I'm not sure what's gotten into me lately or why I've regressed, but I recently decided to hook up an old citizen's band radio or two which had gone silent a good number of years ago. They were dusty and dirty and packed away in a box or on a shelf but, to my surprise, they still worked.
Perhaps it's because I missed some of the chatter from my years of truck driving. Listening to other truckers talk sometimes made the miles pass more quickly. Some conversations were helpful because of reports on road conditions ahead. Of course, not all the information was useful. A trucker, when entering Nebraska from the west, could learn the locations of all the Smokeys on I-80 across the whole state. I always figured things just might change a bit while I drove the 450 miles from the Wyoming line to Omaha.
Other conversations were educational. A fellow could learn about everything from politics to home repair just by listening. And, as I remember, it was surprising how many other drivers out there had advanced degrees which, for one reason or another, just didn't work out as far as employment opportunities were concerned. Their conversations were often enlightening.
And speaking of education, even though I value what I learned while studying for my master's degree, I often speak first of my PhD from TDU -- a philosophy of drivers' degree from truck driving university. To be honest with you, it is a more practical PhD than most offered today and a lot of folks with ivory-tower degrees could really benefit from a degree which really gets down to where the rubber meets the road.
Some CB radio conversations were just plain comical. I remember crossing the state of Arizona and part of New Mexico one winter close enough to some other drivers to hear arguments, pro and con, on the question of whether having more lights made a truck go faster. Even though the answer is obvious, the arguments were a good exercise in the use of debate and logic and were humorous and entertaining as well. And, it did seem that the big trucks with more lights passed my old Freightshaker a lot. As I listened, I kind of hated it when it was time for me to turn north to deliver in Colorado. I might have missed the best argument.
Not all conversations were edifying, and that is probably the biggest reason my radio went silent. It seems that, as the quality of truck drivers declined, so did the quality of CB conversations. It was disappointing to get just a few miles down the road and then hear the foul language of a new generation of drivers and have to reach over and turn the CB off. And, it began happening so often, it was easier to just leave the radio off unless driving with a group of drivers and talking on a different frequency.
Perhaps I hooked up the CB radios just in case things really do hit the fan one of these days and other methods of communication go down -- it could happen a lot easier than most folks think. Anyway, it would be nice to have a way to communicate and hear what is going on locally. It seems that other communication methods are dependent on such complex communications networks that a glitch in one area could render the rest useless. And, for those who may smile at those who dig out old two-way radios, cell phones are really radios too -- dependent on the complicated antennas and networks of service providers.
While most don't realize it, hooking up a CB radio and having things work right is not as easy as just plugging a radio into a power supply and connecting an antenna. The antenna's length must match the frequency range, and location and ground are important too. Yes, mathematics and some practical construction skills are also needed.
Anyway, after a little work to set things up, I've been able to talk to a few folks out to six or eight miles. And, when conditions are right, it's not uncommon to hear other folks talking from far-away places like California, the Carolinas, Georgia and states up north. No, I haven't been able to talk back to them -- partly because my radio is legal and partly because my antenna is small and vertical and not set up for bouncing radio waves off the ionosphere.
But the experience has got me interested enough to consider building another antenna -- maybe an 11-meter dipole -- and trying skip communications on single sideband. Who knows, maybe I'll actually do what I was going to do years ago and study to get an amateur radio license. The license would give me access to frequencies used by a more professional group of radio operators and make it less necessary to use the RF gain and squelch buttons to silence those who obviously do not know how to be legal, courteous or use their radio transmitters with any integrity.
So, maybe I've regressed a bit, but I've found that the science involved in radio waves is quite interesting. Hopefully, I'll never need to use radio communications because things hit the fan, but using them again and learning more about how it all works has been interesting. And with that, 73s to you until next time.
Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. You might even reach him by calling for Griz Bear on the CB. He often monitors channel 19. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 10/22/2014