The CB Radio Craze

 

There was a time before cell phones existed that the people of the USA went on a Citizens Band Radio Craze. Virtually every one had a CB radio on their car to communicate. Here’s the story of how my family used them.

 

 

The CB Radio Craze

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In the mid 1970s to early 1980s the CB radio was how we communicated on the road while traveling. Many people also set up a base station at home so you could also communicate from car to home in town. As I recall the range for the in car radios was only about 15 to 20 miles so the range was very limited. I believe 40 channels were set up for citizens to talk on. On the highway, most people used channel 19.

The CB Radio cost about $20 and provided communications car to car or car to base.

 

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The first thing you had to do was decide what your “Handle” or radio name would be. My family’s names were as follows:

 

Bill “American Eagle”
Pam. “Black Raven”
Kristi. “Curly Locks”
Tamara. ” Wild Turkey”
My Dad. “Low Gear”
my Mom. “Lucky Thirteen”

Our handles were our best efforts to represent the person on the radio.

 

 

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A complete new language was developed by the users. A “Bear” or “Smokey” was a highway patrolman. A “Beaver” was a good looking woman. It was indeed a craze that hit the nations roads.

 

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We primarily used the CB radio to communicate with other members of our group when traveling together. A typical communication might be such as this:

 

Bill: “How about you Low Gear, got your ears on?”
Dad: “10-4 (yes) American Eagle”
Bill: “Curly Locks has got to make a pit stop ( restroom stop), so I’m pulling the hammer off (slowing down) at the next greasy spoon (restaurant) I see.”
Dad: “10-4(understood) Eagle, I’ll follow you in.”

 

It was sometimes kind of fun listening to the trucker chatter as we traveled down the road.

 

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My dad set up a base station at his cabin in South Fork so we could communicate from our vehicles to his cabin. This worked very well for us for family communications for the two weeks we spent vacationing in Colorado each year.

 

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The craze was so big that a super hit movie for Burt Reynolds and Sally Field called “Smokey And The Bandit” was. based on using the CB radio to avoid the Smokeys on a race across the southern states. There were also country songs that were high on the charts specifically aimed at the CB radio world. One of these songs was Merle Haggards ” The Bull And The Beaver”. Another was C. W. Mcall’s “Convoy“.

 

 

Burt Reynolds talking on the CB with Sally Field in the movie “Smokey And The Bandit.

 

 

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http://open.spotify.com/user/1276943289/playlist/7Lxz1foM5rLuqHC91GLv4Z

 

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Thanks for reading The CB Radio Craze,
Bill