Keep a stiff upper lip, lad! We equate everything as "as it was when we found it". I came online with my first CB, a Panasonic RJ3200, the Christmas before the 40 Channel takeover. In fact it was the 40 channel changeover that allowed us to afford a CB in the first place. Currier's used to cost $300-$500. Then they were $200 or less.
I'm sure if the operators that petitioned the FCC for more channels would have known what they were getting themselves into they would have ditched the effort! Here they ask for more channels to make it less crowded and the FCC in return $Cr3w3d everyone thrice over! They didn't just add some channels, They UNCERTIFIED every 23 channel radio out there! No 23's sold AFTER Jan1st. Thank you very much Uncle Charley! You Bureaucratical Ninny!
Now movies were made, 12" vinyl albums popped up all over the place, Radio Shack was changed forever. You used to look for your car or pickup by looking for the red whip "Firestick". 1978 there's a Firestick on one out of 10 cars in any parking lot. "WHERE's me Flippin Car!" lol The entire retail CB industry had to get rid of as many 23 channels before midnight December 31 as possible. Then came the conversion kits for the ones left behind. But this led to the birth of the $100 CB. Even as low as $25 for a Radio Shack version of a cobra 18. The bottom had dropped out of the market and flooded the airwaves with brats and twits of all ages.
I remember that first summer after the 40's came out. In San Fernando Valley, all the old timers were feeling trapped in a morass of indifference. Let me remember the line up... We had the Channel 5 gang in the east side (Sun Valley to Sylmar). We called it the Arleta Gang, but no one cared where your house lived, Arleta or not. What we know as 6 today was on 7. 9 was still 9. 11 was the teen channel. They were the only ones who read the booklet then, 11 was the call channel, but why go anywhere else, there's no teens anywhere else. 15 was the trucker channel all over the L.A. basin and through the I-15 corridor as far as Las Vegas. North of Las Vegas you switched to 19. The only ones on 19 in L.A. were out of town truckers that didnt know the truckers were on 15 hehe. Then there were 16 upper and 17AM. Both had the same people really, nice older stereotypical folk like Truck Stop waitresses and bowling team captains. (hey, I was 15, I can stereotype if I want to).
The upper SSB channels had clubs on them pretty quick. 40 lower and 38 lower had the Humbugs and I forgot the other one. AMers were unheard of above 23. Those were mostly company channels like Buster Brown uses 26... i think.
Now, What has all this to do with the OP? Okay, I'm narrowing in on that...
When you went over the Grapevine to the north, Old US 99 and I-5 split. In the early to mid 70's the sun spots were at it pretty bad, just like the last few years. you would be talking to people thinking you were following them and you would soon figure out that they were over on the other highway. Smokey reports would become useless real fast lol. California will not use the green mile posts that other states use. You have to look real close. But they are white and go county by county. So the truckers decided to use Ch. 17 for Hwy 99. I remember Ch 23 being used on I-10 through Indio and out to the State line at Blythe. Now 23 seems to be the Spanish channel.
I've seen some sun spot charts and we are going out of a bad cycle. The skip that idiots all over AM are enjoying will be ending in a couple years. When they can't DX with the ease they are finding today, and the fad wears off, they will go away. I hope.
I know that old timers or the next gen of people like me, who have been hanging with the old farts since I was a teen and appreciate channel civility, will be back on channels in good fashion.
The point is, things change. Sometimes they go into hibernation. But as another member pointed out, Radio is a gene. Die Hards will be here to welcome the next wave. Even with the eToys in place, there are some young'nes trying radio out.
Bad times? "This too shall pass".
Hang in there 38er! Unlike the South, 38 will rise again!
