CB Chatter

Did you ever have a CB radio in your vehicle? 

It doesn’t seem that long ago that everybody and his brother had one. By a strange logic that could only have come from the federal government, the FCC years ago got tired of issuing Citizen’s Band licenses and granted everyone what they called “license by rule”.  That meant that, as long as you followed the FCC’s Part 95 rules, you were deemed to have a license. 

Operators were still expected to follow the rules – in 2011, the FCC fined a man who jacked up his output power $15,000.00 for operating without a (nonexistent) license.

The popularity of CB radios rose and fell like a skyrocket.  The bottom line is that the same circumstances that led to everyone getting a CB radio quickly led to their loss of popularity.  Frequencies became so crowded as to become unusable, and – much like the internet today – broadcasting to everyone while remaining anonymous led to a lot of things being said that were in poor taste, and often downright offensive.

One of the best (or worst) examples of this I heard was this exchange:

A young female voice said, “Hey there, southbound Kenworth.  How’s it look  over your shoulder?”

To which the trucker replied, “Don’t know, darlin’. I can’t hardly get it past my thumb.”