CB Radio nostalgia
 

Anyone use it in the old days? Anyone still hanging on and use it today?
'handles' appreciated, if you dare :)

cheers,
Andy

Cb radio
 

I wouldnt go any where without a cb radio in the truck about 10 years ago,I loved the banter with the other drivers and our drivers would often meet up and run back to the depot together just for the banter , Great days.

ive still got loads of CB radioes in the garage most of them i used for parts as i used to repair a lot of the lads CB,s as they were prone to 24 volting them.
I have one in the garage hooked up to a gp home base aeriel but i havent realy used it for about 4 years now as theirs vurtually no one one them now.
In my locker at work i have an old harrier cb and k40 mag mount but it hasent seen any use for about 3 years as were local now and no longer get the same wagon each day.
mobile phones and the internet have virtually made them redundant now though i still get nostalgic for those convoy days,they were a good laugh and kept us awake goin down the road and on the way back.

Ah the old K40... quality :) There used to be a K40 mic as well.

So there's nobody on it much anymore? Bit of shame that, always good fun chatting up a sexy voice in the towns along the way... then if you did meet her, you'd wish you hadn't ;) Why was it, the sexier the eyeball card was, the more scary the woman?

I was almost a permanent fixture in Truck King back in the early 80's ... helped (voluntarily) to install quite a few bits in and on the cabs of customers. I never took them up on a job (wiring mics and things) but they were good days.

cheers
Andy

Cb radio
 

The good news andy is that they did away with the license during 2007 so they are free to use now and they still turn up at car boot fairs cheep.
Also they are not ilegal to use whilst driving , mobile phones are.

there are still lots of truck drivers using CB radio,s .

There is a eddy stobart fan who stands on the motorway bridge at stockton with a hand held CB and hails a lot of drivers he has got to no over the years.

Hi Andy, I used CB radio all the time. In the US not having a CB radio was the same as driving without lights a night. Even though there was a lot of rubbish on the airways at times it was invaluable when looking for directions or when there was a major accident on the Hwy. The police monitored CB radio also and this was good especially if trouble was brewing in a rough area loading or unloading. Night time driving had a different type of user, many good conversations took place then (most of the rubbish heard on air seemed to dissappear at night). CB radio was good for information, especially when parked up in a strange truckstop. Mind you some information floating around truckstops was not for certain ears but then thats another storey. My Handle while in the US was the "Irish Warrior" in Ireland I was called "The Captain" a name my friends gave me relating to my sea going days, even though I was not a captain. Of course CB radios came in all sizes with all the bells and whistles and antennas that would have made some radio stations feel small. These users were known as "Big Radios" with some of the strangest voice sounds you ever heard. Some of them sounded as if they were talking out of a mine shaft through a fog horn. I'm sure other users will have other stories. Regards Pat.

There's quite a few truck drivers using 2m around here, but that's a bit more formal to say the least.

Yes, that was an interesting exemption for use of handheld ptt microphones ... I reckon you'd get pulled over 9/10 time by a cop who see's you, but at least you'll be in the right.

cheers,
Andy

I used them when i lived in the midlands a lot. slide mounted so i could have it in the car or the wrecker. also had one set as a base at home. The K40 on a mag mount was great.
Anyone copy the "rain check" from those days.(me)
As was said earlier some of the eyeballs were a bit of a surprise to sat the least. Great for getting directions in a strange town though..
How many of you coppied "By blue" He was a copper sat on the motorway bridge on the M1. He would slow you down for the "Pick and Shovel" then tell you to get the "pedal to the metal" when you cleared it. Great days. Wish i could get it going out here

Another chap i used to chat to on the M1 was a guy called "Diesel Demon" then there was "Gear Jammer" from Milton keynes.
Had some great copies on the M6 too. homeward bound with a suspended tow to the midlands from Blackpool at midnight it proved to be great company and certainly kept you awake.

Used to be some great wind-up merchants out there too. Like one guy who drove for Morris's oils. claiming to be a passenger in a motorcycle sidecar. said he was very cold in his string vest. Ladies were inviting him for a cup of tea...LOL

CB Radio
 

There used to be a lad at sheffield who was paid by the council to give truckers directions through the city.

First time i went into sheffield he took me right to my drop. He would use channel 15 if i remember correctly. If he was was not available there were a few retired truckers that would guide u in.
Long live old truckers is that a four.

"Green Goddess" on the M1 near the chimneys was also very good for road reports.
"Tin Lizzie" of Warwick area was directing drivers around the various industrial sites for a long time. Her Husband "true blue" was good at it too.

Come on all you old CB'ers where are you these days?
CB has in the past helped a lot of people, even saved lifes. I believe there are some AM sets comming out of mothballs as we speak.

big four
 

there were lots of times when we couldnt get anyone because some homebase dipstick would be playing music on channel 19 , is that a roger.

Thats a big 10/4 Less. Experienced that myself on 19. They did'nt have the brains to do it on another channel.

And the squeakies ;)

Yes that's right. there was a squeaky in the London area I heard once.Weird sounding character. Had a whisperer once too

We used to have a Midland 5/8ths on the roof of our three storey house and run a Cobra 148. That used to get out well!! In the car I had a 148 or a Cobra 19 and a boot mount K40.

I still have them, but have nothing to put the boot mount on these days as the car is an estate. Would like to one day find a K40 mag mount.

The mag mount in the middle of the roof is favorite. Makes for a good ground plane and brings the SWR down too

I used to have a Cobra 148 (and it's close relative the Superstar 360), one of the very best. Then again, there weren't many radios I didn't own at one stage or another back then :D

Yep, it all gets a bit too directional if the antenna is right at the back.
I remember speaking to a guy in the old East Germany on 11m ssb, he used a magmount on a metal ironing board in his flat... we just risked a fine in the u.k., he was risking a hell of a lot more. It's one thing having 'Busby' or the RIS knocking at the front door... imagine having the STASI turning up :eek:

cheers,
Andy

My first radio was a Bristol 40ch AM only and it was this little radio that I picked up in Dublin for £65.00 with a DV27 in 1977, it was unbelievable way back then talking to the truckers in the states with no linear, my handle was Trader. All the best.

Had a Superstar 360 as well. Don't know where that one went!!:mad:

Aye, before they became really popular over here and you just couldn't get the long distances as easily as you could before. I used to speak to someone in Caernarfonshire when I first started, then we lost contact as the airwaves became busy. Then the night before the introduction of the "Legal" frequencies, all was quiet on AM and I could contact Caernarfonshire again. This was before we had the 5/8ths!

I think that was the one with the legal 40fm on it as standard. I started off with a Stalker 9, Hygain V, and tried a few of those nasty Tristar/Colt/Ham International things but the Cobra/Superstar beat them all. They still pop up on ebay. I only ever had one legal rig, a Uniace 200.
Anyone remember the old Firestick antennas? I've still got one somewhere... huge thick fibreglass thing, do 80mph with that on the roof and you'd be in a convertible before long :eek:

AH Uniace can't remember any number with a half-breed gutter mounted (on a Sherpa Mini-Bus) all legal!! had some laughs with that set up.
Ian

uniden uniace 100.

It was the first rig i ownd ,father in law gave me it.

If you were in an urban sprawl in the early 80's, a Uniace was almost compulsory. I think they also went under the name of Audioline.... again, all from the Dynascan/Cobra company but built by Uniden in the far-east. The pretender was Cybernet, with their various names ... all orrible in my opinion, but they were a bit easier to modify.

cheers,
Andy

Hang on a minute
 

Hang on a minute, I feel any minute Kristoferson will be passing by , The "Convoy" film will be shown in the next layby . I have been radio licenced since before 1980, cor I used to get some stick " why dont you get a proper radio like wev'e got" in the end I gave in as proud as can be... now be careful whilst its true radio's can be hand held the bill is not adverse to claiming you are not in full control of your truck.I still have a little maxcom in the loft .when in the bottom of France in my Dormoblile the UK breakers came in on the early evening lift . When I called some of them back they would not belive me ...I give up..regards, Alan.

Yep, same old story here... impossible to convince some people in Scotland that I was in London, they used think it was a wind-up :D

I did get a postcard from an English guy who was down in the South of France (Le Lavandou) on legal fm... can't remember his name.

I also remember a guy in Maidstone called 'heavy metal'... he sent me a huge qsl 'card' made of etched metal sheet. Impressive as it was, i think I ripped open my hands with that one :eek:

cheers,
Andy

My brother lived in queensland Australia at one time. He was on high ground. he put out foer a long distance copy and got a reply from Dunstable. However the two would not believe each other till the QSL cards arrived. They both thought it impossible to have 20's so far apart and still copy. but they did it. My brither said the other guy was a "Bit in the back of the box" but still audible.

When I moved back from Shetland to Holyhead, I had my 148 connected to the K40 which had been fitted to a guttermount on my Sherpa minibus. All the way down from Aberdeen, apart from a couple of sidebanders, not a thing.:(

One evening my Mother was on the rig (when was she not??!!) when suddenly she heard "Blue Dragon, is that you?" "Yes, who's that?" The breaker gave his name and was someone we knew then said, "Just do me a favour and count to twenty and back will you?" Mother thought it a bit strange, but did as she was asked. When it was over, the breaker called back and said, "thankyou, you have just helped us tremendously" It turned out that he was on a fishing vessel which had taken a freak wave which had knocked out a lot of the electrics in the wheelhouse. The Skipper knew this bloke had his rig aboard and asked him if he would connect it up and try to get some sort of bearing as to where they were etc. Turns out that he connected up and the first thing he heard was the Dragon and using a directional ariel, he was able to work out which way they were facing. They were off the coast of Iceland. None of us believed it untill a few days later a postcard from Reykyavik arrived with a big thankyou from all aboard!

Thats a shame Coastie. should have got some high mileage copies going on that run down.

Thats a great story coastie!... excellent they sent a card too!

I suppose that makes Coasties Mother a Coastie too eh!

Great story, Coastie.

Talking of the Shetlands.
The sporadic E (the odd conditions you get mainly in late spring to summer) hop was perfect from my location to the Shetlands. A lot of the guys around here got to know a large number of cb'ers up in Shetland, we'd speak to them regularly... in fact many of us became members of the Viking radio group based up in Lerwick as a result.

cheers,
Andy

That's what I was hoping for, seems everyone uses mobile phones these days!!:(

Yeah! As I said, she didn't believe it at first and thought it was a wind up, but she played along and, sure enough the card arrived.

Following in her Fathers footsteps!!:)

That's nice! The Shetland people are really friendly.:)

Are u sure u were on 19, On the 148 its band E channel 33 unless its been Epromed to give the uk 40 readout.