When my mom caved into my begging and bought me a pair of walkie-talkies, being able to transmit my voice to a receiver felt like walking on air. I loved it but I found that getting family members to talk with me on the radio was difficult.
When the CB craze hit in the seventies, I knew I had to have one. I went down to the nearest Radio Shack and purchased a Navaho TRC-30A twenty-three-channel transceiver. Then I applied for my licence with the Department of Transport.
As with any new hobby, the downside of it often becomes apparent after spending money on it. I got into hot water with my landlord for putting up an antenna on the roof without his permission. He did relent but only after giving me a lecture about how inconsiderate I was in not asking him first.
Within a few weeks of going on the air, I had made a few friends. They invited me to "coffee breaks," unofficial meetings of CBers at restaurants. I fondly remember meeting my new friends and putting faces to the voices I had formerly only heard.
Then I discovered the phenomena called by the slang term "skip." Radio signals in the CB band sometimes are reflected back to earth several thousand miles from the transmitter. Attracting the attention of other CBers was difficult because of the thousands of people all talking at once on each channel. Even so, I had a few successes through the years which I was an avid CBer.
When I passed my amateur radio exam and was awarded my licence, I gave up CB radio. Even so, I still have a few transceivers as mementos of those golden times in my radio hobby.
I wrote about my involvement with CB and amateur radio in all three of my memoirs. My CB years are featured in my latest book called How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Virtual Bookworm Publishers for details of this wondrous testimony of God's providential care.
You were lucky to have a CB when you did. I didn't get one until about 1998 or1999, not long before I became a licensed ham radio operator.
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