Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffhs
That's why I gave up on CB in the early '70s and got into ham radio. Hams are much more organized, civil and everything else compared to the nuts on the Citizens Band. ...
However, I don't think we have much to worry about as far as ten meters being overrun by CB nuts is concerned, since the former is still an amateur band regulated by the FCC. I don't know if they will ever do it, but I think it would be an excellent idea if the FCC returned 27 MHz to the amateur radio service as the 11-meter band, as it was prior to 1958.
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It was around 1975 I played with CB some, and then I "graduated" to ham radio in 1976 (had to take my "tech plus" (back then it was general theory and 5WPM, and no no-code then) at the FCC field office, I had to send as well as copy code, there was a key mounted on a school desk you used in the test). Back then, the FCC was recycling callsigns, and they gave me WA2ISE, which someone in upstate NY had before. Maybe someone at the test room though I'd be a code fan, as I aced the code but barely passed the written (embarrassing for a EE student in college!), and gave me the code friendly callsign (suffix all dits).
Hams do catch stray "freebanders" (wayward CBers) wandering into the bottom of 10 meters, but they leave fairly quickly. One time I overheard some freebanders commenting on that they never hear hams on the air on 10 meters at night, and they thought there was an FCC rule restricting hams to daytime only operation
Though one time, at a sunspot peak, I did manage some one hop DX at 10:30PM, from NJ to Texas.
I don't know if hams would want to try to clean up 11 meters. Most time, there's plenty of room on 10. Probably the only way to end CB is to ban the manufacture and sale of new CB rigs, and eventually activity on 11 would fade away. Take 20 years or more, though...
