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« on: December 30, 2011, 0428 UTC »
You can work guys right down to about 26.000, and right up to the ham band at 28.000. From about 26.000 to about 26.500 it's SSB and generally pretty civilized. From about 26.500 to ch.01 on 26.965 it's generally AM and can be pretty embarrassing. The CB HF band starts at ch.40 on 27.405 and can have some classy operators but that's rare.
I got started DXing CB in the mid 1970's. Worked a TON of great DX on the 23 normal channels, AM, four watts. People were great. I still have several hundred QSL's and letters from then. By the mid '80's CB had gotten pretty trashy. You had to get WAY off the beaten path to work good ops. I remember there was a call channel on 26.200. I used to hang out there and work the world. I remember some guys had some BIG amps. A couple thousand watts was common. The biggest I ever heard of for a fact (and NOT urban legend) was 80kw. Yes, eighty THOUSAND watts. I imagine there were bigger ones out there.
Then I got my ham ticket. It's a cool hobby, and I like it, but it's no better then what I call "the glory days" of CBing in the '70's.