And to think I thought I was the only one.
The two 6 channel TRC-11s and the TRC-1B.
I love those practically useless radios so
much I can't part with them.
In 1967, my friend at the top of the big
hill had a Lafayette HE-20A. It was a
huge vacuum tube base rig with several
transmit channels and a tunable receiver.
He didn't have a CB antenna on the roof (yet).
So he ran the radio into a coat hanger that
was stuck in the RF out socket in the back
of the thing. Because he was on the top of
a big hill, a lot of people heard him.
Then one day the radio blew up.
Bruce, 90.9, 88.3
My brother had a Lafayette HE-20C in his '63 Olds with a 102" whip on the bumper.
I had a Lafayette Telsat-23 and a Lafayette 3 element Star Fire beam at 30 feet.
We could talk about 25 miles apart.
I still have a box of old CB's and walkie talkies.
Someday I'll put the JCPenney "Pinto" CB back in the truck, circa 1972.
The most interesting looking one is a Cobra (I think) that has a telephone handset on it.
I'll have to round them all up, take a picture and post it.
I guess the HE -20A, the HE-20C,
and the HE-20T must have had vibrators
so the voltage could be stepped up
for the vacuum tubes in mobile use?
I don't know - it's been a long time
since I played with one of those.
Too long.
I'm sure we would love to see a picture
of all your vintage CB gear, when you get
a chance.
Best Wishes,
Bruce, 90.9, 88.3
Our lives here have gotten so
complicated that it's not worth
explaining anymore. I'm fine,
and so is my family - we just have
much much more to deal with.
I just thought I'd stick that little
comment in.
WHAT I REALLY WANTED TO SAY WAS:
Even though everything here is taken apart,
just because of inertia, the vintage 6 channel
Radio Shack TRC-11 from 1976 is still running
in the background on channel 19 - the truckers
channel. (Again - this is just bringing me
back to my childhood - sort of.)
I have heard a tremendous amount of mobile stations.
Of course, I don't know where they are. There
have been times that I have heard E-skip. I can
tell because of the way the signals fade.
This is all very odd. I never thought I would be
doing this. The antenna is a 60 foot random wire
that goes out to a tree. No attempt has been
made to transmit. The antenna is not tuned to
take power on 27 MHz. Apparently, this old
radio has a good receiving section.
Best Wishes,
Bruce
Yeah I would not attempt a transmit on that random length wire either..not without running through an antenna tuner that can tune up a random length wire. Otherwise you will be either replacing finals in that CB, or causing enough spur and harmonic due to final oscillations because of the mis-match.
RFB
For a very long time I heard nothing when scanning the CB frequencies up around 27mHz, but today I was checking the spectrum analyzer and saw signals happening, so I tuned in and heard guys talking on channel 11 and 5.
After listening awhile I ended up hearing several different people, all talking in a way that ordinary neighbors on the street don't talk.
Is there a special voice dialect or affectation used by CBers? All the guys sounded like they were mimicking wild west wranglers who were saving up for the spittoon, I had trouble telling what they were saying.
A few words I picked up were "Bakersfield", Cal", "California" and "evergreens all the way". At first I thought I was picking up rare skips from the west coast, but then realized they might be telling where they came from or where headed, or their "handles".
There didn't seem to be actual conversations, it was more like they were making statements that expected no reply, one after the other, with a lot of repetition.
I'm not sure if it was fun to hear or not. But I'll try it again.
ch6 is the super bowl. guys running 10's of kW's into stacked multiple element beam arrays on 100ft plus towers some of these guys have 50t to 100kW ERP's and their amps are powered by 480v 3 phase. ch5 and 11 are similar to the super bowl. you can hear those guys coast to coast north to south as if they are sitting right next to you even with just a wire for an antenna.
I had one of these: http://home.ptd.net/~n3cvj/lunchbox.htm
Worked it every day last year before I graduated HS. I got a gutter mount auto antenna, att'd it to the gutter of the house, cabled from my basement bedroom. Those were awakening days.
I get nuthin' out here in the San Juan Islands (Washington), on my handheld CB w/extendable loading coil antenna.
Now with the advantage of the info from kc8gpd, I returned to channels 6 & 7 and listened for awhile to crazy guys pumping out huge wattage often talking over each other, setting up a national feedback howl that threatens to split the planet.
I think one of them is in California, and another one was in Arkansas.
Now, sun going down, I heard a rock song on channel 28 and thought, "I bet it's a reflection from a broadcast station". But no, a CB guy came on after the song, said something about how good the music was, and cut his carrier.
Question number 92 -- Is it considered cool to distort and overmodulate on CB?
This is where are enforcement man should be scolding people. They actually ARE breaking rules.
Yep there is that infamous fella from California...San Diego I think, that will always be on either ch 6 or ch 7. He's been on those channels for several years and you can count on him being there when skip is good like clockwork.
RFB
To Ken: I had no idea Heathkit made
an "11 meter" "lunchbox!" A friend
wanted to give me a 6 meter "lunchbox"
a year ago. I didn't take it because
I am downsizing here.
So you guys are hearing skip on CB.
As a person who is strictly interested
in propagation, even the crazies are of
interest to me because that shows
the MUF is up to 27 MHz. In other words,
the signals from those nut jobs are still
propagation indicators. And I am very very
interested in that.
Carl, keep checking your spectrum analyzer,
if you can.
We should be getting skip on the 10 meter band
and higher this fall. And as a ham, I want to
know if it is happening.
And the reason why is that this solar cycle,
good old "Cycle 24," is so far the crummiest
sun spot cycle in about 100 years. Or so the
experts say. Everyone is wondering how high,
(or how low) it will go.
I am interested in this from a scientific perspective.
So if listening to the crazies on CB provides clues,
that is OK with me.
If you find them to be annoying (and I sort of do)
you could always take the audio and put it through
a speech frequency shift circuit or commuter program,
or make them sound like robots or barking dogs or
whatever.
Yup, that would be amusing AND useful.
Bruce, SLUG 88.3, etc.
P.S. I have a good tunable receiver for
the 30 to 50 MHz range. If anybody hears
skip in that range, I would be interested
in knowing about it.
This is where are enforcement man should be scolding people. They actually ARE breaking rules.
The difference being that such CB operators don't claim to be following FCC rules, know they are not following FCC rules, and don't care.
The difference being what?
Right, so scold people who are breaking rules.
There is no need to scold us, because we're not breaking rules.
Hello earth.
Perhaps we should all get our old CB's running once again and have a hookup on the lower side of 38 ?
Might be fun 🙂