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Author Topic: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?  (Read 9982 times)

Offline R4002

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #15 on: August 07, 2017, 1547 UTC »
Channel 44 as in 27.445 MHz?  Some of the locals around here call refer to one of their out of band / freeband CB channels as Channel 50 - 27.505 MHz (usually followed by "yeah, go to channel 8 and then go up one band" since most people are using export gear with a channel display and a band switch, but no frequency display or frequency counter). 
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Offline Rob.

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #16 on: August 07, 2017, 1602 UTC »
When I was active it was hard to get an export radio. Most everyone had switches to pull up or ground PLL pins. You needed a chart to know what channel you were on. The President Madison I used at home had a purple wire that you could cut on the Ch 9 quick button and that went automatically to 27.445 MHz. That was the reason it became the home channel. All the mobiles in our group were Uniden Grants and had the same feature.

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Offline Josh

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #17 on: August 07, 2017, 1818 UTC »
Most of us in my gang in Omaha around 89 or so ran 148s, modded by a great guy named Lady Chaser. This is steeped in cb kulture lol. Of course, a modulation hack was employed as well, making it grossly distorted but several times more power output. Basically the amc was removed from the circuit. The 148 was/is a cult classic but the 2510 shamed it save for in ssb selectivity. The 2510 is a proper radio, the 148s should be left stock. Nowadays I run a stock radio shack copy of the pc122, with the amc adjusted to just fold back on peak ssb power it does 18w and I'm satisfied with that.
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Offline Rob.

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #18 on: August 08, 2017, 1616 UTC »
I also had several Motorola Mocat CBs that were nice. They weren't strong on modulation but had terrific receivers. No one would believe you when you said you had a Motorola CB.  :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3yYeUZNfM0
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Offline Josh

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #19 on: August 08, 2017, 1741 UTC »
I also had several Motorola Mocat CBs that were nice. They weren't strong on modulation but had terrific receivers. No one would believe you when you said you had a Motorola CB.  :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3yYeUZNfM0

A frond gave me a borked one that had ssb, it was neat looking but I never got it working.
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Offline Rob.

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #20 on: August 08, 2017, 2344 UTC »
I might have one of those in storage... need to go look for it sometime.
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Offline ThaDood

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Deep within the bowels of West Virginia, CB CH 12 is very much a staple where I am locally, (Which is surprising when any skip rolls in, CH 11 has terrible bleed over from those over MOD mud ducks.). Just the next county south of me, CH 35 is active nightly. Some of the coal trucks in the daytime, I hear them on CH 8. And, when the weather gets cooler, there's an on / off group that likes to meet on LSB CH 39 on various evenings regionally around the WV, KY, and OH, tri-state. There seems to be a small group in the Capital area on CH 26. And, with Routes 64, 77, and 79, here with their multitude of wrecks, CB CH 19 is a necessity for sure, with truckers being boots on the ground to 1st bitch about any mess-ups. Certainly a reason for me to keep a CB in my truck, fo' sure. Oh... And I've heard various, weak, traffic on CH 2. albeit, I don't know where they're coming from. So, very busy CB-wise in WV.
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Offline Pigmeat

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #22 on: August 11, 2017, 0416 UTC »
Back in the 70's and 80's when weed growing here was on a huge scale, the growers would head out to set on their patches around this time of year until harvest in late Sept./early Oct. They all communicated via CB. There weren't that many people living out that way then, and nearly all the growers were locals. You might not know where they were, but everyone knew who they were by their voices, it was comical to listen to.

Local sheriffs and judges are elected, and the economy had turned to crap in the late 70's. The law wasn't about to go out and track ol' Bub down, who was simply trying to provide for his family, and risk pissing off the couple of hundred people he was related to or friends with. Those votes could swing a tight election in a lightly populated county where those growers were one of the main yearly infusions of hard cash. The only growers that got nabbed regularly were what was left of the commune types who'd arrived from out of state in the late 60's and 70's.

Offline MDK2

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #23 on: August 11, 2017, 1414 UTC »
Back in the 70's and 80's when weed growing here was on a huge scale, the growers would head out to set on their patches around this time of year until harvest in late Sept./early Oct. They all communicated via CB. There weren't that many people living out that way then, and nearly all the growers were locals. You might not know where they were, but everyone knew who they were by their voices, it was comical to listen to.

Local sheriffs and judges are elected, and the economy had turned to crap in the late 70's. The law wasn't about to go out and track ol' Bub down, who was simply trying to provide for his family, and risk pissing off the couple of hundred people he was related to or friends with. Those votes could swing a tight election in a lightly populated county where those growers were one of the main yearly infusions of hard cash. The only growers that got nabbed regularly were what was left of the commune types who'd arrived from out of state in the late 60's and 70's.

Minus the radio communication portion, this story reminds me of what Larry Livermore, the founder of Lookout! Records (the East Bay punk label that issued the first releases from Operation Ivy, Green Day, and The Donnas, among others) said about his time in some forested part of northern California in the late 70s/early 80s. The Lookout! name was first used for a zine he self-published while living there, named after a fire lookout tower. Among other topics, he wrote about the rather open secret of MJ growing in the area, which apparently formed a significant part of the local economy. Apparently a bunch of the growers showed up on his door and "suggested" that he not write about that anymore. He would soon relocate to Berkeley, get involved with the then-brand-new Gilman Street Project (an all ages punk club where the aforementioned bands, among others, would first make their mark), start his label, and eventually make rock history.

Anyway, the point is that it's funny how open some of this stuff was. When I was in Seattle in the late 90s, a very large grow operation was discovered on the grounds of Lake Sammamish State Park, just east of town. It had obviously been there for years, and had covered escape routes that may well have been utilized when the cops stumbled upon it - nobody was ever arrested. But it covered a few acres and was apparently just right there for anyone to see if they went just a bit off trail.
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Offline skeezix

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #24 on: September 03, 2017, 1608 UTC »
Went to the MN Renaissance Festival yesterday which is located right next to a gravel pit. On the way in to parking, went by some of the gravel pit things and there was sign that said "Channel 25 on CB" on a side road next to a little shed.

This will be tough to confirm since they're about 20 miles from me and probably only run during the business day.
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Offline R4002

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #25 on: September 03, 2017, 1754 UTC »
Back in the 70's and 80's when weed growing here was on a huge scale, the growers would head out to set on their patches around this time of year until harvest in late Sept./early Oct. They all communicated via CB. There weren't that many people living out that way then, and nearly all the growers were locals. You might not know where they were, but everyone knew who they were by their voices, it was comical to listen to.

Local sheriffs and judges are elected, and the economy had turned to crap in the late 70's. The law wasn't about to go out and track ol' Bub down, who was simply trying to provide for his family, and risk pissing off the couple of hundred people he was related to or friends with. Those votes could swing a tight election in a lightly populated county where those growers were one of the main yearly infusions of hard cash. The only growers that got nabbed regularly were what was left of the commune types who'd arrived from out of state in the late 60's and 70's.

Awesome post Pigmeat.  I can confirm that, at least in the city I reside in, there are some drug dealers using FRS and GMRS radios to communicate with lookouts, etc. Myself and other listeners here have logged dealers talking to runners on 462.725 MHz [FRS / GMRS channel 22 in most radios]. Logical progression from 27 MHz CB to UHF FRS/GMRS.  Wouldn't surprise me if this was the case today where growers still operate.  

skeezix, was that sign you mentioned for coordinating dropoffs for the MN Renaissance Festival?  Sounds to me like a "guard shack" type deal where the truckers switch to a certain channel to communicate with whoever is in charge of coordinating movement in the freight yard.  Locally, there's a yard that uses CB channel 7 - 27.035 MHz for those purposes.  It has also been heard on various VHF business band frequencies, but that seems to be for yard workers only, not for the truckers themselves, who stick to CB (and frequencies available to them with 10 meter export radios) only.  
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Offline skeezix

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #26 on: September 04, 2017, 2151 UTC »
Awesome post Pigmeat.  I can confirm that, at least in the city I reside in, there are some drug dealers using FRS and GMRS radios to communicate with lookouts, etc. Myself and other listeners here have logged dealers talking to runners on 462.725 MHz [FRS / GMRS channel 22 in most radios]. Logical progression from 27 MHz CB to UHF FRS/GMRS.  Wouldn't surprise me if this was the case today where growers still operate.  

I have yet to hear any of that here on CB/GMRS/FRS. I'm guessing around here they use cell phones.


skeezix, was that sign you mentioned for coordinating dropoffs for the MN Renaissance Festival?  Sounds to me like a "guard shack" type deal where the truckers switch to a certain channel to communicate with whoever is in charge of coordinating movement in the freight yard.  Locally, there's a yard that uses CB channel 7 - 27.035 MHz for those purposes.  It has also been heard on various VHF business band frequencies, but that seems to be for yard workers only, not for the truckers themselves, who stick to CB (and frequencies available to them with 10 meter export radios) only.  

The sign was indeed for the trucks in the gravel pit for doing whatever it is they do in there. It wasn't for the shuttles for the RennFest. In the RennFest, the workers had UHF radios. I didn't have scanner with, plus, I was busy trying to not live in the real world for a few hours.  ;D

There's a major downtown Mpls street under construction (Nicollet Mall, for those that care) and some of the contractors have a couple of CB antennas on top. They don't look phased since they're only a couple of feet apart. Don't know if they use them while downtown, or if they use them on their other jobs.


IIRC, the sign at the gravel pit should be right here.  (or at least somewhere in this side thing)
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Offline R4002

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Re: Does your area still have CB "home channels" or "town channels"?
« Reply #27 on: September 05, 2017, 1546 UTC »
Looking at the Google Street View for that location, I see a trailer with a vertical CB antenna mounted on it, no sign relating to CB channels can be seen though.

The construction guys probably use CB for truck-to-truck communications and general banter...that, or they're used for other purposes.  CB is the thing that all the different contractors (who may or may not use VHF or UHF business radios) have in common.  The highway assistance trucks in my state all have CB antennas on them (in addition to VHF low band, VHF high band, and UHF and/or those RadioShack scanner antennas with two loading coils) to listen to truckers on channel 19.  I've heard several conversations on the state DOT VHF low band system relating to something like "what are the truckers talking about on the CB?" during snowstorms. 
« Last Edit: September 05, 2017, 1548 UTC by R4002 »
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