Driving home from work today I saw a sign for CBs and scanners.
Those of us who are old enough to remember the 70s remember the height of the craze. My dad had to have one! A friend installed a huge antenna in his yard so he could use his inside.
I don’t know that they have much use anymore. Do you own one?
(I do not.)
I have a pair of hand helds but haven’t used them in at least 10 years.
I can remember I always enjoyed saying “keep the shiny side up” before signing
off. 
That was in the the 70’s though.
Had one that I would plug into the lighter and slap the magnetic antenna on the roof during extended trips back in the mid 70s. Can’t even remember what became of it. Had 40 channels, but the only one ever used was 19…
I have three: two at home, one installed below a Yaesu 857D in a potable plywood box, and one in my car, next to an Alinco 607 VHF/UHF dual bander. I listen to them on the road to avoid accidents, “bear reports” etc, but don’t talk on them often. Two are the older 23 channel varieties, the third is a newer 40 channel model with an LED (!) readout. The delta tune knobs always crack me up.
Vlad/Igor
KF4VCC
I have one I got from a relative who was cleaning out his house. It’s a handheld unit that plugs into a cigarette lighter. I never use it. I am drawn to its techno-retro appeal and many buttons.
I have one on my motorcycle, I can’t imagine not having it when I go on trips. It lets me know where all the cops are and if there’s any trouble. Every so often I hear about big holes in the ground, which for a biker we need to avoid. One of the best add ons I’ve ever done.
We have two, one for each vehicle, along with a roof-mountable auxiliary antenna. We use them on extended road trips to monitor traffic chatter. It has help us avoid bad weather, bad accidents, road jams, and other sundry unpleasant things. And when we can’t avoid them we at least have some idea what’s going on. On a couple occasions I have used them to report accidents/problems that happened to other people.
I have also occasionally taken them on long cross-country flights since I frequently follow interstates on such trips and it is another means to call for help should I ever again find myself making an unexpected landing someplace other than an airport. So far, I have not had occasion to use them in that manner, and that does not bother me at all.
I have one that I put in the truck when I’m hunting with one group. It also comes in handy if you know the loggers’ channel, because they tend to announce when they’re barrelling around blind corners. If you can hear them, that is.
My main hunting group has switched to marine-band radios, which have a longer signal, so I have a couple of those too.
Jeez, I remember using CB in the 70’s when I was a teen. The frequencies were just awash in kids and idiots chattering. I assume that that’s gotten better since the CB craze died, and the radios are actually useful again?
My dad had one too and, like squeegee said, it was mostly used for nonsense back then. My mother would get on it and hang out, kinda similar to how one would use a chatroom today. I’m glad to know they are actually useful. 
But I’ve got to ask, for those who remembered them in the 70s… what were the ‘handles’ used? Mine, at all of 9 years old, was Holly Hobbie. I had no idea until later that, on name recognition alone, I would’ve probably been presumed to be a stripper instead of a cartoon fan.
Yeah, they’re useful - although instead of kids chattering you can have diesel dummies. Similar stuff, lower voices (except for the occasional lady).
We sell heaps of them at work, mainly to 4WDers, Truckies, and Caravaners. We sell a lot of the hand-held ones to guys on building sites and people with large properties, too.
Got a hand held, use it on trips.
“Diesel dummies”? :dubious: Modern life couldn’t function without those “diesel dummies.” Ah well, truckers have lots of names for “4 wheelers” so I guess it’s only fair.
My handle (as a former truck drivin’ woman) was Foxtrot (after the Genesis album, not the comic strip).
I was a big CBer back in the day. I was The Magician in Austin, TX back in the 70s.
Haven’t owned a CB since I came back from Indonesia in 1981.
Oh, my stars, what memories…(cue the testosterone)…“we got a big ol’ convoy rollin’ throught th’ night. We got a big ol’ convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight.”
Most of our family was into CBing. I had an aunt whose handle was Mother Nature. She swore that more than one heard, “Breaker 10-4, this is Mother Nature calling,” and ran off the road.
Diesel dummy = dummy riding in a diesel, as opposed to a professional driver.
I work with a guy who’s still obsessed with both CB and HAM radio. Huge antenna on his minivan, the whole nine yards.
He is probably the second weirdest guy I’ve ever known.
I actually got a call at work once from a woman concerned about her gardener, who had “A whole heap of radios and antennas and that sort of thing” mounted in/on his car, and was concerned that it might be illegal or he might be up to no good. I assured her that it was all perfectly legal and he was probably just a CB radio enthusiast.
The sad thing is that many of the CB/HAM hobbyists I’ve heard here seem to be paranoid conspiracy theorists, guys that never really got the hang of the internet, or just generally… odd, which doesn’t help their impression with the general public. We can pick them up at the store on the display radios sometimes (especially on weekends) and all I can say is that some of the theories I’ve heard them spouting off make the “JFK Was Assassinated by Aliens!”-type theories sound well-thought out and plausible.
I vaguely remember reading an article a few years back saying that CB operators will be invaluable if there is ever a major disaster and everybody else is clogging up the cell phones - assuming they (the cell phones) are even working.
Supposedly, according to what I remember, CB’s will most likely be the only way to communicate if there ever is a major disaster in a specific location. Maybe having one tucked away in the garage is not a bad idea…
