"May I suggest a possibility here? Just, you know, crazy theory right off the top of my head. Maybe the whole trucker craze of the 70s was, in fact, completely stupid. "
-Todd in the shadows, Worst songs of 1976.
The movie Moonrunners and the tv show Dukes of Hazzard came out of the trucker, good ole boy craze.
I can’t remember. Did the Duke boys have a CB in the General Lee?
“Convoy” comes up often in Grand Theft Auto V. Prior to that, I had never heard of it, but I think it’s rather catchy!
Less so than 30,000 Pounds of Bananas.
10-4, Good Buddy,
Shodan
Yes.
Probably more than you ever wanted to know about the General Lee is here.
I’m being serious, not snarky; Is there a specific definition of cloverleaf?
I lived in Tulsa for over 10 years; and in my mind there’s a cloverleaf where I-44 and the Broken Arrow Expressway cross. I just pulled it up on Google Maps, and it looks like a ‘cloverleaf’ to me.
In their textbook on Collective Behavior, Miller and Miller describe the Truckers & CB Radio phenomenon as a Fad or market-driven Craze. [Fads drive markets; Crazes are market-driven.]
Before CB Radios there were Ham Radios, usage of which required a license and a substantial amount of knowledge (which would be tested) to qualify for one. CB Radios had been around for a while, but the salient change was in the FCC deciding it would no longer regulate or license CB Radio identities (Handles). This allowed hundreds (thousands?) of people to gain access to the airwaves – and Sears & Radio Shack were originally selling units for relatively low cost – without having to study and test for a license or register a handle with the FCC.
One of the benefits of a fad is that it pumps money into R&D for improving the equipment used in the popular activity. In this case, stationary and mobile antenna technology improved and (as someone else noted) the number of channels increased from 23 to 40 while scanners became more responsive and accurate. The fad then fed a craze with movies, TV shows, printed materials (magazines, posters, novels), and music (i.e. all of those memorable products mentioned upthread) latching on and exploiting enthusiasts to squeeze a few more cents out of their wallets. Kmart and dozens of department stores started carrying CB Radios of varying quality, and toy stores would sell toy CB’s (some working on a single channel, some just looking like miniature shells of a CB radio).
As with most fads, and particularly with those that become crazes, popularity was both good and bad for the industry. People flocked to it, money was spent on it, technology improved, and other industries cashed in. On the other hand, the flood of newbies, dilettantes, and exploiters generates false impressions and misunderstandings, and can dismay both the veterans and new entrants as protocols and definitions are thrown into disarray. New and veteran devotees will stick with it while dilettantes, exploiters, and some of the veterans will move on to the next fad. Disco, anyone?
–G!
I had wanted a toy walkie-talkie starting at the age of 8 and finally was given a set for my 12th birthday. That was the middle of the 1970’s though, and I discovered I was right on Channel 14 and could hear all the regular CB chatter – which kind-of spoiled the appeal of a secret electronic communications device that I thought it would be. Nevertheless, I dove into the fad along with the neighbors, who had a Realistic 23-channel CB radio in their father’s Baja Bug (another fad of the times) and we would sit in their driveway and chatter to the world in the evenings. Then they became involved in local groups that were rooted in the CB culture. Once a month they’d go on Turkey Hunts, a variant of hide-and-seek in which one person (the turkey) would ‘hide’ in a remote location and broadcast from his/her vehicle, then others would try to find the vehicle via signal-strength triangulation.
“Convoy” didn’t kick off the C.B. craze - it cashed in on it. I don’t think people who grew up in the era of cellphones and the internet really understand the attraction of CB radio back then. But it was pretty revolutionary to have a device in your car or truck that could call out to other people for miles around. Of course they were used a lot as toys, but they were very useful for emergencies, farmers used them to stay in contact with the home while they were out in the field, etc. A common use of them was simply to call home and let your spouse know you were on the way so they could get supper started or whatever. Things we take for granted now, but back in the day it was pretty cool. If you were on the road a lot or working on job sites, you were quite literally isolated from outside communication.
My friends and I bought cheap CB base stations and we used them like people use IM today - we could go to our bedrooms and chat on the radio as a group, and it was pretty cool.
As for why the song glorified trucker rebellion - this was in the era of heavy regulation of trucking. The ICC micro-managed a lot of stuff, and annoyed truckers endlessly. That plus the 55 mph speed limit, gas lines, and other issues of the 1970’s made some truckers quite militant.
“You wanna screw that thing back on, Earl?”
Indeed. I never bought one myself, but I had friends who had them in their cars. A group of us would play hide and seek. The car that was “it” would park somewhere, and the rest of us had to try to find it based on information about what the occupants broadcast that they could see from the inside the car. Great fun.
A high school friend’s family had two cars, and each was equipped with a CB. Since he was old enough to drive, we had a lot of fun cruising the local drag and chatting on the CB.
Sounds like a fun game! I wish we had thought of that.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
The ICC micro-managed a lot of stuff, and annoyed truckers endlessly.
[/QUOTE]
That’s why we tore up all our swindle sheets, and left ‘em settin’ on the scales.
My CB radio actually was useful exactly once, when I was lost as hell in the extremely rural rolling unglaciated coulee country of northwestern Illinois with my girlfriend. I actually got a hold of someone who knew where I was, how to get out of there, and how to get where I was going.
“Breaker one-nine for information, come on” actually worked. 
I think the old unit’s in the basement somewhere…
I loved and still love Convoy and several of C W McCall’s songs, one of the big reasons was that he wrote country western music about THE WEST! Several of his songs were set in Colorado and “Green River” was an actual canyon and river in my home state! Way cooler to a western kid than Memphis Tennessee 
not dissing Memphis, Tennessee or anyone from there
Funny you should bring up Transformers, because in Japan Optimus Prime is actually named Convoy. Or at least he was until fairly recently, I think they did finally start calling him OP around or slightly before the Bayformers came out.
Not before, it was with the movie that they started normalizing the names.
Ya gotta be kidding!! That was BigBen, not pigpen. I’d been driving with a CB for 4 or 5 years before the craze from that crazy song sold everyone on the surface of the earth one. It did get strange for a while when every family in a station wagon had one. Remember station wagons?
Sorry, it’s Pig Pen–he’s haulin’ hogs.
“Station wagons”–didn’t Eric Forman have one of those on that show about that decade? 
That shit’s never going to catch on. Mark my words.
