Randomly finding an old ham buddy on the CB

[FPR1981]

After wiring a microphone for my newly-acquired President HR2510 last night, I was beaming with excitement. I took it to channel 19 and hollered for a radio check. A loud voice responds, lighting up all the bars of my digital S-meter and declares, "It sounds perfect! Do not touch a thing!"

I thanked them and told them I was just testing out an HR2510 for the first time.

"That's a great radio right there!" they replied.

As the conversation continued, the person proceeds to tell me they're a ham, but they sold a lot of their gear and just enjoy going back to their roots on the CB. I asked how long he'd be into radio, and he explained that he got his first CB in 1976.

This storyline was starting to sound familiar, and so was the voice.

I asked where they were. They explained to me that they were mobile, in the parking lot of a pizza joint about one mile away, using only a Uniden Bearcat 880 SSB and a Little Wil magnet mount.

The signal was booming, and the audio was loud and rich.

I explained that I was into CB radio for many years and had left the hobby some 21 years ago. He then asked what I went by. I responded with my handle, and he said, "Wow, no kidding? Then you ought to know who this is!"

I then realized that I was talking to my mentor, the man who taught me everything meaningful that I knew about radio. He was a close friend of my late father, who I came into contact with many years later as a teen-ager. He, at the time, was an advanced amateur radio operator who had given up on CB radio, but felt it was important to help nurture my hobby.

He came over to my house and taught me how to build dipole antennas. We used a slingshot and fired a dipole up in my old oak tree about 50 to 60 feet, and from that moment forward, my Teaberry T-command was screaming more S-units than my CB audience had ever heard before.

He handed down to me his Ranger RCI-2970. He gave me test equipment. He gave me advice. I was studying to become an amateur radio operator because of him.

He always encouraged me to be better than the local CBers, and to always look to expand my knowledge. So much of my love and passion for radio came from him. He eventually moved out west and we lost touch. What the hell are the odds that I'd return to CB radio and find this guy that many years later, back on CB. Wow.

I told him if he wasn't doing anything to head over to my place. He did. He got to meet my almost-now-adult sons, and my wife. I explained to my family how much of an influence he had been on me, and told him all of the dipoles that have been built in the dining room where he was standing were because of him and what he taught me.

When we stepped outside, he explained to me that he had cancer and didn't know how long he'd be around, and that was the reason he had gotten rid of most of his radio stuff and decided to get back into CB radio. Sometimes things just happen for a reason, and I believe part of that encounter last night was an extension of that. I felt compelled to share that story here today, not just because of the meaning it has to me, but because so many of you are CBers turned amateur radio guys, and some of you have no plans of returning, but yet come here to discuss CB. I can see a lot of trips being taken down memory lane because of this board, and I thank each and every one of you for what you share. I enjoy reading your posts.

 

[prcguy]

I've run into several hams I know on CB in the last year or so. A couple of them have unmistakable voices and really stood out and another was on a hill top remote control ham radio tuned to CB. That one was about 60mi away and I called the guy to see what he was using that sounded so good at that distance and it turned out to be a local So Cal repeater owner I knew. I also converted a local CBer to amateur by offering him a free dual band radio and some other stuff if he passed the Tech license within a certain amount of time. He aced it within a couple of weeks and now enjoys all the privileges of amateur radio.

 

[slowmover]

After wiring a microphone for my newly-acquired President HR2510 last night, I was beaming with excitement. I took it to channel 19 and hollered for a radio check. A loud voice responds, lighting up all the bars of my digital S-meter and declares, "It sounds perfect! Do not touch a thing!"

I thanked them and told them I was just testing out an HR2510 for the first time.

"That's a great radio right there!" they replied.

As the conversation continued, the person proceeds to tell me they're a ham, but they sold a lot of their gear and just enjoy going back to their roots on the CB. I asked how long he'd be into radio, and he explained that he got his first CB in 1976.

This storyline was starting to sound familiar, and so was the voice.

I asked where they were. They explained to me that they were mobile, in the parking lot of a pizza joint about one mile away, using only a Uniden Bearcat 880 SSB and a Little Wil magnet mount.

The signal was booming, and the audio was loud and rich.

I explained that I was into CB radio for many years and had left the hobby some 21 years ago. He then asked what I went by. I responded with my handle, and he said, "Wow, no kidding? Then you ought to know who this is!"

I then realized that I was talking to my mentor, the man who taught me everything meaningful that I knew about radio. He was a close friend of my late father, who I came into contact with many years later as a teen-ager. He, at the time, was an advanced amateur radio operator who had given up on CB radio, but felt it was important to help nurture my hobby.

He came over to my house and taught me how to build dipole antennas. We used a slingshot and fired a dipole up in my old oak tree about 50 to 60 feet, and from that moment forward, my Teaberry T-command was screaming more S-units than my CB audience had ever heard before.

He handed down to me his Ranger RCI-2970. He gave me test equipment. He gave me advice. I was studying to become an amateur radio operator because of him.

He always encouraged me to be better than the local CBers, and to always look to expand my knowledge. So much of my love and passion for radio came from him. He eventually moved out west and we lost touch. What the hell are the odds that I'd return to CB radio and find this guy that many years later, back on CB. Wow.

I told him if he wasn't doing anything to head over to my place. He did. He got to meet my almost-now-adult sons, and my wife. I explained to my family how much of an influence he had been on me, and told him all of the dipoles that have been built in the dining room where he was standing were because of him and what he taught me.

When we stepped outside, he explained to me that he had cancer and didn't know how long he'd be around, and that was the reason he had gotten rid of most of his radio stuff and decided to get back into CB radio. Sometimes things just happen for a reason, and I believe part of that encounter last night was an extension of that. I felt compelled to share that story here today, not just because of the meaning it has to me, but because so many of you are CBers turned amateur radio guys, and some of you have no plans of returning, but yet come here to discuss CB. I can see a lot of trips being taken down memory lane because of this board, and I thank each and every one of you for what you share. I enjoy reading your posts.

There are no coincidences.

That’s a story I’ll not forget.
Thanks for the time to write it out.

As an aside to both posts above, the audio quality of voice over radio is magic when one has taken pains to improve it as well as can be.

We tend to speak of message content, which, really, is second to the delivery. Delivery takes us where the speaker would have us travel. Thus, (my contribution as it were) is to obtain DSP filtration ahead of the speaker. CB really comes alive, then.

For

There are times it’s not too much of a stretch that those two or more gathered together are tracking one another

In His footsteps.

.