Many years ago I was really into CB and became a qualified Ham Radio operator, I would spend hours fiddling with transceivers and the like, but what I was really good at was making antennas, at one point I had people from all over the country asking me to build them custom antennas, and I loved it.
I then moved from London into Hertfordshire and had my equipment in a box in the loft for years, I then decided to sell it all, BIG MISTAKE, anyway onto the present, I was searching through eBay looking for some components to make a power supply for my workshop when I came across a 5/8th antenna for free, yeah, that's correct for free, the only problem was it was in Ely, that's not a problem, however it was still attached to the ladies chimney, she wanted it gone so free to anyone who could recover it.
That advert then got me thinking, should I buy a radio and have a go at the CB Ham world again, so I did a little research, I have found out that the bands i.e. AM and FM are now available to CBers and B licensed amateurs now have access to HF so effectively becoming A licensed, the difference before was A's had to pass a Morse Code test, so I never bothered with it and settled for a B, however I friend of mine on CB 'The Space Invader" and I would use morse over CB to learn and try out our morse, we would make sure no one else was using that frequency and away we would go, after a while we both became quite proficient in the keying of the code, in fact we were better than some A license holders but we never got around to doing the test, I believe Alan 'The Space Invader' did in fact take his test and was successful some years later.
SO, after a little more research I found the CB in the UK is almost dead, which believe it or not is a good thing, less idiots playing music, and buggering about, that completely ruined it some some of the CBers I used to know. Anyway, I have taken the plunge and purchased 2 transceivers, 1 CB and 1 10 meter band, a really good antenna and some other bits I need to set things up.
So, what am I expecting? I have to be honest and say I don't really know, for the money I have paid it's worth a try, it may light my fire for this interesting hobby again, at one point I talked to a guy in LA every morning on CB, quite an achievement, and that's what it was all about, experimentation, I got a lot from it, my maths became a hell of a lot better, I learnt to build a transceiver from scratch, very useful when electronic equipment fails I can now fix most things, and met a couple of people who are now very good friends, so after 30 years I will soon be back on the air waves, so to speak, question is do I use my Licensed call sign or my old CB handle, should be an interesting few weeks.
So 10:4 good buddies, see you on the flip side? 'What ever that means'.
I then moved from London into Hertfordshire and had my equipment in a box in the loft for years, I then decided to sell it all, BIG MISTAKE, anyway onto the present, I was searching through eBay looking for some components to make a power supply for my workshop when I came across a 5/8th antenna for free, yeah, that's correct for free, the only problem was it was in Ely, that's not a problem, however it was still attached to the ladies chimney, she wanted it gone so free to anyone who could recover it.
That advert then got me thinking, should I buy a radio and have a go at the CB Ham world again, so I did a little research, I have found out that the bands i.e. AM and FM are now available to CBers and B licensed amateurs now have access to HF so effectively becoming A licensed, the difference before was A's had to pass a Morse Code test, so I never bothered with it and settled for a B, however I friend of mine on CB 'The Space Invader" and I would use morse over CB to learn and try out our morse, we would make sure no one else was using that frequency and away we would go, after a while we both became quite proficient in the keying of the code, in fact we were better than some A license holders but we never got around to doing the test, I believe Alan 'The Space Invader' did in fact take his test and was successful some years later.
SO, after a little more research I found the CB in the UK is almost dead, which believe it or not is a good thing, less idiots playing music, and buggering about, that completely ruined it some some of the CBers I used to know. Anyway, I have taken the plunge and purchased 2 transceivers, 1 CB and 1 10 meter band, a really good antenna and some other bits I need to set things up.
So, what am I expecting? I have to be honest and say I don't really know, for the money I have paid it's worth a try, it may light my fire for this interesting hobby again, at one point I talked to a guy in LA every morning on CB, quite an achievement, and that's what it was all about, experimentation, I got a lot from it, my maths became a hell of a lot better, I learnt to build a transceiver from scratch, very useful when electronic equipment fails I can now fix most things, and met a couple of people who are now very good friends, so after 30 years I will soon be back on the air waves, so to speak, question is do I use my Licensed call sign or my old CB handle, should be an interesting few weeks.
So 10:4 good buddies, see you on the flip side? 'What ever that means'.
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