I would think that by now current communication devices would have subsumed CB radios and made them superannuated.
Why use a half-duplex system when a full-duplex is lighter and easier to manage?
In other words, truckers have cell phones which work much better than CB radios ever could.
I can imagine a scenario in the deep desert of Arizona where no cellphone coverage was available.
That would make CB useful.
But outside of that… nah.
Not today.
I could be wrong.
I’m from a rural area. Nearly everyone had CBs in their vehicles and homes when I was a kid ('70’s and '80’s). They got more use than the phone, because at the time, nearly every phone call cost long distance, the way the exchanges broke over in our area, whereas a CB was free-use. Most of the phones were still party-line at the time, so there wasn’t much difference in privacy between CB and phone to make it matter.
Except that, to make a cell phone call, you need to specifically know the cell number(s) of the other person(s) you’re talking to. With a CB, you can just broadcast a request for information (or look for someone to chat with), and anyone in range with a radio can respond. If I want to know what road conditions (or traffic enforcement) look like up ahead, a CB is probably still a far easier way to get it.
They were also useful in getting recommendations for local restaurants. OK, more like greasy diners.
CB radios are still in wide use by truckers in my area. The logging roads are posted with signs saying something like “Trucks, monitor channel 12”, because these roads are only wide enough for one vehicle to pass.
So you monitor the posted channel and hear; “at 7 moving to 8”, meaning that the truck is at mile post 7 and is moving up the road to mile post 8. Or you might hear " at 7 going to 6" meaning that the truck is coming down. This is very important info if you happen to be around mile post 7.
This gives the trucks that are working in the area, and other recreationists, the knowledge of of where the other trucks are at so that they can pull off the narrow road and wait for the other guy to pass. It also keeps the hunter or mushroom picker, or hiker from gettiing run over by a truck that probably won’t be able to stop when it comes around the corner and finds you on the road. If you are not monitoring the channel used by the active trucking in the area, you are in danger.
Cell phones are not a good solution to providing this information to everyone who might need to hear it.
Breaker one-nine, breaker one-nine, could I get the twenty of the nearest choke and puke to mile 320 westbound?
I sold one at a yard sale ca. 2005. It had been my dad’s and was relatively new and very little used. It’s a nice option for emergencies that you don’t have to maintain: just buy it and stick it in the trunk. As long as your electrical system works well enough to power the cigarette lighter, you can get the word out that you’re in distress.
I actually used a CB radio to good purpose, back in the 70’s.
My girlfriend (now my wife) and I were driving out to her parent’s rather remote vacation locale and the map and directions I had to find the place were inadequate. We were miles and miles from anywhere, but I dutifully got on the CB, and asked for directions. Lo, within 30 seconds I was contacted by a guy driving the opposite direction who wondered WTF another vehicle was doing on the lightly used road I was on. He gave good orderly directions, and we found our way.
The rest of my time on CB radio was completely unproductive. Much like my internet time now.
Dad was a traveling salesman/technician in the 70s, & the CB in his van got a lot of use.
My friend stole them.
Well, more like one of the guys in the neighborhood, and went to the same church, but we weren’t friends. He used to steal everything, and this being the 70s, he had boxes and boxes of CB radios. My older brother traded him some of that “popping” gum (not bubble gum, it would “pop” in your mouth, anyone else remember that?) for a couple of CBs.
Then when the guy was 15, he graduated to stealing cars and spent time as a guest of the county.
I have a CB in my closet. I won’t sell it because it’s not legal to use in the US. It’s an import from outside the US and it’ll broadcast on the normal 40 channels set aside for CB use and it’ll also transmit on most of the two meter band… and it’ll transmit AM and FM and has built in reverb. Back in the day I got offered some good money for it. It’s now an interesting doorstop.
Me and Old CB, by Dave Dudley. A memento of the heady days when the humble shitkickin’ goods hauler found his voice and, for a few brief years anyway, made the most of it.
Truckers most definitely use CBs still, with just a few miles range it’s a localized chat room. Often the conversations are some of the most profane, insipid and ignorant things a human could listen to.
But the traffic updates are spot on.
I had a CB in my car in the 70s and early 80s. My handle was Thunderbung.
Often the most convenient and cheapest place to buy gas and expel used coffee is a truck stop. I think they all sell CB’s.
Crap, I forget my handle.
When I was a kid, my dad drove back and forth to the state capitol whilst getting his Ph.D. in Journalism. He had one for emergencies, and to help keep him awake and interested. His handle was “Blue Pencil”
Why I remember this, I have NO idea…