Thanks IG. I looked up the 3 channel CB radio (portable) that I had as a kid. Love the fact that I spent 20 minutes looking up something that I spent months saving up for.
Lots of re-living my childhood.
Ax25
CB radio ... one more thing killed by computers and the Internet. :(
Yes, a whopping 3 channel one as I remember. Had to buy crystal pairs for each channel (transmit and receive).
I think the cell phone killed the CB radio. The Internet reduced the popularity of ham radio. When I was in Florida I would hear commercials trying to get people interested in HAM radio. They focused on trying to convince the public they would be heroes during an emergency.
worth having one in the truck. Almost.
I ditched my last CB in 1997 -- traded in the car and didn't bother to uninstall it. In the early 1990's I had grand plans to come up with a packet radio setup that ran over CB frequencies. Heh. Funny stuff.
Of course, most of us who were *children* in the 1970's were stuck with the cheaper Radio Shack HT's that ran on 48.86 MHz and didn't even have a squelch control, so you had to listen to constant white noise when no one was transmitting.
I wonder how many people actually bothered to learn Morse Code from that scene. I didn't.
My childhood walkie-talkies had a Morse code diagram and key on the front. We just thought it was better to talk because we could never figure out what the other was tapping.
One year I got my brother-in-law an external speaker for his CB radio. He thought that was great, he was always shouting at people on the road.
-- found on a web site selling beds with integrated storage
if you wanna have a look at my town: (requires flash)
http://www.oopper.de/gigapixel/gigapixel-koeln-p040.php
the camera is most probably somewhere around here:
and is pointing to the west across the rhine.
Packet works over CB, just not here. Stupid FCC. Big in Europe - ha.
Here is a cute video of a guy doing 1200 baud packet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFu71XeM998
Packet is still alive here in the US of A. It is used more for APRS (think GPS + Packet Radio). It is still used be a few Luddites like me as well.
Ax25
When the government decides it must shut down the internet for our own good, this might be the best way to communicate.
The FCC is picky about the "what" is transmitted. Data tones are different from voice in the opinion of the FCC. They call them emission types. Heh, heh..
Feb 2 2012 6:15pm from ax25
Subject: Re: fcc
The FCC is picky about the "what" is transmitted. Data tones are
different from voice in the opinion of the FCC. They call them
emission types. Heh, heh..
I'm making a wild guess here, because I don't know the frequencies or channel bandwidths for CB, nor the frequency spreads for packet radio signals, but perhaps the FCC is concerned that packet radio signals might use more bandwidth than a single CB radio channel is allocated. If the signal bandwidth is more than the bandwidth for the channel plus the guard-bands, it would interfere with adjacent channels. If I remember correctly, there's at least one CB channel reserved for emergency use. It would definitely be bad to interfere with that.
Bandwidth Binder
Fri Feb 03 2012 02:40:03 PM EST from Spell Binder Subject: Re: fcc
I'm making a wild guess here, because I don't know the frequencies or channel bandwidths for CB, nor the frequency spreads for packet radio signals, but perhaps the FCC is concerned that packet radio signals might use more bandwidth than a single CB radio channel is allocated. If the signal bandwidth is more than the bandwidth for the channel plus the guard-bands, it would interfere with adjacent channels. If I remember correctly, there's at least one CB channel reserved for emergency use. It would definitely be bad to interfere with that.
Bandwidth Binder
That might be the objection. I never followed any petition to get F2D emissions allowed on 11m. It is easy to get a ham license these days as there is no code requirement right up to a general license.