CB radio - does it still exist/anyone got and use one?

[useyourdellusion]

Westy Pre-Lit said:

AddieB said:

2 Million CB'ers in London in 1981!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTZl8Wg6gcI

CB'ers clubs etc!

Widow Maker and Morning Glory! She's a bit of alright!

Edited by AddieB on Wednesday 23 June 20:02

Shop person - Fozzy Bear the man, good to see you I've got what you need. 160 without the VAT or 190 with the VAT.

Fozzy Bear - I'll take it 160

Shop person - Fozzy Bear he don't care ya know.

I had to do a double take!

I could have sworn they were in downtown New Yoike!


Bet the Fozzy dude got plenty of clunge though.

[Dog Star]

Kentish said:

I hooked up with one or two girls using CB when I was younger.

Went for an "eyeball" and then a bit more

Indeed - I copped off with this really fat 21 year old lass off a council estate who had a kid. I was 15. I was still like a dog with two dicks though.

Funnily enough I've got the self same CB (an Amstrad CB901 from 1983) set up in the garage since a couple of months ago (no aerial yet though) hooked up to a 12V supply along with a rather spiffy Realistic amp/equalizer to play my iPod through. All still working complete with LEDs. Looks cool!

[XitUp]

My weird mate has one. He was into ghost hunting too.

Seems like it's for geeks.

[Mars]

NinjaPower said:

I used to use CB when I passed my driving test aged 17 in around 1997. Was good for chatting between a few cars on the move!
It seems to have taken off in popularity with the farmers round here recently (and there are a lot of them!), all the tractors you see out and about all have the large 'springer' CB antenna on them.

Most large trucks and pretty much all the logging trucks always seem to be chatting away of them.

There has been many an occasion over the last few years when a few mates were travelling in convoy to a car show or a day out or whatever and we thought 'hmm CB's might be good' but were put off by the large in car units and the even larger roof mounted antenna! So we got a 3 pack of those 0.5watt PMR446 licence free radios that you can buy everywhere. usually sold for camping, sport, outdoor etc... they were utter rubbish. we got a range out of them of about 400 yards car to car and the volume of the speakers etc was terrible.

So I bit the bullet and 4 of these: http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProduc...

Yaesu professional handheld UHF 5watt radios! shockproof, waterproof, 10 hour talk time battery life, range of about 7 miles car to car and about 25 out of the car! Programmed in the licence free PMR446 channels and away we went.
They have been an amazing radio for car to car use. mega range, digital encoding built in so no cutting in on your private chat by others, and no daft antenna on the car roof.

One of the best things I have bought for car journeys, its so good being able to chat car-to-car, plus you can do stuff like let one car to get ahead by 5 miles or so on a motorway, check for erm, 'traffic' and then let the other drives behind know that they can 'go for it' whilst keeping them informed!

I bought a Vertex VX146, a genuine PMR radio but one which can be boosted with PC software to 5W.

I was part of a 30-car group of Se7eners who use them when on tour together. When I sold the last Se7en and bought a Cerbera, I introduced the idea to the TVR guys too, and they've become very popular.

They pop up on Ebay from time to time, at a fraction of the original £120 purchase price. I've got 5 now and tend to chuck them in the other cars when we go on a family holiday together. Quite good fun.

[Smifffy]

I'm a radio ham

I started on CB many, many years ago - great fun.

[Paul Drawmer]

Yep, me too.
G4YFY

[PimpmyHotwheels]

Pot Bellied Fool said:

Good memories

Mate got me into CB at school. Home-made centre-loaded firestick on a broomhandle, then taking the covers off & wanting to know more. Also got into SWL at the same time.

Then off to college for 3 years of study into electronics & RF, MRGC & DoT Radar followed. (One of the last groups to be taught & examined on Morse to a decent level - passed my Amateur G4 at that time too).

Then ended up working on radio navaids for NATS, cellular systems for Voda and various other interesting electromagnetic/optic stuff. Now just mundane IT stuff but it pays the bills - sometimes

But all that sparked off over 25 years ago by taking the back off a CB & thinking "Wow, that looks interesting!"

Off topic i know but if you were listening to the shortwave bands you may have heard many number stations then. Now that the cold war is over you don't hear as many

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZVJMq0rYPs

Edited by PimpmyHotwheels on Friday 25th June 08:41

[useyourdellusion]

PimpmyHotwheels said:

Off topic i know but if you were listening to the shortwave bands you may have heard many number stations then. Now that the cold war is over you don't hear as many

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZVJMq0rYPs

Edited by PimpmyHotwheels on Friday 25th June 08:41

Very eerie! I'm sure I used to pick those up on my old radio whilst I was looking for Radio Luxemburg...

[Pot Bellied Fool]

PimpmyHotwheels said:

Off topic i know but if you were listening to the shortwave bands you may have heard many number stations then. Now that the cold war is over you don't hear as many

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZVJMq0rYPs

Oh yes, remember them well. We used to use the Morse ones to practice with when I was a student.

...and the joys of woodpecker

And whatever happened to DATONG morse tutors, those things could be really made to rattle along. Great for high speed group work

Someone mentioned AX.25, there's an interesting blast from the past too. I had a Tiny TNC. Pretty cutting edge for the time. Trouble is the Internet has made everyone overlook the incredible engineering that goes on behind the scenes of the communicating World.

PBF - Lapsed G4YRQ

[Morningside]

Pot Bellied Fool said:

PimpmyHotwheels said:

Off topic i know but if you were listening to the shortwave bands you may have heard many number stations then. Now that the cold war is over you don't hear as many

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZVJMq0rYPs

Oh yes, remember them well. We used to use the Morse ones to practice with when I was a student.

...and the joys of woodpecker

And whatever happened to DATONG morse tutors, those things could be really made to rattle along. Great for high speed group work

Someone mentioned AX.25, there's an interesting blast from the past too. I had a Tiny TNC. Pretty cutting edge for the time. Trouble is the Internet has made everyone overlook the incredible engineering that goes on behind the scenes of the communicating World.

PBF - Lapsed G4YRQ

I am revisiting AX.25 stuff at the moment (as I put before). I have here a PK-88 TNC but I see that there is a program now that does it for you mmtty using the soundcard and switches the radio via RS232.
Also I see that Linux has AX.25 support as standard so looking into that as well. Mainly looking into a radio-radio link for remote Internet connection.

I am surprised that there is quite a lot of life on the repeaters (Ipswich is very busy). I was quite mad on CB before but far too many idiots on there towards the peak.

CB Licence is now free and ham licence is only £15 for life thats why I renewed it.

[Angry Sheep]

I've got one on the Freelander. Useful when travelling in groups of Landys. A mate's put one on his Golf so we can chat on drives out - looks a bit odd!

As has been said, a lot of farmers have them. Managed to use it once to listen in on a conversation between two lorry drivers to find out what the cause of the traffic jam I was in was ("three car smash in lane two, so stick to lane one" - righto!).

[Stu - B]

Can remember my mate buying a CB. All he seemed to say into it was "Houston, Beep" and then collapse laughing, closely followed by annoyed voices at the other end of the wotsit.

Remember him getting all excited about atmospheric conditions causing skip(?)

[NiceCupOfTea]

useyourdellusion said:

PimpmyHotwheels said:

Off topic i know but if you were listening to the shortwave bands you may have heard many number stations then. Now that the cold war is over you don't hear as many

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZVJMq0rYPs

Edited by PimpmyHotwheels on Friday 25th June 08:41

Very eerie! I'm sure I used to pick those up on my old radio whilst I was looking for Radio Luxemburg...

Takes me back to being a kid listening to this stuff on SW and wondering what the hell it was!

4 CDs worth of the stuff here:

http://soundcloud.com/the-conet-project/sets

Edited by NiceCupOfTea on Friday 25th June 14:37

[Zad]

Interesting, I'm a lapsed G1 amateur too and didn't realise that you could get a for-life licence now. I still have my PK232 TNC as well! I'm afraid the keeping-up-with-the-joneses aspect got silly, and I decided there were better things to do with my money.

Datong are still around, but have also moved on. The direction finding gear was so successful (and profitable) that they moved into counter-terrorism. I went for an interview for a job as a development engineer there once, and failed becaue I knew too much about the company and what they did!

They are now listed on the stock exchange, but still refuse to tell people what they do, or who their contracts are with etc, which the market understandably doesn't like.

[Ari]

Dog Star said:

Kentish said:

I hooked up with one or two girls using CB when I was younger.

Went for an "eyeball" and then a bit more

Indeed - I copped off with this really fat 21 year old lass off a council estate who had a kid. I was 15. I was still like a dog with two dicks though.

Funnily enough I've got the self same CB (an Amstrad CB901 from 1983) set up in the garage since a couple of months ago (no aerial yet though) hooked up to a 12V supply along with a rather spiffy Realistic amp/equalizer to play my iPod through. All still working complete with LEDs. Looks cool!

Wow, I remember those Amstrad units!

I had a Cybernet 2001, thought it was the dogs!

[Fort Jefferson]

I did a lot in the early 80's. Had a Sigma 4, 27' dipole and a 5 element beam antenna on a rotor. 600w burner and a multichannel CB which did ALL frequencies including 27.645, which I used (LSB) because it was quieter. I have QSL cards from all over the world. NZ, AU, Japan, USA ect, I've still got them somewhere.

[Yuxi]

DV27 - I havn't heard that for years, had one on my Avenger. What was the house one, GPA or something??

I have a 27Mhz FM Midland 4001 in the loft, I think these are illegal now, the legal band is 40Mhz???

[Morningside]

Yuxi said:

DV27 - I havn't heard that for years, had one on my Avenger. What was the house one, GPA or something??

I have a 27Mhz FM Midland 4001 in the loft, I think these are illegal now, the legal band is 40Mhz???

Totally LEGAL and free from licence as well

I am now fiddling with PSK31 (AFSK) - Great fun.

Tomorrow for a laugh I think I will dig all my CBs out of the shed and see if there is any life out there!

I

[Yuxi]

Morningside said:

Yuxi said:

DV27 - I havn't heard that for years, had one on my Avenger. What was the house one, GPA or something??

I have a 27Mhz FM Midland 4001 in the loft, I think these are illegal now, the legal band is 40Mhz???

Totally LEGAL and free from licence as well

I am now fiddling with PSK31 (AFSK) - Great fun.

Tomorrow for a laugh I think I will dig all my CBs out of the shed and see if there is any life out there!

I

Me too!

[standfree93]

My parents have told me some of their stories about when they had them!
They had them in their rooms and used to sometimes meet up with a few of them!

Did people have like their own name tags kind of thing? like 'username'?
My mum had one she used but I forgot...