CB's were an absolute necessity in '78
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| gus3 Feb 04, 2008 11:35 PM EDT |
Thirty years ago right now, I and my family were stuck in the aftermath of the Great Blizzard of 1978. Lots of infrastructure had failed, including telephone lines. As in any time of crisis, people came together and found ways to help one another get through. I know for a fact that Citizens' Band radio saved many lives, especially the very young and the elderly. With no telephones, CB's were the only way to find out who needed food or medicine, who had lost heat or electricity, and who was available to help those in need. Thanks to several someone's with CB's and a snowmobile, a man in the next county was taken to a railroad crossing, where a freight train picked him up and took him to a university hospital, and life-saving dialysis. Now, thirty years later, many people 'round these parts keep mobile CB's for just such an occasion. Phones may fail, Internet conduits may get cut, but low-power radio can still get the job done, even if it means taking the battery out of your car and hot-wiring the radio to it. Comparing MySpace to CB radio is an unfair comparison. MySpace doesn't make the world safer, and I strongly doubt that MySpace has helped with any search-and-rescue actions. Signed, An aspiring ham operator |
| jacog Feb 05, 2008 3:21 AM EDT |
Me too, but I operate my ham in the privacy of my own home.... errr.... OK, really dismal attempt at humour aside... I agree with you. And "social networking" is just a buzzword, a rapidly passing fad. People have been doing what can be called "social networking" for the past 10000+ years, but hey, someone attached it to another buzzterm like "Web 2.0", and suddenly it's the Hottest New Thing TM. |
| pat Feb 05, 2008 4:35 AM EDT |
What's stopping you gus3? The amateur test question pools are published and the test is easier than it was when I got my license when I was a teenager. |
| dinotrac Feb 05, 2008 5:22 AM EDT |
Do they still require you to know Morse code? |
| jdixon Feb 05, 2008 5:27 AM EDT |
> Do they still require you to know Morse code? Not for a technician's license. There are still code requirements for the higher level licenses. |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 05, 2008 5:33 AM EDT |
> Do they still require you to know Morse code? Yep. Vote Libertarian. But seriously, it does end up that the higher power license holders are the ones with some sense of responsibility and dedication, which is a Good Thing(tm, reg us pat off) even if I disagree with how they are vetted. Does it stop people from getting high-power equipment without the licenses? No, just the ones who aren't smart about it. I, too, carry a CB in the car for "just such emergencies", I had to worry about lightning-grounding my big CB antenna back in the mid 70s too. But I got a computer in 1979 and CBs lost their Gee-Wiz factor real fast. That and having to have the squelch turned up so high that I could only hear people within 100 yards of me because of the level of noise. |
| gus3 Feb 05, 2008 8:07 AM EDT |
Quoting:But I got a computer in 1979 and CBs lost their Gee-Wiz factor real fast.The idea of talking to someone on the other side of the world, in real-time, hearing a real human voice, has returned once again to fascinate me. A classmate's father had his ham license, and when he got his TRS-80 CoCo, it became just another piece of radio equipment. He built his own interface hardware and wrote his own program so he could watch teletype transmissions. |
| pat Feb 05, 2008 10:48 AM EDT |
No Morse code is not required on any class license. http://www.hello-radio.org/whatis.html#six |
| jdixon Feb 05, 2008 11:11 AM EDT |
> No Morse code is not required on any class license. OK, looks like I'm out of date. A quick Google search confirms that the Morse code requirements were dropped in February of last year. Here's a link to an announcement of the change: http://www.eham.net/articles/15803 and here's a link to a PDF of the actual FCC ruling: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocke... |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 05, 2008 12:30 PM EDT |
> OK, looks like I'm out of date. Yep, ditto. Thanks for the updates. I got my "FCC Radio Operators License" back in 1986, so you might say I am out of date with good reason. Of course, that actually has nothing to do with operating radios, but far more to do with being able to fix them. :^) |
| dinotrac Feb 05, 2008 12:59 PM EDT |
So -- is the consensus CB good? If so.... We got us a : C O N V O Y !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| herzeleid Feb 05, 2008 2:49 PM EDT |
OK, sure - you got your convoy - but you got any RADAR LOVE? |
| jdixon Feb 05, 2008 3:15 PM EDT |
> C O N V O Y > RADAR LOVE I though this was all about us saying we wanted a revolution? And there goes another thread down the tubes. Where's Bob when he's needed? :) |
| Bob_Robertson Feb 05, 2008 4:48 PM EDT |
...in the shuffling madness of locomotive breath runs the all time loser headlong to his death oh he feels the pistons scraping steam breaking on his brow old Charly stole the handle and the train it won't stop going no way to slow down... |
| dinotrac Feb 05, 2008 6:52 PM EDT |
I'm sorry, but this is a Bob Seger/Grand Funk Railroad thread. No frikkin' flautist fluff allowed. |
| jdixon Feb 05, 2008 7:32 PM EDT |
> ...this is a Bob Seger/Grand Funk Railroad thread. Well, "It's A Mystery" why people choose Windows over Linux, and Linux appears to be somewhat of a "Stranger in Town", but we'll hope that it someday becomes a "Main Street" OS. However, I think we can definitely say that Linux is "Some Kind of Wonderful". |
| rijelkentaurus Feb 05, 2008 8:04 PM EDT |
And hopefully this post is "The Famous Final Scene" of this thread.... |
| gus3 Feb 05, 2008 9:02 PM EDT |
Yikes, the thread was nearly OT to start with, and then it went... uh, that-a-way I think... |
| tuxchick Feb 05, 2008 9:15 PM EDT |
Chicken truck chicken truck Behind it I'm stuck And chicken truck chicken truck Was just my luck |
| gus3 Feb 05, 2008 9:27 PM EDT |
Should that be a "tuxchicken truck" in your case? |
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