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Remember your CB radio call sign?

citiot

ʇoᴉʇᴉɔ
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 8, 2007
Messages
134
KAZC 3579 - actually it was my dad's. On CB when I was 10 or 11.

Got sick and tired of being called a "lady breaker" with my unchanged voice.

Went ham and morse for many years until my voice deepened.

It has come full circle a bit... today, when my boys were younger and playing multi player video games, they were called "squeakers" by the other players due their unchanged voices. It warmed my heart to see their embarrassment and pain :)
 

W8WCA

Member
Joined
Jun 1, 2005
Messages
528
Location
/usa/oh/cmh EM89kx
king whiskey George 8491

KBY1969 I received a Layfette (sp?) CB Radio Kit - (Tube Type w/ Xtals for 3 Channels - it would tune any) for Christmas 1968 - When I finished it I applied for a License and wow was I suprised at the 1969! (I think I finished it in early Jan 1969)
 

NE8K

Newbie
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Messages
1
Our call sign was KBAX-9063, established in 1976 in Saginaw, MI.

My grandfather, Randy Genske, whose call sign was forgotten by our whole family for a very long time, was KLN-3796, in Carrolton, MI. I just scanned one of my baby pictures from the summer of 1965, posing on his radio bench with his radios and noticed his call sign card was in the background. All this time, we thought he had a ham ticket, but perhaps not.
 

GB46

Active Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2017
Messages
820
XM12-4391 from 1974 to 1977, then XM18-704 from 1981 to 1984. These were both in the Greater Vancouver area. But I eventually used handles instead, like nearly everyone else.

I still have the expired licences in my vast file of trivia, but have no transceiver, and only monitor the channels on a shortwave receiver during skip conditions.
 

DoctorZ

Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
Messages
52
Location
Minnesota, USA
Just curious how many of you old timers on here still remember your CB radio call sign from the '60s and '70s?

I remember what you did while you were waiting for your FCC call sign to come in the mail. It was K your first and last initial and your zip code, so if you lived in Beverly Hills, CA, and your name was Shannon Smith, your temporary call would be: KSS90210.
 

RichardKramer

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Oct 13, 2006
Messages
1,188
Location
Reading, PA
KFT 7285; early 70's; we had 2 Lafayette HB525 mobiles, Comstat 35B base with a Turner Plus 3 mic;
still have them in working order, a Robyn & Radio Shack mobile, sold those.

Rich - N3VMY - KAG 0096
 

WA4A

Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2016
Messages
23
Location
Burlington, NC
Wow, you guys with the early "Q" prefix licenses have real collector items! After issuing a number of those calls at the beginning of the CB era, the FCC was called "on the carpet" by the ITU for issuing radio call signs against international regulations.
The U.S. was only allocated radio calls beginning with "A, K, N or W" The letter Q was not allowed since that series was only for internationally recognized Q-Signals.
The FCC complained that the CB identifiers were really not call signs but simply "serial numbers" but lost the battle! Thereafter, all U.S. CB licenses had to conform to internationally assigned prefix letters!
A buddy of mine in Raleigh, NC was assigned 5Q2013 around 1960 (I still have his QSL card) but by the time I got my Class D (23 Channel, 27 mHz) license in 1962, they were up to KCJ4033,
which was my first CB call sign. In 1963, I was assigned KAH8827 for a Class C (27 mHz) radio control license and KHG3368 for a 5-Watt Class B UHF (460 mHz) license. I was going to apply for a high power Class A (UHF CB) license, now known as GMRS, but got spooked by the requirement for a "construction permit" and inspection before a license could be issued! One confession, as the statue of limitations has run its course:
I got interested in CB radio as the result of being a ham operator FIRST! I was 15 years old then. When I found out that an applicant had to be 18 years old to fill out the old FCC Form 505, I figured that was somehow unfair since I had already passed the ham and commercial exams, so I just applied anyway and fudged my age! The good ol' FCC went ahead and gave me a Class D CB license and I was happy! Over the years, I kept renewing all of those CB licenses until the rules changed sometime in the 1970s or 80s when the requirement was dropped. I was sad to lose my precious call signs, as the licenses somehow legitimized CB radio operations but by that time it was too late, the 27 mHz band was lawless and worthless for any practical use. So, cherish those old CB licenses and enjoy the memories!
73, Bob KCJ4033 / WA4A
 

WA4A

Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2016
Messages
23
Location
Burlington, NC
One other footnote of interest:
For many years it was legal to operate 100 milliwatt walkie talkies on the 27 mHz CB band without a license. As a ham, I found out that it was also legal to operate them on CW using Morse code! Some of my teenaged buddies around town began to modify the cheap talkies for CW and use our better ham receivers to increase the range! It was entertaining to hear the regular CB crowd on channels 11 or 7 try and figure out why someone would keep pushing the mic button so fast! The little Lafayette or Knightkit talkies were popular 11-meter CW rigs in the 60s!
 

motorcoachdoug

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Aug 29, 2012
Messages
754
Location
Silver Spring, MD
Kilo Kilo Paul 2770 was the family call sign since I was only 16 back in the mid 70's. I had a Kraco 23 channel mobile unit and my dad and I put a base Antenna up on the roof and I had to wait 2 to 3 weeks to get our call letters. It killed me almost being able to listen but not transmit while waiting for it to arrive.
 

mbott

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
707
Location
EN80nd
KKP6649, Sandman Had a 40 channel Robyn with USB/LSB.

--
Mike
 
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