radio was done away with. I remember when growing up that there was a license fee (5$ ?) At one time, but they did away with the fee. I am just guessing that they also did away with the license at some point as it doesn't make much sense to go through the administrative work to issue licenses if you aren't going to charge people for them anyway.

TowBar · 08-09-2011, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonny Chiba57

I used to have all my stuff hooked up in Killeen from the 70s till mid 80s untill I went overseas. Base station, mobile radio, echo box. It was like having company over without them being there cause we all knew each other. Some of them I talked to often but never met face to face. Recently I found someone on craigslist looking for old CB stuff. He looked to be in his early 20s and very knowledgeable about CBs but I don't know what he thought he could buy from me with only $10 so I kept my stuff. Thinking of hooking it all back up for old times sake..

Brings back memories. Dad started out with a base station, and it was mostly us kids (teens at the time) who used it. We would sometimes stay up all night during the summer and play monopoly taking turns talking on the CB to pass the time. Dad eventually got a mobile unit and put it in his car, so we would talk using that when we were riding with him to go some place. Our base station rig went through various configurations with different antenna (ground planes, 3 and 5 element beams as well as a Moonraker) amplified microphones (remember the D104s?), etc. Like I say, I bought a mobile unit a few years back kind of hoping to re-live the nostalga, but the whole CB culture is different now.

Sonny Chiba57 · 08-10-2011, 08:35 AM

I used a ground plane for my base station and also had my echo box attached to it. It was the VC-200. Before that one I had a Realistic base station with the D104. I had to use a filter so that I wouldn't bleed over on the neighbors' radios, tvs etc specially since I had a 150 watt linear. The song "Convoy" by C.W. McCall I think made CB radios more popular in their day. One of those gone but not forgotten memories...

Dwangle · 08-10-2011, 03:59 PM

I looked up CB Radio's on Ebay and people are bidding on them. That is alway's a good sign.

SATX56 · 08-11-2011, 03:21 AM

C.B. is dead... it was great pre- late 60's or early 70's before it went nuts! The FCC will not give the citizens decent communications. It's for the high profit cell industry only. You pay through the nose!! They're our frequencies!

Matthew2000tx · 11-04-2011, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SATX56

C.B. is dead... it was great pre- late 60's or early 70's before it went nuts! The FCC will not give the citizens decent communications. It's for the high profit cell industry only. You pay through the nose!! They're our frequencies!

I've been using a base station and have had a CB in my car the past 10 years... it's been handy... not completely dead! PS. I'm only 27 years old so I wasn't around during the glory CB days...

Lee W. · 11-06-2011, 08:31 AM

The foul language and politics would go in the same category for that kind of thing...I can see why people avoid it.

Sunnysee · 11-06-2011, 02:15 PM

I'm so thankful that we got to live during the CB craze of the seventies, enjoy it so very much, and enjoy the memories here. I guess now, were it to catch-on like that, again it would be much more dangerous when folks wanted to be too friendly, but, I admit reading here I was hoping, at first that maybe it could come-back simply by us all hooking up, again.