Your stories of the AM days

[PARSNIPHUNTER]

I'll start off with one of mine. I had just moved up to senior school ( about 11) and my new found friend asked me to go round his house after school to help him out. He explained he had a CB radio which I had never heard of (1980) and needed to put an aerial up ( His dad was a HGV driver had brought a new radio and had given him the old one ( A Vice President Roy) I went round and his master plan was to get the mag mount on a metal tray higher up as it was just sat on top of his flat garage roof.We nailed the tray to the top of a wooden line post and then nailed a number of pieces of wood from the garage together making a mast of about 30 foot tied it to the drain pipe and off we went. I can remember there were that many breakers on at the time in the local area on 14 that the heterodyne noise was amazing. We had a number of chats with people then the next door came around to complain he was coming over their TV speaker, he explained to me that he should not really use it till after the TV went down About 10.30pm. The next day he told me that in the night the antenna had come down and gone straight through the next doors green house woops.

[ch25]

In early 90's December we were talking late evening on CB.
Than someone break in. Signal fade in and out. The guy said, that he can't believe he hear Poland.
Said, that he stuck with truck convoy in Kazakhstan in buran, snow covered them completely and they wait for help for a few days.
We didn't believe him, but he asked if someone can call his wife and tell her, that he is fine, but won't be back for Christmas.
He gave a number and I called. It was almost midnight, a lady picked up the phone and was very happy to hear the news.
We talked to him almost 1 hour, that conditions dropped and signal faded away.
Chris

[bigpimp347]

Ford Cortina with a Maxcom 4A (or vice president roy can't recall which) and DV27,
going down the local park with a mate who had a breeze block CB inside his coat to listen to the yanks.
having a grandad who worked for the DSS fraud squad who had a silver rod (a real one by Hy-gain) on his washing line post and shouting "14 for a copy" all day..

[Mikel]

In the late 70's around here when CB was illegal to use, (but extremely popular!) channel 9 was an emergency channel and was monitored by volunteers (men and women) 24 hrs a day, every day. There was a group set up who's name escapes me for this purpose and they was never short of people to take the task on.

Remember this is long time before people had access to the internet and mobile phones and most people where I lived could not afford a phone in the house. (I assume the channel 9 monitors could!)

If an emergency occurred you either had to knock the door of someone who was 'rich' and had a phone in the house, or run 1/4 mile to the nearest red phone box and not only hoped that it worked, but also preyed that some drunken idiot had not taken a dump in there or spewed over the phone (it always stunk of urine).

I lived alongside a main road at the time and there was a massive pile up one day, that I did not see happen, but heard the noise of the high speed collision that sounded like a bomb going off!

After a quick look out of the window that was looking down on the accident, I immediately grabbed the mic and called on channel 9 - 10-33, 10-33. There was an immediate response from the channel 9 monitor who was about 3 miles from me, and after I had explained the situation and gave him the location he phoned 999 for an ambulance.

Literally within minutes the Ambulance, Police and Fire-brigade were on the scene and the driver of one of the cars had stopped breathing apparently and the ambulance guys (not called paramedics then) managed to revive him and he also had other injuries but I heard he made a full recovery.

Anyway word got around and I was a bit of a CB celebrity/hero for a while because of my actions and demonstrated to the sceptics that CB could be genuinely useful at times!

The rig I was using at the time was an AM and SSB rig and i'm sure the make was Pacific or something like that but I cant remember the model and the antenna was a vertical centre fed dipole (9 up 9 down) on a horizontal pole that was screwed to the windowsill.

[WhiteNoisePoetry]

Yes I remember AM CB.
Otherwise known as a box full of heterodynes

- WNP -

[Mikel]

Yes I remember AM CB.
Otherwise known as a box full of heterodynes

Yes, absolutely and Solar Cycle 21 that reached a peak in 1979 was what got me firmly into radio.

The cacophony of noise was mesmeric!

The heterodynes and static crashes combined with the broad American accents of the truckers coming through from across the pond night and day is a sound that will live with me forever.

My first AM set-up was connected to a DV27 on a camera tripod in my bedroom and I was amazed at the level of 'noise' from such a set up (rubbish for local comms mind you).

Lets all hope that Solar Cycle 25 is as good.

[WhiteNoisePoetry]

My first AM set-up was connected to a DV27 on a camera tripod in my bedroom and I was amazed at the level of 'noise' from such a set up (rubbish for local comms mind you).

Hygain 2 40 channel thingy and a 4ft Firestick.

I think the manufacturers plate on the back of the rig indicated built in '77 but I might be wrong.

Living by a large docks at the time there were plenty of crane operators and trucks collecting their loads
chatting and organising themselves at the time.

And the other use seemed to be OM's calling the XYL's with "I've just left the office now get the bloody dinner
ready" QSO's

As for general DX'ing or social QSO's / Round tables, they seemed to come last for some reason.

The first two uses are realy done by cellphone these days, or cheapo blister pack PMR446's.

Which no leads to CB's paradox.

It's either 80 channels of skip **** that makes even DX'ing impossible.
Or 80 channels of skip **** making local QSO's impossible.

What's the point of trying to use a CB service where a couple of locals are S7 to each other, and the Italians
etc are +30db ? )

Oh well, wait till darkness / late evening when it all dies down and you might be able to make an noise
free local QSO.

- WNP -

[Transwarp]

Christmas 1979, used my present money to buy a Realistic (Tandy) 40 channel from a local CB'er and power pack and DV27 off my friend who set it up in my bedroom on an upside down waste paper bin on tin foil, and so the journey started. My folks were not impressed.

[Silverdemon]

My funniest memory ( not at the time mind you) was helping a newbie set up his colt 210 and a half wave dipole, I was standing on a ladder outside the window with the mic and swr meter tuning the antenna, when while keying the mic I look to the side of the house and see a yellow van, and a grinning driver. Yup it was Busby let’s just say that’s the fastest I’ve gone down a ladder without falling and how we got away with it is beyond me, but apparently they were looking for something else at the time. Newbie didn’t stay on air for long, me after all these years still playing with radios, took RAE a couple of yrs later at the request of the area manager for busby ( great guy if you kept him in tea and biscuits when he laid a visit, if you caused him issues look out, if not he’d be more than happy to chat for a while, I got told join local radio club, get on course and do it properly...or else.
Still tune in on 27 sometimes but sadly not as busy as it once was.

[PARSNIPHUNTER]

I can remember carrying a car battery and my mate Tristar 707 up onto Sedgley beacon ( a local high spot) There was a covered reservoir on top that had large metal drain covers on ,we stuck a mag mount on one of these and off we went. All that just so we could use the CB in the day time and avoid TVI.

[QRZ-934]

I got into Cb when I got a brand new second hand Midland 80 channel ( I have one now actually and the 40 ch version) and got it home and stuck a long wire in the aerial socket to to see if I could hear anything- the amount of activity was amazing, I was well into it at that point.

Neighbour used to complain their tv was being affected so I bought them some ferrites for the cables but they didnt want to know.
I was listening to the local commercial radio the one day and heard the miserable cow complaining about me on a talk radio phone in, saying she felt I should buy the stuff to stop the interference, I already did!
Anyway she was running me down but didnt know Id heard her.

Other neighbours video recorder used to go into slow mo mode when I had the sidebander in the car outside ....popular I was.

Then the miserable neighbour had the windows wide open one day and was playing some loud **** music just to annoy me, so I put an 18 foot dipole up against the wall and turned on the old superstar 95 and put the power to max ( 15 watts iirc).
The music stopped instantly, all you could hear was feedback and me making wooo wooing and squooshing noises.
That hi fi never did work properly again, it must have died when I keyed up......

Anyone else remember the hospital bleeps?
I used to record them and play them at a local gonk at max power when he was trying to have a convo with one of his fellow muppets on channel 7 as payback for aggravating other breakers.

How its all changed.

[CaptainKirk]

First heard about CB in 1979 but didn't see my first rig till 81 a Colt 444, wanted one myself but couldn't afford it on my wages bought a FM Midland 3001 in 82 on the drip then got hold of an AM set Cobra 19x with a DV27 on a ground plane kit in the loft.

[Werthers]

I was a bit late for CB it was a bit before my time. I remember when I was a kid in the 90s I had a pair of 27MHz Star Wars walkies and they used to pick up CB transmissions, at the time I had no idea what CB was as nobody in my family had one. My first CB radio I bought in 2001 and it all took off from there.

I don't use FM anymore, haven't done for years I just stick with AM/SSB modes but more AM.

I would have loved to have been around for the CB days.