Don’t you ever wish that you could talk to the drivers in the vehicles in the immediate area? Maybe you want to warn them about a speed trap, tell them about a danger on the road, or just have a voice to talk to during a lonely solo road trip. The technology to do this has existed for the better part of a century, but nowadays it is largely relegated to a niche. The Citizens Band radio revolutionized communications. Now, I’m willing to bet that some of our youngest readers have never even heard of this before.
Back when I was a kid, we “youngins” had a fun way to pass the time on a long trip. We’d grab the microphones of the Citizens Band (CB) radios in our parents’ vehicles and blast out our little squeaky voices into the airwaves. Usually, the recipients of our shenanigans would be truck drivers, and they were often happy to join in on the banter. Sometimes, we kids didn’t even have to say anything, and we just listened to truckers talking to each other. We’d learn some trucker slang and maybe even a few creative swear words along the way.
The CB radio seemed like a device that every car should have had. These were the days before the smartphone, so you didn’t have Google Maps or Waze to warn you about speed traps and hazards. But you did have a friendly voice crackling through your speaker, warning you of a crash ahead. Full dresser touring motorcycles even had CB radios, opening up a whole world of communications decades before helmet comms became a thing.
Despite this, the CB radio has fallen into obscurity. I cannot think of a single new consumer car or truck sold in America that even has the option to be equipped with a CB radio from the factory. I’ve even noticed that the used cars that I buy have fewer and fewer CB radios than before. I have a CB radio in my garage at home, but the only time I ever mount it into a vehicle is when I’m going on a Gambler 500 rally to communicate with other vehicles. By the way, if you have a Gambler 500 rally happening in your town and you have a CB radio, tune to channel 7 and enjoy the chatter.
Anyway, what happened? How did this once revolutionary technology fall by the wayside?
Airwaves For All
The brief nationwide fame and continued use of the Citizens Band radio happened only because of one Irving “Al” Gross. He was born in 1918, and he wasn’t even 10 years old before becoming obsessed with radios.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lemelson-MIT Program explains how Gross made his mark so early in life:
It began in 1927, when Gross was just nine years old, traveling aboard a Great Lakes steamer with his family. While exploring the ship, he came upon the radio operator’s cabin and was immediately intrigued by the radio equipment and crackling noises of the telegraph signals. Gross became hooked on wireless communications, which he foresaw as a vehicle for personal communications.
By 1938, Gross had developed and tested a small portable high-frequency radio with two-way communications features. Gross’s device, which he dubbed a “walkie-talkie,” caught the attention of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (now the Central Intelligence Agency), which recruited him to develop a two-way, air-to-ground radio system for covert use by troops behind enemy lines. These mobile “walkie-talkies” made it possible for the military to conduct a high level of surveillance throughout World War II.
After the war, he set up Gross Electronics Inc. to make 11-ounce walkie-talkie sets for private use. Gross continued to invent mobile personal communications devices, securing 12 patents and developing the discriminatory circuitry that made possible personal pocket paging systems as well as the forerunner of the cell phone and cordless phone.
It’s because of these advancements that Gross is often called the “founding father” of wireless communications.
After World War II, the Federal Communications Commission allocated a set of radio frequencies for public and personal use. Gross was at the forefront of what would become known as the Citizens Band radio, which operated on the Citizens Band Radio Service. Gross started the Citizens Radio Corporation in the late 1940s to develop smaller portable radios.
Early CB radios operated on the 460–470 MHz UHF band, but on September 11, 1958, the FCC created Class D, which designated 23 channels on 27 MHz for use by CB radio operators. Later, as CB radio gained traction, this was expanded to 40 channels across 26.965 to 27.405 MHz.
CB radio was a revolutionary invention. Now, just about anyone could have easy communication with someone else, usually situated no more than a few miles away. Despite that, CB radio didn’t exactly catch on at first. As Ellis County React Emergency Radio Communications writes, the Citizens Radio Corporation sold over 100,000 radios in the early days, mostly to farmers and the Coast Guard. Other buyers of CB radios included enthusiasts looking for an alternative to traditional amateur radio. By the 1960s, a large number of tradesmen and truckers had also adopted CB radios for short-range communications.
The ascension of CB radio was hampered in its early years by the high cost of radio equipment and the relatively low range of early units. CB radio operators also needed to have a license in the early days, though that’s not the case anymore.
Trucking And A Little Rebellion
The meteoric rise of the CB radio happened in the 1970s, and most of what made CB popular actually had nothing to do with the radio format itself.
The 1970s often come up in discussions about major forks in automotive history. By now, just about every car enthusiast can tell you that the United States was hammered by multiple oil crises in the decade in addition to fuel shortages, changing emissions regulations, and what we now call the ‘Malaise Era.’ But it wasn’t all emissions equipment-choked V8s, goofy [Editor’s Note: But effective! – JT] bumpers, and aggressive downsizing. America was also going through a deep trough thanks to a weakened economy, double-digit unemployment, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal. You couldn’t even drive fast because of the then-new nationwide 55 mile per hour speed limit. Two nickels, that’s all you got.
As KRCU Public Radio writes, there were two major catalysts to the rise of the CB radio’s popularity. The first was that the advancement of solid-state electronics technology made CB radios much smaller and cheaper. Major retailers began slinging them to anyone willing to buy one. Soon, you were able to buy portable CB radios from RadioShack and walkie-talkie-style CB radios from Sears.
The second catalyst was the trucking industry. During the fuel crisis, truckers used CB radios to inform each other about where they could find stations that both had fuel and weren’t charging a fortune for it.
Then came the anti-authority twist. Understandably, trust in the government was low and the CB radio was used as a small form of rebellion. CB radio was controlled by the people, and it could be used against the government. Truckers informed any motorist they could about the presence of the Smokey Bear, or a state trooper, to save people from getting tickets. In case you’re curious, the reason why state troopers were called Bears was because their hats resembled the hat worn by the famed bear that tries to convince people to stop setting forests on fire.
In a way, CB radios became a part of what was then America’s counterculture movement, and the truckers who protected drivers on the road became legends. Suddenly, more people wanted in on this sensation, and a whole community and language were formed around the CB radio.
Everyone had a seemingly nonsensical CB radio alias (or “handle”) and an entire code was spoken over the airwaves. As KRCU Public Radio notes, you might have even heard someone saying that “There’s a Kojak with a Kodak at 111.” That’s a reference to Kojak, the police drama, and what would have been Exit 111 on that highway. It’s code to watch out for a speed trap in that area.
America’s CB radio fever pitch hit its peak after the 1975 hit ‘Convoy‘ by C.W. McCall. Pop culture ran with the CB radio fad and soon, Americans would find CB radios in the pages of magazines and books. Those sitting down in front of a screen got to see radios getting heavy use in The Dukes of Hazzard and Smokey and the Bandit. KRCU Public Radio notes that people even bought graphic tees with trucker CB radio lingo on them. The 1970s were a period when truckers were often seen as heroes, and that amplified the popularity of CB radio even more.
The radio station further notes that, along with the pop culture, Americans used CB radio to find connections with like-minded people to help them get through the rough 1970s. Everyone of all races, creeds, genders, religious identities, sexual identities, and more found some sort of home in CB radio communities. Remember, there was no Facebook or Instagram back then. So, if you wanted to share your day, you did it by physically someone, often on your CB radio. CB became so popular that it became a factory option in cars.
The Fall Of The Citizens Band
If this was so great, what happened? As Photojournalist Scott Loftesness writes, what made CB radio so great was also its downfall. CB radios got so cheap that anyone could afford them, and while there was CB radio etiquette, there really wasn’t anything enforcing it.
Some 25 million CB radios were sold between 1974 and 1977 alone. CB radios were so popular that they were a huge profit driver at electronics shops like RadioShack. Put that number against America’s population back then and you’ll realize that about 20 percent of the nation’s adults owned a CB radio. Eventually, this led to the airwaves being choked up by everyone talking at once and stepping on each other.
The CB radio also fell to the same kind of unfortunate circumstance that happens to almost anything that gets “too” popular. It attracted people who ruined the fun by spewing hate and profanity over the airwaves. There was nothing really stopping these people from being awful human beings, either, so if you listened to a CB radio in the late 1970s there was a chance you’d be blasted by hard racism or worse.
[Editor’s Note: Sounds kind of like another very public communications network I can think of. – JT]
Other people ran afoul of CB radio rules. As the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1983, the FCC had to deal with CB radio operators boosting transmitters’ power over the 5-watt limit. Others got their radios to operate outside of the Citizens Band. Both issues resulted in interference with devices outside of the Citizens Band. The FCC still required people to have CB radio licenses during this time, and found that countless people operating CBs in cars and trucks just didn’t have licenses.
A decline in CB radio usage followed. Casual users found the radios just not fun to use anymore. Meanwhile, the FCC faced budget cuts, which led to the end of the CB radio licensing system. As the 1970s became the 1980s, the CB radio trend began fading away, with only certain groups continuing to use them, including truckers and emergency services.
As for everyone else, they had largely moved on, especially as the cellular phone rose in popularity. I still have a Cobra CB radio gathering dust in my garage, only dusted off for Gambler 500 rallies. Be sure to check out this RadioShack ad before you go:
Thankfully, CB radio never truly died. Hobbyists and many truckers still use them, and as I noted earlier, you’ll still find CB radios heavily used in motorsport. You can still buy them for dirt-cheap in big box stores and online. But CB radio will likely remain a niche forever.
It’s a shame that such an important technological development has been relegated to such uses, but that’s the march of time.
The days of people in random two cars shooting trucker lingo at each other are largely gone, but you can still have fun with CB radios. The next time you take a road trip with a bunch of friends, forget the smartphones. Hook up some CB radios and chat with each other the old-school way.
Hat tip to Andrew Martin!
The Bandit and the Rubber Duck didn’t need the internet to go viral in their respective movies – they went viral over CB radio. Truckers and other CB enthusiasts also had “usernames” decades before the rest of the world.
Pirate radio here. 50 pounds of aluminum antenna on roof of house, high power vacuum tube X-ray emitting military transmitters. Voted as best signal into Great Britain, sounded like WBBM. Neighbors hated me, heard me resonating through their toasters
Weird flex.
Yep, furnaces too.
Both my GL1500s (a brown ’88, and a teal ’94) have factory CB radios. Sadly, there’s no one to talk with…
“…if you listened to a CB radio in the late 1970s there was a chance you’d be blasted by hard racism or worse.”
Still happens! I have an in car UHF radio (slightly different technology in Australia but same use case as 27MHz CB) that I occasionally turn on at night for entertainment if I’m bored. Sometimes you hear stoners and drunks having amusing conversations with each other. Sometimes you hear conspiracy theories. But sometimes you just hear a nutter going on a racist or homophobic tirade lasting hours. Often they’re using a more powerful radio than the 5w limit so they can be heard over the whole city, effectively making that channel unusable. It’s then that I switch it off, and turn back on the normal radio.
I only remember one family trip when we actually used CBs to coordinate between vehicles, but my dad being a trucker meant he always had folks to talk to locally. Whether he was in his log truck or his pickup, if he got on channel 22, he knew everybody. When I was pretty young, he didn’t hang out on that channel when I was in the vehicle, because it turns out truckers can be crude, but he’d always hop on for a minute when he saw a truck he knew. Which felt like every truck.
My friends and I often used CB radios in our bedrooms, much the same way kids today connect via internet. A short whip antenna could get you about 5 miles which kept our “local gang” privately connected and didn’t tie up the family landline.
My old man got into CB when I was in high school. Had one in his truck and a big base station thing in the house, with a massive fiberglass antenna on the roof. He had a ball talking to people, and when the atmospheric conditions were right you could “skip” hundreds of miles. He put one in my first car, an ’82 Subaru. Though the real fun was that it also had a PA output, and of course I bought a PA speaker from Radio Shack (speaking of blasts from the past) – many college hijinks ensued from that speaker.
The end of his home CB was a thunderstorm that blew the home antenna into fiberglass fluff all over the yard and cooked about 75% of the electronics in the house, including the base station radio. And I can confirm that by the late 80s the airwaves were basically a cesspool.
CB radios turn up at garage sales and thrift stores, my son has a bunch of emergency use sets that come in a case with a magnetic antenna and run off a lighter plug. I have a Midland one in my car as a JIC in areas with bad cell reception.
I also have a Baofeng hand held radio, and a Ham license that I should use more.
There is a fairly large and seemling growing hobbiest community around the cheap Chinese sdr and handheld two way radios along with meshtastic. Even alternative firmware to unlock and add features. I can remember my dad and grandfather using cbs to communicate with each other on trips in the mid 80s to mid 90s. They started getting more background noise were they weren’t useable after that. I have some baofengs I use at my farm to communicate around they work fairly well and are programmable
And it merits mention, not even remotely legal. It’s fine if folks want to break the law, but they should at least know they’re doing it.
*I also use an illegal unlocked Chinese HT. I opened up the commercial bands because I wanted to not have to swap out my gear when listening to my paragliding instructor. He has to be on commercial because ham is strictly amateur. So the use is all in line, but my radio isn’t part 90 certified so technically illegal. KM6TCA.
Depends what you are doing I keep mine in the stock range and power. You can normally block out transmitting on ham and commercial bands too. Radio shack used to sell monitors for that kind of thing. May not be 100% certificated and in grey area but good luck catching something not transmitting even if they were looking.
♫♪ “Happy Birthday Mr. President” ♫
CBs rocked. Several friends of mine each had one, it was something of a phase my senior year of high school. We’d go out and play a sort of adhoc hide and seek/cat and mouse game in our cars finding odd places to park and dropping hints waiting to see if anyone could find out where a particular person was hiding. Occasionally it would turn into a car chase. The rules always changed and the points didn’t matter, but it was a lot of fun.
I had a “stealth” setup in my ’81 Cougar. The CB itself was pretty run-of-the-mill, but had a custom antenna that looked just like the factory FM one coming out of the front fender, except had a splitter so I could run my regular radio as well. The range wasn’t as good at first until I had Red’s CB over in Cedar Falls trim/test/trim it some more. This brought the range up almost to the same level as one friend flying a big “whip” out the back of his truck.
Meanwhile, in Australia, there’s barely a farm, commercial or government vehicle (the latter of which in NSW also have their own statewide trunked radio network) outside the capital cities that’s not sporting a UHF radio from GME, Oricom or Uniden for vehicle to vehicle or vehicle to base comms. Our household alone runs three GME 5 watt handhelds. Technically, they don’t use the old Citizen Band frequencies – mostly because of poor signal quality and interference towards the end of its life. They’ve gone further up the spectrum. But otherwise it’s still much the same…
Came to say the same, I reckon if anything UHF radio is growing in popularity since COVID has got more people into 4WDing and caravanning.
Fun little story. Ended up chatting with some guy at a bar in Gainesville this past March who was an organizer for some CB hobbyist groups that worked with first responders. Overall interesting dude to talk to, big fan of science history books.
The 11-year sunspot cycle peak in the late 70s also likely had an impact on driving people away from CBs, as the numbers of people ‘shooting skip’ pretty well blotted out anybody trying to communicate over short distances back then. There are still some folk out there using 27 MHz frequencies for DXing/’shooting skip’ even now. I still have a couple CBs around, but if I’m going to listen there, I’ll dial down on one of the amateur radio transceivers here.
Sun is glorious right now at the peak of the cycle. The view in hydrogen alpha light is amazing and I observe it every somewhat clear day
Absolutely! Radio propagation has been pretty spectacular, except for that CME that blasted us in the last few days. Of course, couldn’t see any of the resultant auroras in the midwest US due to Canadian wildfire smoke.
I interviewed for what became my first job out of college in the spring of 1990. My soon-to-be boss took me to lunch in a Lincoln Town Car that was no more than 2-3 years old, so late 80s. It had a factory Ford CB radio, with buttons and labels fully integrated with the design of the rest of the cabin. Hadn’t seen one that integrated before, haven’t seen one since.
That’s very late for that option, but, not that surprising, I remember the brochure that came with my ’84 Town Car showed an 8-track stereo as being available, when those were pretty well obsolete by the mid ’80s.
In that case, it did have a while stock lasts disclaimer, so they were using up inventory
Had a Craig PowerPlay 8 track with a six band equalizer in my first car, yeah I’m old.
If I am not mistaken, the Corvette had a CB radio option in the mid ‘70’s.
You could spec a factory AM/FM/CB radio on any number of GM and Ford cars in the 70s, including Corvettes and Mark Vs.
All of the Big Three automakers had an integrated AM/FM/CB radio as an expensive option back then.
I can’t think of a single car that was equipped with anything from the factory to run a CB. All the radios came with a bracket or two for universal mounting, and a red power line with an inline fuse and a ground. There was always power under the dash for hook-ups. Routing the antenna line was the bigger problem.
As I recall, my mom had a magnetic roof antenna. We would just run the cable to the head unit through an open door and it would just squish through the weather stripping. We only used the thing for multi-car, extended-family road trips, which weren’t that common. Otherwise, she just kept it in the car for emergencies.
My father had a 1978 Chrysler Cordoba, with an owner’s manual shared between it, the LeBaron, the Newport, and New Yorker. There was an added manual that talked about the factory-installed CB radio you could order with these cars, and while I can’t find that actual manual online, I found a brochure for the ’78 Cordoba that shows a photo of the CB radio.
https://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chrysler_and_Imperial/1978_Chrysler/1978_Chrysler_Cordoba_Brochure/dirindex.html
The Radio Shack TRC-452 in the F-100 is the same radio I used to have. When I bought my truck about 4 years ago, I decided in needed a CB and found one on Facebook for maybe $20. I bought an antenna and hooked it all up and… dead silence. No radio traffic whatsoever, on any channel. I resold the radio for $20.
When I went off to college in 1994 dad gave me his old CB radio in case of a road emergency. I guess AAA was too expensive? Never once used it.
We didn’t really have fuel shortages in our area during that era so it was mostly for pointing out where the Smokies were once the 55mph mandate was enacted. My Uncle was the literal traveling salesman and the speed drop made his days longer. So yeah he was an early adopter. My dad jumped on board when it was time for him to move from the NE to the PNW for a new job. He chose the longest whip on offer at the local Radio Shack and was the Silver Streak. When he came back the radio came with him, but not the antenna and was installed in the new family truckster, with a new antenna. It stayed there since that was the road trip vehicle.
Did your uncle own one of these handy-dandy dashboard hotdogs cookers that Torch reported on a while back?
https://www.theautopian.com/its-a-crime-that-modern-in-car-hot-dog-sizzling-solutions-are-not-more-common/comment-page-1/
Man, I remember the early 80’s RadioShack catalogs I’d obsess over and the pages of CB units and all manner of comically-large “whip” antennae.
That would be antennas.
Creatures have antennae.
People own antennas.
Aw, let a guy have some fun every now and then :-). Thanks to Tom Lehrer, I also refer to more than one stadium as “stadiaaaaaa” (Into to Fight Fiercely, Harvard, live intro, 1960)
I recommend Yankovic’s Go Sports as a spiritual successor.
Stadia seems appropriate!
I only fairly recently heard Lehrer’s Werner Von Braun.
May be his best work, and still topical.
They’ve rapidly fallen out of favor with off-roaders, too. My local 4WD club is now using GMRS – the only ones on CBs are those who haven’t’ uninstalled them yet. GMRS is much more convenient – these little “blister pack” radios do just fine for trail rides, and they are so much cheaper than a CB setup. I love CB whip antennas but I love saving money and not having to wire something up more.
Yes – all of this. Same experience here in my off-road group. Also my canyon carving buddies as well. GMRS is too easy and accessible to want anything else.
Do they use GMRS or FRS? I assumed FRS, but am not involved enough in off-roading to know what people are up to.
A lot of folks buy radios that allow access to the FRS bands, or have found workarounds for the newer radios that have the FRS bands locked out, but use GMRS so they can use the dramatically higher wattage it provides and then will switch to FRS if anyone starts asking about licenses. There are certainly folks that have GMRS licenses, but in my experience it is but a fraction of the folks who use GMRS radios.
That answers my question. I figured the license requirement would push most people to FRS, but I forgot about just ignoring the license requirement.
FRS and GMRS are effectively the same thing. All the FRS bands are available on a GMRS radio, although there are some GMRS bands FRS can’t use. The biggest difference is the power TX limit is much higher on GMRS.
Mostly GMRS, a few of the guys who are really into the radio hobby use FRS. I’m up in Canada though so we’re really just limited to those little blister-pack motorollas anyways.
I came here to say that I still have a CB radio in my Jeep…but never use it because the local clubs almost all use GMRS. Folks still roll with CBs, but it is mostly folks like me who have had CB radios since the days when they were still in vogue. Talk to anyone under 35 and they are 100% GMRS. Now, whether everyone is actually licensed for their GMRS radios is a question everyone knows better than to ask…
Before interference got so bad, CB was very effective.
Clear signal over 100 miles wasn’t rare with basic setup.
First one I saw was in an Abarth.
I have gmrs with all the side channels which are most useful.
Some brands don’t talk to other brands well though.
Most of my friends moved to two meter to make phone calls with before mobiles.
CBs were useful traveling, and faster than tow service.
I waited ten hours for AAA a week ago.
No quick fix was going to help this time though.
I still have cbs though.
A couple of classical reproductions of the 70s style, new and very high quality, and a survivor in a truckers bag with enough equipment I can barely carry it.
AAA are becoming useless for most road emergencies. I had a flat and no spare. Sitting on the side of the freeway, calling was discouraged, but you could use the website to order road service. It appears that AAA are the low rent payers for service. The providers will take any other, better paying, calls before they get to you. I had the same wait time 1899 miles from home with the doors locked on my brother’s idling Buick. We tried several techniques before we got the door unlocked. As we were winding up and collecting the dog from inside car when the tow truck showed up.
A few years ago, the drivers were getting under $20 for a basic call, after the company’s cut.
The long distance coverage with AAA is handy when you need it.
The driver was transporting a perfectly running rental car with a flat 200 miles to a major rental point, as the rental people won’t allow renters to change a tire, OR wrecker drivers either.
I think the renters were so mad they ditched the rental car and flew instead of touring the country.
He actually drove past me another 100 miles, then back.
He was a bit shocked to find out I was close to home.
That long haul with the rental car was pretty lucrative, so can’t complain, but if the driver knew how short my trip was, might have stopped and done that.
My road is fairly narrow and rural.
You rarely see delivery vans at all and only parked in the road.
Yesterday a big FedEx van with long overhang at the back pulled up a steep driveway somehow, and hung the bumper up backing straight out and hitting the roadway.
A big flatbed was trying to sort them out.
I don’t even try to get those vans to go up my drive!
Did anyone else notice very attractive women seem to be using CB radios all alone in those advertisements?
I’ve met countless attractive women from CB radio communication – they’re simply reflecting reality in their ads.
It used to happen.
A friend’s sister met her husband over CB radio chats outside Belfast in the 70s, to show the global reach they once had.
looks like Rene Russo to me!
But what about vehicle-to-attractive-pedestrian communications? Esp. about future rides? Do we know when those fell off??
This is the hard hitting automotive journalism we need!
Wasn’t that what Mr. Microphone was for? https://youtu.be/EjMR6M-nXlQ?si=-tJnTh9rb9IQMdAu
I remember owning a little black plastic flip sign that you could hold up to display a variety of messages. I had a convertible, which made it effective. It was called Paddle Talk… could not find a good link for it but you can search it.
My first car had a CB with the PA function. Not something college freshman should be allowed anywhere near on or around campus. 🙂
In the late 80s/early 90s, when I was a hooligan, there was a group of kids that strapped massive CB antennas to their random cars and spent their time communicating with CB radios. I’d sell them, uh, stuff, on occasion.
I still have Dad’s old handheld CB radio in the garage for the apocalypse.
I still see kids slapping huge waving antenna on the tops of their modded cars today, not many of them though and I doubt they have CB radios.
How about a Times-Square-style circular ticker on top of a car that everyone can read whenever you tell Siri or Alexa to post it? “hey, you in the blue corolla: stop looking at your phone!!”
I believe it the Dean Martin character Matt Helm who had a car with a ticker on the back.
There have been digital license plate frames for messaging.
One trick NYC system would scroll
THIS CAR IS STOLEN over and over if you took it.
My brother has one in the back window of his Altima. 😉