Did anyone have a CB radio when they were young?

[Asta19]

I was reading a thread about a teenager being up too late on their smartphone and it got me thinking how I spent many a night in my teens staying up too late on the CB! People talk like teenagers being able to chat until late in the night is a new thing but I was doing it in the 80s. I remember once being in huge trouble as I’d been chatting to a boy and, unknown to me, my dad had been listening in on his CB in the car! But I do have fond memories of using it. It was such a novelty being able to chat with friends with no parents moaning about the cost of phone calls!

Breaker breaker one four you got a copy on me ? (Is anyone there ?)

OK gravedigger/TexasTart/CanaryS/Queen of Hearts/RedDevil/Starbuck/Hubcap/JK Rainbow/Persian Cat/Orion etc etc knock it two five

(Move off of channel 14 the general chat channel, to channel 25 for a private chat) Or what ever channel you agreed to chat on.

There were, 'snob' breakers (collective term for CB radio users) who would only speak to certain people and had a pre-agreed chat channel i.e. usual ? Would be the question. You could then go up and down the channels looking for them and be earwigging until you just said, 'side' as a way of trying to get in on the conversation.

Then be invited with the refrain, 'on the side come alive.'

Your, 'twenty' was your location. Your, 'home base' was where you lived.

Requesting a ten twenty four was requesting a time check. People would deliberately wait until ten twenty four to ask for a ten twenty four.

It's how I met my boyfriend back then, it lasted quite a number of years. I was such a young teenager I went to the pub for a 'meet' with my Dad !

There were socials know as, 'meets' where you could 'eyeball' each other. CB equipment would be raffle prizes. There was a committee there were rallies there were treasure hunts. All good.

One of my best friend's Dads 'met' his future 2nd wife through using a CB radio. His 1st wife wasn't that impressed - they'd conducted the entire relationship over it until the day he moved in with her.

The other thing I found was when working for a unit that dealt with sex offenders - CBs were the equivalent of internet groups and they used them to talk to children, amongst themselves and plan offences - fortunately, other users heard bits of conversations and over time, worked out exactly what was going on and reported them.

We went on a coach holiday to Austria. Driving across a million borders and, at one, the armed police got onboard. They found the driver had a CB and confiscated it! There was a lady on board who spoke their language fluently and she spoke to them and the driver, so he knew what was going on, even though she couldn't change anything. I dont remember if he was ever able to get it back on the return trip.

To whoever said their dh has tuned into the police frequency, not if your in the UK you haven't, it's all digital trunkated radio now and you or I can't access them (aside from. It being illegal), anyone thinking of reliving the romance save your money, it's dead as a do do mostly

Just looked on Ebay.. they are a heck of a price now! I had a Superstar with sideband and there is one for sale for nearly £200. I paid £50 for mine, I knew I should have kept it and sold it as an 'antique' lol

Hi,

Of course you can get cb radios and maybe the best place there be is ebay.co.uk or try eearching on the web, knights cb and they are dealers. Yes Mobile phones can be useful, be not quite the same as cb radio where you can also add kits to cbs e.g. echo chambers and power mikes and get all sorts of gizmos and quite interesting to when you can make cb radios more powerful by adding bigger aerials and best to purchsse higher quality coax which lower the dbs, the better reception and transmission you get.

I currently have one in my truck 😂

We had a family one in the car and the house and my dad met 2 of his closest friends on it. There was a local CB club that was very much a family orientated thing. Lots of days out and beatle drives organised for the club funds/charity.

My handle at the tender age of 4 was almost identical to a current popstar!

10,10 till we do it again!

I haven't given CB radios a second thought for 35 years, but I instantly remembered my handle - Edelweiss .

Can't really remember much about what I did on it though, but I do recall saying "14 14 a copy" quite a lot. Does anyone know what that might have meant?

Hi all,
I've joined just to post this (although I'm a parent as well).
If you enjoyed CB, as I did, and you'd like to continue radio as a hobby, it's now really easy to get an amateur radio (or 'ham') licence.

For relatively little money you can do a short training course and get your own callsign, which will then give you access to all sorts of frequencies, some for local use and some for worldwide, and all sorts of modes, such as speech (like CB), Morse, digital communications, communicating via amateur satellites, including the International Space Station.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like more details.

Matt
(Ex-Shockwave!)

Syty

We are British but no we are not in the UK