We used the CB kinda like a cell phone when I was growing up. We had a "Base" and a Mobile"....can't remember our call number though. My daddy was a volunteer fireman (he's the city's Fire Chief now) so the CB in his truck was necessary. The CB we had at home always scared me when it stormed; I just knew lighting was going to hit that giant antenna one day. I'm not sure why it never did.
I still remember one of the funniest things I ever heard growing up on a CB (I believe I was 9 or 10)...
If I were a bulldog
and a smokie was a tree
every time I passed one by
I'd lift my leg and pee.
In the late 1950's there were these things called IIRC ---CQ cards-----one had them made up like post cards with all kinds of funny pictures and the call letters with the nick name one chose. Dad collected them especially when he found a SKIP from 500 miles away.
When the atmosphere was right people would rush in their cars and trucks to the highest hill or mountain and hope to get a far away skip, CB clubs sprang up and there was competition to see who got the longest skip, the CQ cards sent and received were the proof.
Sometime in the late 1960's people began to make their own divice, illegal, to up the sending range. Some of these things were so strong their communications would come in on neighbors TVs and radios. I remember in the 1970's when people had to buy a doodad to put in their TVs to filter out the signals.
People were erecting these antenna's 60 + feet in the air, and some not grounded properly would get hit by lightening and blow up the base station.
Invaluable for me and the kids driving cross country RT. 10 and the truckers would keep an eye on us, tell us where to stop or not stop for the night or to get off the highway for gas. Me in my 20's with 4 kids 2 in diapers and a Saint Bernard in a Chevy Blazer, back seats removed took me 2 weeks to go from Napa California down the coast and across on RT10 and then up through the south to the east coast and from there to finally get to Maine. Hell of a trip for us, we did make it home safely due I believe to the long haul drivers that kept track of us and we followed through the big city's where one can get turned about so easily.
And Yes I was armed with a hand gun, no permit, not registered anywhere, but under the seat where I could get it, the kids couldn't and I was prepared to use it if need be. My huge dog was enough deterrent to keep us safe, a few times just his big head slobbering out the back window was all we needed.
AHHHH the CB, what fun, watching the cops roll down the street looking for the hoodlums that had an illegal Booster, some kind of device on top of their cars to triangulate where the signal was coming from.
BTW, I to this day have a CB in my car, never used it, but one never knows in an emergency it just may come in handy.
