Worldwide Influence of the CB Craze of the 1970s

a reply to: gort51

Thanks for the feedback from down under mate. The CB craze really was world wide for about a decade (more actually) and your reply helps drive that point home.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Back then I had a box full of QSL Cards from all over the world using skip.. Skipband, skipband, skipband, this is KQL..

a reply to: Bedlam

Why do I get the feeling you could teach me a lot about the new analog mono synth I just picked up? I'm having fun messing with the square, triangle, and sawtooth wave forms.

Frequencies are neat things!

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Actually I could help you there, I used to have a Cat two note polyphonic analog synth back in the 80s. When I was really into playing and recording music, it had a more profound effect than any psychedelic could ever have had on my music. It was all manual controls and it took some learning to operate correctly so I know how hard it can be to use. PM me if you like. A pic of the control console would help.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Might be a good idea to keep them in a Faraday cage when not in use. Or at least one of them.

Nice thread, informative

a reply to: antar

I hear an old microwave works. It doesn't need to be plugged in either. If it can keep microwaves IN and from harming you, it should be able to protect whatever's inside from an EMP. Well, in theory.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Holy crap! A 3/4 wave antenna, that must have been about 27' tall!

27 feets was about the main wip length, an assembly of metallic tube of decreasing diameter found in scrap. There was also a ~6 feets support tube with 1/4 wave ground plane rods radiating from it's top, don't remember if the gnd plane was horizontal or angled. It was installed ontop of an industrial building of about two floor height.

At the first wind storm it was history, but have used it quite a lot before it came down.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: antar

I hear an old microwave works. It doesn't need to be plugged in either. If it can keep microwaves IN and from harming you, it should be able to protect whatever's inside from an EMP. Well, in theory.

Hmmm. Well, I know very little about such things but it might be that the Faraday cage in a microwave oven is tuned to a certain wavelength. Simply because it only needs to be effective at that wavelength for microwaves. Likely, an EMP would produce different kinds of waves.

The thing about a microwave (from what I've read) is the only reason the screen is there in the door is so we can see stuff inside and what it's doing. It would probably technically be better if the screen wasn't there if you didn't need to see what's happening. I think I read those holes work because the microwave wavelengths can't pass through them. (I probably just butchered that but that seemed to be what I was reading, basically)

I've still got my nice built up Galaxy 33 setup in my room as a base station (with a 12V power converter) and a 24' Imax-2000 antenna on the roof (with ground plane kit).

I use to talk with Australia, japan in the early 1970s
I had a folding beam antenna and a 2000watt foot warmer set up on a jeep CJ7.

It was so much fun to go into Mountain top areas of the desert where i could just barely make it in the CJ7 and knew all the roads in without maps.

Watching the FCC tracking vans getting lost or stuck was funny.

What was more funny was folding up and hiding my beam antenna and foot warmer and going down am winching the FCC van out knowing i was the one that got them city slickers stuck.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: antar

I hear an old microwave works. It doesn't need to be plugged in either. If it can keep microwaves IN and from harming you, it should be able to protect whatever's inside from an EMP. Well, in theory.

EMPs are a concern, but from my understanding, if we are talking about an EMP attack, it depends on how far you are from the event and how strong it is. Cables and wires pick up a lot of the EMP signal, so disconnect your gear from everything for sure. I have aluminum siding and a tin roof, so I grounded everything to my antenna mast which is well grounded. You have to be by a window or outside now to pick up a signal on a handheld two-way or cell phone. I hope this would be enough to protect most of my gear. Tube type equipment is fairly immune to EMPs from my understanding.

The problem is, unless it is a predictable event, the best you can do is have a back up system in a Faraday cage type of container. Otherwise it is a pain in the rear to setup and break down your equipment for every use.

originally posted by: ANNED
I use to talk with Australia, japan in the early 1970s
I had a folding beam antenna and a 2000watt foot warmer set up on a jeep CJ7.

It was so much fun to go into Mountain top areas of the desert where i could just barely make it in the CJ7 and knew all the roads in without maps.

Watching the FCC tracking vans getting lost or stuck was funny.

What was more funny was folding up and hiding my beam antenna and foot warmer and going down am winching the FCC van out knowing i was the one that got them city slickers stuck.

Great story, I remember it from another thread I made about two-way communications. Pirate radio station operators are often mobile to avoid getting caught by Uncle Charley.

originally posted by: charolais
I've still got my nice built up Galaxy 33 setup in my room as a base station (with a 12V power converter) and a 24' Imax-2000 antenna on the roof (with ground plane kit).

Because I put together my current setup from equipment I already had and because I wanted a separate power source, I use a car battery setup outside and charge it every once and a while. Good for you on keeping up with CB. Do you still use it or at least listen in?

Great Britain is dominating the skip on LSB CH 38 again, right now. The skip is really extreme in my area right now.

Well, now today I've heard some transmissions from down under at around 12:30pm local time. Apparently my assumption about when I could hear these signals was correct.