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I have noticed that there is some folks [ not just EZE ] who seem to think the 27 Mhz band was never a Ham Band...
Here is a short history of this band by a CB group who seems to know what is going on...
Please notice that CB was originally opened on 465 Mhz in 1947 but the technology just wasn't there yet... How different things would have been if... if... if... ...oh well... things are as they are...
http://www.retrocom.com/27_megacycle_history_in_the_u.htm
Side note: It is so sad that a Ham originally suggested and developed the CB Service... He had such high ideas and the people let him down by abuse and lack of self control... ]
K9STH
05-25-2003, 10:46 PM
There are some errors in the URL that you refer to.
First of all, the original 460 MHz Citizen's Radio Service was NOT Class "D", but Class "A". The "history" refers to it as Class "D".
During the 1950s and just into the 1960s, there was also Class "B" Citizen's Radio Service which allowed free-running modulated oscillator transmitters on the 460 MHz band at low power. Because of the instability of these units, type acceptance was withdrawn and the Class "B" went the way of the dodo bird.
Class "C" was / is for radio control.
Class "A" had the same type acceptance requirements as for business radio on the 450 - 470 MHz band except the maximum power output was limited to 50 watts. Repeater operation, etc., was allowed. Class "A" has become the General Mobile Radio Service.
Class "D" Citizen's Radio Service started out with 23 channels in the 11 meter band with a maximum power input of 5 watts. The equipment had to have crystal controlled transmitters and there was a type acceptance of sorts from the very beginning. Many of the original equipment had tunable receivers and transmitters with from 1 to 5 crystal controlled channels. Class "D" was later expanded to the present 40 channels and the power requirements were changed to 4 watts output / 12 watts PEP output.
Class "E" Citizen's Radio Service was being pushed by the EIA (Electronics Industry Association) during the 1960s and into the 1970s. This was to take over a portion of the 220 MHz amateur band. Fortunately, this service was not adopted by the FCC although a number of Japanese manufacturers had already come up with FM equipment for the 220 MHz band. This equipment was "sold off" as amateur 220 MHz equipment. Then, primarily with the financial power of United Parcel Service (UPS) the 220 - 222 MHz band was removed from amateur service and relocated to the land-mobile service. UPS had originally asked for "narrow band" (primarily ACSB - amplitude companded sideband) technology. Then, when the band was relocated to land mobile, UPS then tried to get "normal" FM allowed. This, fortunately, was denied by the FCC. UPS had wanted a nationwide radio system to use with all of their trucks. However, although they did put some ACSB units in service on the 220 MHz band, UPS abandoned this band. Unfortunately, the FCC has not seen fit to relocate the frequencies back to the amateur radio service.
But, from 1951 until 1957 the 11 meter band was authorized for use by amateur radio operators in the United States. In other countries this authorizaton ran into the 1960s (depending on which country was involved).
Glen, K9STH
UHF CB.
It is interesting to note that in 1947 the ARRL fostered the idea of inter-service communications being allowed between hams and those who would be using Class A CB service. The thinking was that it would improve emergency communications capability.
Some of the equipment manufactured for Class B in the late fifties was also interesting.in the middle 60s I received as a gift from an uncle a pair of Vocaline communicators (worked just as Glen described) There were mods to get them working in the 432 megacycle range. Stability was, shall we say, very poor.
73
George
K3UD
N0WVA
05-26-2003, 02:57 AM
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (N0PU @ May 25 2003,12:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I have noticed that there is some folks [ not just EZE ] who seem to think the 27 Mhz band was never a Ham Band...
Here is a short history of this band by a CB group who seems to know what is going on...
Please notice that CB was originally opened on 465 Mhz in 1947 but the technology just wasn't there yet... How different things would have been if... if... if... ...oh well... things are as they are...
http://www.retrocom.com/27_megacycle_history_in_the_u.htm
Side note: It is so sad that a Ham originally suggested and developed the CB Service... He had such high ideas and the people let him down by abuse and lack of self control... ][/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Wow, did I really read that?!! You could actually buy a CB kit ? My how things have changed.Its a sad thing how the technical side of that hobby just faded away. I suppose the kits had to be type accepted? Or was that even thought of back then?
WA2ZDY
05-26-2003, 03:07 AM
I had a pair of those Vocaline transceivers given to me in the mid or later 70s. #They were in absolutely perfect physical condition, and sadly, I'm sure they were in perfect operating condition as well, which isn't saying much for them as they were awful! #AM on 465 MHz. #They were of course by that time no longer legal for use as Class B CB had already been deleted. #But try them I did and they were useless beyond about 200 feet! #That was with the quarter wave whip mounted on top. #
Another not-so-fond memory. #
That's good info though Harry. #Maybe EZE will stop his campaign to convince the world on qrz.com that we OFs are full of baloney.
Nah, not likely. #That would fly in the face of whatever it is he's trying to accomplish. #Oh well. #The facts speak for themselves.
K9STH
05-26-2003, 04:10 AM
I came up with a Vocaline Class "B" unit from eBay several months ago. It is in virtually brand new condition and is the "later" model. Unfortunately, there was only one. However, the price was $10 and just to have one for "nostalgia" was worth it.
Vocaline did make an amateur version of the same equipment except that the transmitter was tunable from 420 to 450 MHz. The range with a decent antenna was several miles. Remember that back in the 1940s and into the 1950s, that free-running oscillators were very common on the 420 - 450 MHz amateur band. Also, they have as much FM as AM. That is one reason that the super-regenerative receivers that they used worked pretty well.
When Class "B" was legal, there was a TV shop in my home town that had a pair of them. Using the mobile antennas that came with the units (a ground-plane that clipped onto your automobile radio antenna) and the base station mounted on a TV mast about 30 feet up, they did get about a 5 mile radius as their best "DX". Mobile to mobile was about 1/2 mile under most conditions, up to a mile in "open country".
Glen, K9STH
K9STH
05-26-2003, 04:17 AM
WVA:
The Heathkit CB-1 was a low-end, very popular kit for CB. It was a single channel transmit (crystal controlled) and a super-regenerative receiver. Heath sold this as the "Tenner" HW-19 which was the same kit except the front panel had the receiver calibration from 28 to 29.7 MHz whereas the CB-1 only had the 27 MHz band on it.
Heath soon came out with the HW-29 "Sixer" which was the same circuit with the coils changed for six meters. Finally, they came out with the HW-30 "Twoer" which was for the 2 meter band. I obtained a CB-1 from K9EXE who had built it before the "Tenner" came out and put it on 29.600 MHz which was the old 10 meter AM mobile frequency (before FM became popular). Used this mobile and made a fair number of contacts. Then I drove up to the Heath plant (which was located about 35 miles from my home town) and bought the coils for the "Sixer". Installed them and the CB-1 became a "Sixer". Then built the 8 MHz oscillator circuit and transformed it into the equivalent of the HW-29A.
There were all sorts of kits available back in the late 1950s. Also, there were certain magazine projects that were "certified" to meet CB specifications if they were built exactly as in the magazine. This didn't last that long!
Glen, K9STH
WA7KKP
05-26-2003, 01:21 PM
K9STH Glen's first post pretty much summed up early CB history, and I'd like to add a couple items.
When 11 meters was still a 'ham' band it was considered the garbage can of the HF spectrum. Diathermy (using RF for theraputic and industrial heating) was operated at high power in the 27 mHz spectrum, so that made it pretty much useless for anything else.
The problems began when CB users discovered 'skip', specifically forbidden by the FCC regulations. The skip shooters started the idea of handles instead of legit call signs just to avoid easy detection by FCC monitors. When the hetrodynes of AM became common, then the demand for external linear amps shot up.
It wasn't until the oil embargo and ensuing trucker's strike that CB overflowed with users. Looking back at old Allied Radio and Lafayette catalogs, a good grade CB radio like the Johnson Messengers were still well over $100 in a time when a ham transceiver was about 400-500. Then prices plummeted when the expansion was announced from 23 to 40 channels, and PLL circuity eliminated the big expense of crystals.
Finding out that 40 channels couldn't adequately handle the traffic of daily useage, the CBer turned to SSB, and then to the Yaesu FT101 series, which were easily modified for 11 meters by simply snipping the yellow wire that disabled transmission. From there they went up in frequency to 28 mHz and now beyond into the amateur 10 meter band. The AM'ers tended to go to the lower frequencies below 26.965 mHz and cluttered the spectrum there.
The creation of the FRS as an adjunct to (GMRS) the old Class A frequency spectrum is a welcome change to encourage legitimate short-range operations originally intended as CB. Radios are cheap, and unmodifiable for the most part, so hacking of frequencies and power limits can't be easily done as in the early days of CB radios.
As an interesting aside, I have in my basement a General Electric Progress Line UHF base that has the model & serian number printed on a metal label that also says, Citizens Radio. Yep, genuine Class A CB rig.
Gary Hildebrand WA7KKP
and formerly KST0469
kd7eze
05-27-2003, 04:26 PM
First off, let me say that I don't claim to know everything. The fact that I have said that 11 meters was never a ham band, is because it was something I read on another forum. This statement was confirmed by many people, including many hams, so I just took this as fact. Evidently I was wrong, again. No biggie, as we should learn from our mistakes. Anyway, my first experience with the Citizens Band was, that it was used by some of the local businesses, as a business band. When I tried talking on "their" frequency, I was threatened with severe penalties. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks to all for not bashing me too hard on this one.
'73 de KD7EZE
W5HTW
05-28-2003, 03:40 AM
EZE - a sign of intelligence is ones ability to assimilate new information and make changes accordingly!
In the early days of Class D CB, as I recall, it was intended for personal communications, and had even more restrictions than have been mentioned here. For example, 'units' as they were called, were to communicate only with other units of the same station license. Example, if I had a base station and three mobile units, those were the only CB radios I was legally permitted to communicate with. I was not permitted to communicate with my buddy ten miles away as his units were under a different license.
This made it ideal for small businesses, a cheaper way to have local business communication without buying Class A CB rigs, which were quite expensive. The CB license was not an operator license but a station license, and permitted up to a maximum of eight radios to be operated, as Base through Unit 7, under the same license.
In the very early days of CB I knew of quite a large number of small businesses that jumped on this bandwagon, such as roofing contractors, painters, delivery services, plumbers, AC techs, etc. They used the radios very much as such businesses use VHF or UHF today, with a base unit as dispatch, and they stuck very much to business use. The problem arose when other CBers began to communicate outside their license restrictions (something the FCC should have foreseen would happen) so moved their pleasure "chat" onto a channel some business was using. To avoid being identified, they switched to so-called handles.
That went a step further in the early sixties, when skip was open and every one of the 23 channels then allocated was being used illegally by literally thousands of skip operators, who used post office boxes and 'handles' instead of call signs. The legit business operation on CB virtually disappeared, as operation was impossible. Since this was before cell phones, the businesses had to resort to regular telephones, or to very expensive business radio.
As the skip conditions faded in the late sixties, some business operation on CB returned, but it didn't last. By now the 'slider' was popular, and the linear amplifier was gaining in vogue. The old CB antenna rules were violated with abandon, and huge towers with mult-quads appeared, with linear amps running 500 watts. By the early seventies, the amps were 1,000 watts or better, and the business use of CB became totally impossible.
And then the FCC said the heck with it, and threw in the towel! They had created a monster than ran away with them.
One difference between CB and ham radio of that era, the late 50s through the late 70s, was the CBer was virtually 'trained' to ignore the rules (until there WERE no more rules!http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif and the ham was virtually trained to follow the rules no matter what. Consequently, as CB became useless even to the avid CBer and he moved toward ham radio, he brought his training with him. This changed the face of ham radio a lot in the early 80s and into the 90s.
Had CB radio worked as it was supposed to, it would have been terrific. Even car manufacturers were then putting CB radio in their new models under a program called "HELP" (Highway Emergency something or other) and as today cars come with cell phones already built in, in those days they came from the factory with CB radios.
Today's real CB is the FRS and the GMRS, but the closest thing that could approximate it would be MURS. Unfortunately, the virtual approximation is 2- meter repeaters, where the wife calls the hubby on the 2 meter to "bring home the loaf of bread" or "get the kids at the kennel." That is what CB was to be, and it has moved to 2 meters, to order a pizza or price car parts.
It was a great idea. Human nature made it worthless.
73
Ed
Just an added note......
I believe that Class D CB actually had a regulation that limited the time you could be on the air with one contact. I think it was 5 minutes and spawned the phrase "We shot the Buffalo" (for the Indian head 5 cent piece)
73
George
K3UD