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Radio: Crystal Sets & CB Radio

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
  • Start date Start date
Hello 'Gold Top' I am sure I remember you did you come to The Warren at Mile Oak?
 
Wow Lovely to hear .. some of the old CBers are still about . I was Songbird and my Hubby was squire . We were Dxers ers mainly but loved our CB very Much . Up on top of the Beacon in the early hours . My Mum was Country Singer . I wish there was something like that now for her because she is 80 and has no friends and cant get out :( Shame it got spoilt by bucket mouths and Wallies . I used to love the big organised Channels .. Up on Channel 40 :) Thise were the days .

10.10 till we do it again Jean xx
 
I remember You Delta Lady .. wow its many years ago . We lived in Burntwood and were in the CB radio club there . We were Sierra Bravo .. songbird and squire :) Lovely memories :)
Regards Jean xx
 
Jean I remeber visiting your club for a fund raiser I am sure we met. Do you remember my brother John I am sure that was his club. I will ask him he is on the forum.
 
Hi Wendy :) I think I do remember .. Me and Ken always came with Captain Audio ( Roger ) and Cat lady ( Joyce) I think it was a fancy dress if my mind serves me right . Well Fancy that :) What was your brothers name Wendy ? Lovely to catch up with you again :) xx
 
Hi Wend, and Catsclaws, Yes I was a member of the C.B. club that used to meet at the Greyhound Pub (flattened now) My handle was T-Max.
I can,t remember all the people who used to meet there, just a few, I bump into now, Partsman, Plonka One, Nutcracker, Goldigger, and a few others .
A few of us from the Chase Breakers club took our radio ham test together and we all passed. But it wasn't the same as being on the C. B. Happy Days
 
Yes // We took our Ham exam too .. even joined a ham club but only lasted 3 weeks because I was the only lass . One of the men sent 'Oiss Off ' in morse at me and another man laughed at my soldering .. Id made a small linear amp . I was so upset and promptly left . Its a shame because there was experiments going on at the time with RTTY and Video links . Any how to cut a long story short I did not want to sit their chewing the cud over signal strenth and stuff so regretted my Ham days . Although I must admit I was a passionate Mobile Worked all Britain addict .
My hubby Ken experimented with building huge antennae and I did some electronics , I even made a fet Dip oscillator .
I have forgotten most of that now mainly because I was greatly put off .
Any how this is a long winded way of saying that My best times were with my lovely CB friends .. Dx and Local . Lovely helpful and kind people . The computer has become my method of communication but I shall never forget the friends that I made :)

Kind Regards Jean xxx
 
you could buy one for a fiver.i even threw them away. sob sob. now i have tryed everywere to get a old model general electric.
 
mw0njm said:
you could buy one for a fiver.i even threw them away. sob sob. now i have tryed everywere to get a old model general electric.
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Hi Pete

Usually available on eBay, there are 2 on there at the minute,
but of course you pays your money and takes your chance.

Kind regards

73 Dave G0ELJ
 
This brings back some memories. I was know as "Mack the Knife" in Acocks Green. The shop in Stechford was TVI and I think keith had a brother or colleague who also had a cb shop on Lyndon road solihull. I remember buying a Moonraker 4 element beam and a sigma 4 from Keith. His shop was al;ways surrounded in mystery in the late 70's when I was at school as the windows were half boarded up. By the end of 78 I had got involved with cb which took the mystery out of his shop. I became a licenced ham in 82 and have not used cb since although I do have a couple of them knocking around somewhere
 
I missed out on legal CB Radio but along with many others I did not miss out on CB Radios.
Back in the late 70's my handle was Super Skate lots of fun back then as we all used code for locations
Some good friends with great handles, Rooster Booster, Wicked Chicken and so many more
I sold a rig to a coach driver the first time he came on the air his handle was Day Tripper,. Yes I got a copy Gay Stripper NO NO DAY TRIPPER yea Gay Stripper lots of fun a lot of what we would call a wind up
Had 200 watts 20ft pole with a Shakespeare Stick. my rig Concord by Ham International with a Roger beep mike and a pair of co- fazzed fire sticks, 40 years ago wow
Not to long ago I sold my rig here a K40 with a speech processing Mike and K40 co- fazzed antennas we used in the race hauler.
 
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Richarddye said:
Bob, talk about blast from the past!
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Lots of us had them before they were legal, we all would meet at a local pub also would hang out at a store called Deals on Wheels in Northfield then it moved onto the Pershore Road ?. Most of us were members of a car club.
When we were driving and saw a cb whip we would call out "eyeball" on what ever car it was to see if they had their ears on
 
For many CB'ers progressing to a Ham licence, it was almost like the Klondike (49'ers) gold rush. But sadly, those who had interests, some commercial, failed to tell them that Ham radio was nothing like CB. The only similarity was it principally used a transmitter/receiver and antennae. CB had a social side which existed inside and outside of a club but was localised, whereas Ham radio (other than the VHF bands) were quite different. In my locality most of us that bought legal CB sets were more interested in radio wave propagation and the finer details of radio. A great many drifted away from their Ham interests as a result. The few of us were always to be found on one particular channel, which the kids and loudmouths avoided. They also knew that we were quite adept at recognizing certain things and finding out who they were. ;) Apart from our 'radio' talk one awaited event was 'the lift'. We were always interested in this aspect of the 10/11 meter band as it affected the UK. For us in the SW it always started in NE Scotland and followed a anti-clockwise movement south, usually disappearing by central England. Occasionally it worked differently, going clockwise and the more rare event of being east-west.
Snowfall, rivers/canals and metal objects - bridges, gas holders, for instance - could influence and enhance signals. Occasionally a continental station using a CB set or radio with UK frequencies, often using a higher transmit power that was not legal in the UK, found us. We analysed the details they gave about their location and usually asked some questions about the locality and their actual transmitting location. Not a person who copes too well with small screws and fiddly things I made the study of propagation my principal interest. There was a period when I was maintaining a holiday site and used gas cookers, metal baths - in fact any reasonably sized metal object as a ground plane on which to place my magnetic based antenna. I got remarkable results at times - baths and vehicle being quite directional at times. One favoured path was to the Channel Islands. Whilst NW France and the Low Countries were not that far away they used different frequencies to the UK - the UK had the most unusual choice of frequencies, at the time. We would not hazard our hard earned Ham licences by illegal transmissions. I sold all my CB apparatus in 1984 but I did feel sorry for many keen CB'ers. but the kids ruined it at the time. It was a kind of toy and as soon as the novelty wore off, or they left school, they turned to other interests.
 
When the craze started I'd recently closed my village shop, I rented it out to a couple of chaps who sold CB 'accessories' which was legal at the time, they were really selling the complete rigs 'under the counter'

It all died out quite quickly once they legalised it.

My shop suffered the indignity of having a damned great rock thrown through the plate glass window by either one of their disgruntled customers or a competitor.
 
The whole cb thing was a very social thing many times I was amazed at the wide range of people who had them,. Keeping in mind my adventure at the time they were not legal and most of the time nothing of value wàs discussed.
Just a bunch of folks jaw jacking to and from some watering hole.
As to idiots using them they were rare and as the circle of users was small these clowns were easily found out

On a some what somber note I got to meet a guy who spent a lot of time on his cb it was his way of getting out,. he went for a beer or two one night to a place called The Tavern in the Town he lost both legs
 
CB, in a way, was a fore-runner of Facebook. Many people on CB gave far too much personal information out - as apparently many of Facebook do today. For instance, small taxi operators gave addresses and destination over the air. A signal, it seems, for burglars to monitor and know that some householders were out for the evening - and how far away and at what times. Other instances of misuse are known I guess.
 
Radiorails said:
For many CB'ers progressing to a Ham licence, it was almost like the Klondike (49'ers) gold rush. But sadly, those who had interests, some commercial, failed to tell them that Ham radio was nothing like CB. The only similarity was it principally used a transmitter/receiver and antennae. CB had a social side which existed inside and outside of a club but was localised, whereas Ham radio (other than the VHF bands) were quite different. In my locality most of us that bought legal CB sets were more interested in radio wave propagation and the finer details of radio. A great many drifted away from their Ham interests as a result. The few of us were always to be found on one particular channel, which the kids and loudmouths avoided. They also knew that we were quite adept at recognizing certain things and finding out who they were. ;) Apart from our 'radio' talk one awaited event was 'the lift'. We were always interested in this aspect of the 10/11 meter band as it affected the UK. For us in the SW it always started in NE Scotland and followed a anti-clockwise movement south, usually disappearing by central England. Occasionally it worked differently, going clockwise and the more rare event of being east-west.
Snowfall, rivers/canals and metal objects - bridges, gas holders, for instance - could influence and enhance signals. Occasionally a continental station using a CB set or radio with UK frequencies, often using a higher transmit power that was not legal in the UK, found us. We analysed the details they gave about their location and usually asked some questions about the locality and their actual transmitting location. Not a person who copes too well with small screws and fiddly things I made the study of propagation my principal interest. There was a period when I was maintaining a holiday site and used gas cookers, metal baths - in fact any reasonably sized metal object as a ground plane on which to place my magnetic based antenna. I got remarkable results at times - baths and vehicle being quite directional at times. One favoured path was to the Channel Islands. Whilst NW France and the Low Countries were not that far away they used different frequencies to the UK - the UK had the most unusual choice of frequencies, at the time. We would not hazard our hard earned Ham licences by illegal transmissions. I sold all my CB apparatus in 1984 but I did feel sorry for many keen CB'ers. but the kids ruined it at the time. It was a kind of toy and as soon as the novelty wore off, or they left school, they turned to other interests.
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i repair`d them for folks, after hearing all the poo,that was being tx,on 27/81 i never bought one. i like am tx mode
 
Pete, you and I, and several others here, could make one from scratch inside half an hour. I would be pushed to find a tuning capacitor, would probably have to take one from another radio :).
All you need is a ‘geranium diode’ and a ‘variable condenser’. Some wire and a toilet roll inner to wind it on.
Andrew.
 
Germanium diodes and all thats needed are on ebay/aliexpress, complete kits too, built one with my grandson about four years ago. There is a very active group on Facebook.
 
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