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Speaker 1: Breaker Breaker one nine this year's tech Stuff Okay, ancer,
Speaker 1: my fame is Chris Paul Adam, an editor here at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and with me as usual
Speaker 1: and looking a little disprentled senior writer Johnson Strickland ten four.
Speaker 1: Smokey's on my tail. So, as you can probably guess,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about citizens Band radio. Yeah. Actually
Speaker 1: we have an email from a listener that that sort
Speaker 1: of feeds us into this, So if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off with a little listener me. Okay,
Speaker 1: now you're punishing me, aren't you. Yes, it's all your fault. So,
Speaker 1: Dear Chris and Jonathan, I love your podcast, although it
Speaker 1: makes me feel like a geek sometimes joined the club.
Speaker 1: There's an old communication technology called c B radio. It
Speaker 1: used to be really popular way back then. It is
Speaker 1: still used by truckers and bus drivers. I was wondering,
Speaker 1: how do CB radio's work. Can you still buy them
Speaker 1: these days? Can you build a CB radio? And last,
Speaker 1: but not least, do you need a license for a
Speaker 1: CB radio? Thanks for your time and for the great podcast.
Speaker 1: I wish you the best of luck, Sincerely, cush Um.
Speaker 1: First of all, when you say way back then in
Speaker 1: an old communication technology, you're making pallette and I feel
Speaker 1: a little decrepit since I was old enough to remember
Speaker 1: when Convoy came out, and I have used a CB
Speaker 1: radio before. So yeah, okay, So moving on now that
Speaker 1: we've gotten past that little, a little hurdle. As as
Speaker 1: Chris pointed out, CB radio it stands for citizens Band Radio,
Speaker 1: So one thing we can get all the way right
Speaker 1: off the top. You do not need a license to
Speaker 1: operate one. That's true, although I believe you might have
Speaker 1: a long time ago, back when they were popular or
Speaker 1: more popular, because one of the dinosaurs roamed the highways
Speaker 1: like me and you. You know the listeners right though,
Speaker 1: because CBS actually had their genesis and then forties started
Speaker 1: in seven when the Federal Communications Commission opened up the
Speaker 1: uh F frequencies of four or sixty two four or
Speaker 1: seventy Mega hurts. And uh, I didn't realize, you know,
Speaker 1: because I was around in the seventies, and I do
Speaker 1: remember when they were so popular. Um you know, I
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have imagined that they were that old that
Speaker 1: they were being used back then, but yeah, they were. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It really does seem like something that's really fits in
Speaker 1: the era of the seventies. I mean that's when I
Speaker 1: think CB radio, I think traveling down the highway on
Speaker 1: you know, something like that. Um So, but they're radios.
Speaker 1: They are their radios, and it's it's the Citizens Band
Speaker 1: Radio Service. This is quoting directly from the FCC. It's
Speaker 1: a private two way voice communications service for use in
Speaker 1: personal and business activities of the general public. It's communications
Speaker 1: range is from one to five miles and um the
Speaker 1: band spans between twenty six point nine six five Mega
Speaker 1: hurts and twenty seven point four zero five Mega hurts.
Speaker 1: So that's your that's your basic range of frequencies that
Speaker 1: these radios work on. UH And, as I mentioned, a
Speaker 1: private two way voice communication service This is one of
Speaker 1: those things where you can't really you can't both talk
Speaker 1: and listen at the same time. You're either talking or
Speaker 1: you're listening. You can't do both at the same time.
Speaker 1: You see where I'm going here. So if you get
Speaker 1: multiple people on a single channel, these these frequencies are
Speaker 1: divided into channels, forty of them in fact, um, then
Speaker 1: it gets really complicated. You you start to have people
Speaker 1: drop out. So you know, preferably you're listening. You might
Speaker 1: be listening in on a conversation, but you're not necessarily
Speaker 1: interjecting because you don't want to, you know, screw up
Speaker 1: and and accidentally cover up what someone else is trying
Speaker 1: to say. Especially if it's something that's really important. Um.
Speaker 1: But you don't need a license to to use these today. Uh,
Speaker 1: they again quoting from the SEC. Licensed documents are neither
Speaker 1: needed nor issued, and there are no age or citizenship
Speaker 1: requirements as long as you use only an unmodified f
Speaker 1: c C certificated c B unit. So that answers another question.
Speaker 1: Can you build your own No, not legally. Uh, you
Speaker 1: could probably figure out how to do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: we even have an article on the side about how
Speaker 1: CB Antenna's work, and you can see how the antenna,
Speaker 1: you know, how how long you would need to make
Speaker 1: the antenna in order to capture these frequencies at the
Speaker 1: most efficient rate possible. UM. And you know what it
Speaker 1: is the antenna does in relation to the radio, and
Speaker 1: we'll probably get into a little bit of that later.
Speaker 1: But you can't legally make one of these and use
Speaker 1: it as a as a citizens band radio, well not
Speaker 1: in uh, not to avoid prosecution if you get caught
Speaker 1: using it, right, and you know there are different reasons
Speaker 1: for that. For one thing, you might end up broadcasting
Speaker 1: outside of the approved range and that's a bad thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing about CB radios to UM. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more information on the FCC's website about it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can use them essentially anywhere, but they point out
Speaker 1: that if you take it outside the United States and
Speaker 1: use it, if the government of whatever country you're in
Speaker 1: restricts those frequencies, you can get yourself in trouble. Um.
Speaker 1: And the reason that that CB radios uh, you know
Speaker 1: work so well doing what they do, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: used for business and personal communications, that's because those frequencies
Speaker 1: are specifically set open for that purpose. Nobody can own
Speaker 1: any of those frequencies. They are for the public all
Speaker 1: except well sort of channel nine. Yeah, well we can
Speaker 1: get to that in a minute too. But yeah, now,
Speaker 1: the f CC will say that you can technically use
Speaker 1: the CB radio anywhere in the world. You just have
Speaker 1: to be aware of the local laws because, as Pletts said,
Speaker 1: if if they they set aside those frequencies for something else,
Speaker 1: obviously you would be interfering with that operation if you
Speaker 1: were to try and use your CB radio tuned to
Speaker 1: that frequency. So, you know, just one of those things
Speaker 1: like if you're traveling around the world with your CB
Speaker 1: radio uh and twenty foot antenna, then you might want
Speaker 1: to look into the local laws before you fire that
Speaker 1: puppy up. You also can't amplify the signal. No, that's true,
Speaker 1: you definitely cannot do that. That that one to five
Speaker 1: to eight kilometers. Thank you. I'm so sorry that I
Speaker 1: had left off the kilometer conversion one point six to
Speaker 1: eight kilometers. And it might it might seem like a
Speaker 1: fairly short range, especially if you think about the quintessential
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies trucker on the highway thing like the documentary
Speaker 1: film Smokey and the Bandit exactly. Uh, and Smokey and
Speaker 1: the bandit to Smokey is the bandit? Yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: starting to think that maybe the range of those communications
Speaker 1: may have been exaggerated somewhat. Um, you know, just going
Speaker 1: on my memory of that, or my pretend memory, I
Speaker 1: never saw any of those. Um, you are missing out, Poulette.
Speaker 1: We are having a movie night. You need to catch
Speaker 1: up on your documentaries. Yes, my documentaries. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you, if you, if you amplify the signal to
Speaker 1: extend the range, you are you're violating the certification of
Speaker 1: your your CB radio. And there you know there are
Speaker 1: still CB radios. Yes you can buy them, Yes you can.
Speaker 1: And I know some people who use them as a
Speaker 1: form of entertainment. Whenever they're going on a long road trip,
Speaker 1: they like to turn on the CB radio and just
Speaker 1: hear what the chatter is up and down the highway.
Speaker 1: You you may have heard some of the interesting little
Speaker 1: idiosyncratic things that about CB radio people who use them. Uh,
Speaker 1: people tend to adopt a nickname, which you know, it's
Speaker 1: more commonly referred to as a handle. Um. So you
Speaker 1: know you might have a handle specific to you that
Speaker 1: that has some meaning to you, or maybe it's a
Speaker 1: little you know, joke on your name or just a
Speaker 1: reference to something you like. Uh. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: what you go by when you're on the radio, and
Speaker 1: eventually you could build up a reputation. People would know
Speaker 1: you by your handle. So when you got on the
Speaker 1: radio and said, hey, this here is blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: people say, hey, I know that guy, even though they
Speaker 1: don't even know your real name. It's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. It's very similar to the way that you know,
Speaker 1: chat lines started up on the Internet. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, it kind of reminds me of IRC back
Speaker 1: in see I can you're telling that chat room days
Speaker 1: or bitnet relay, which is were the one I'm more
Speaker 1: familiar with, right, and and there are plenty of message
Speaker 1: boards out there now where people still you, I mean,
Speaker 1: peop'll use handles on our on our blogs to comment.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is something that kind of grew
Speaker 1: out of the same sort of uh stuff you'd see
Speaker 1: on the CB radio frequencies. What's fun And the government
Speaker 1: doesn't regulate that either, So you can call yourself whatever
Speaker 1: you like, whatever you want. Yeah, as long as you
Speaker 1: I mean, if you if you pick a name that
Speaker 1: someone else already has that's usually considered bad form. Um.
Speaker 1: The best story about CB radio handles I've ever heard
Speaker 1: was James Earl Jones. You know he got a CB radio. Um,
Speaker 1: And I don't know. You know, James Earl Jones, he
Speaker 1: used to have a speech impediment and he he um
Speaker 1: would he took speech classes and practice very hard to
Speaker 1: get rid of the speech impediment. And he found the
Speaker 1: CB radio to be a good tool to communicate with people.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was no stress or pressure because
Speaker 1: there was no face to face. So guess what handle
Speaker 1: he adopted. I have no idea. Darth Vader serious, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I saw the interview and he would say, like you
Speaker 1: get on the the CVS like this is Darth Vader
Speaker 1: and like everything we go quiet. And someone was like,
Speaker 1: cheez man, that sounds just like him. So uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an hour simba I am your father. Um.
Speaker 1: But no, they can't believe it. It was a really
Speaker 1: cool interview. I wish I could remember. It was on
Speaker 1: some day daytime talk show while I was you know,
Speaker 1: playing hook while I was really really sick. But anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they don't regulate the handles, you can pick whatever
Speaker 1: you like. They also you may have heard a lot
Speaker 1: of the you know, I said ten for at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the podcast, which essentially means I have heard
Speaker 1: and understood what you have just said. Yeah, yeah, But
Speaker 1: the the ten codes, you know, there's lots and lots
Speaker 1: of them. There's not it's not just ten full are
Speaker 1: But those also are not regulated by the FCC. So
Speaker 1: although they are, they are generally sort of standardized the
Speaker 1: agencies that use them, Otherwise they wouldn't mean anything to anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are a ton of them. I've only got
Speaker 1: you know, like ten four would be message received. Ten
Speaker 1: forty three is traffic congestion. Ten ten is is transmission complete,
Speaker 1: as an I am done talking to you. That's also
Speaker 1: an important one because the FCC regulates how long you
Speaker 1: should speak on these to any particular person. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: more than five minutes, right, because they don't want you
Speaker 1: to hold up that entire channel, you know, for for
Speaker 1: more than five minutes. And uh, I guess they could
Speaker 1: also just you know, irritate the heck out of someone
Speaker 1: who wants to really chat with somebody else, and all
Speaker 1: the other channels are taken so no filibustering. No filibustering
Speaker 1: over the CB radio, and you have to once you're done,
Speaker 1: you have to wait one minute before you start talking again. Right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to become a chatterbox. So well, let's
Speaker 1: see what else. So I guess we could talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the the antenna's that I mentioned before.
Speaker 1: So I just wondered why they were so long. It's,
Speaker 1: you know, up until the point where we were researching
Speaker 1: the boadcast because I didn't I honestly didn't know ginormous antenna's.
Speaker 1: Apparently it doesn't actually even matter how tall they are
Speaker 1: on your car or if you have a portable CB,
Speaker 1: although it does matter if you haven't mounted on the
Speaker 1: side of a house. Um. Yeah, they're actually from from
Speaker 1: what I understand from reading our article on the website. Um,
Speaker 1: it has to do with the frequencies on which CB
Speaker 1: radio is transmit. Yes, they're they're they're to sort of
Speaker 1: optimize standing on particular frequencies, and of course each frequency
Speaker 1: transmits it a slightly different size wavelength. Um. Now, somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna call in or right in and correct me on that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Okay, good, because the wavelength does. But but
Speaker 1: that and that's the thing is that the antenna UM
Speaker 1: is sort of an approximation, so it's going to have
Speaker 1: sort of a sweet spot on you know, a channel
Speaker 1: or two, and then sort of do reasonably well for
Speaker 1: the other channels. UM. So it's usually you aim for
Speaker 1: the middle of the band and you get the outliers
Speaker 1: as well, so you're getting what one and then everything else.
Speaker 1: The idea here is that um that ideally your antenna
Speaker 1: would be the same length as the wavelength of the
Speaker 1: you're using, but that would be problematic because these wavelengths
Speaker 1: are pretty long. So most antenna's end up being a
Speaker 1: fraction of that wavelength, and it's a fraction that's easy
Speaker 1: to deal with, like one half or one quarter or
Speaker 1: even one eighth. Again, the reason for that is not
Speaker 1: just because you know, the antennas are detecting signals, but
Speaker 1: because they're also having to radiate signals. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is this is a two way radio, so you're it's
Speaker 1: both it's got both a receiver and a transmitter. It's
Speaker 1: a transceiver, it's a transceiver exactly. So in this case,
Speaker 1: your antenna has to be able to emit the these
Speaker 1: radio frequencies, and it can't be any taller than twenty
Speaker 1: feet over the top of your house or the tree
Speaker 1: that has mounted to unless you're nearer an airport, less
Speaker 1: than two miles from an airport. It has to be
Speaker 1: even shorter than that. Yeah, I think I would be
Speaker 1: irritated to see a tall like not not twenty ft tall,
Speaker 1: but a a tower that was twenty taller than the
Speaker 1: house next to it. That would that would I would
Speaker 1: find a little bit of an isore, I think. Um,
Speaker 1: and I let a lot slide maybe yeah, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: So so what do these antenna do is you know,
Speaker 1: if if you're receiving a signal, it receives the signal,
Speaker 1: it converts that to electricity since it to the receiver,
Speaker 1: and then the processes were reversed when you're transmitting. The
Speaker 1: transmitter sends electric an electric signal to the UM to
Speaker 1: the antenna, which is then converted into the radio frequency
Speaker 1: and then that's emitted out into the ether and uh
Speaker 1: goes the one to five miles away. There you go.
Speaker 1: So I guess that pretty much covers the mechanics behind
Speaker 1: CB radio use. UM. I was gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of the CB radio lingo that we
Speaker 1: talked to. You know, we we kind of got into
Speaker 1: there a little bit. Um. So yeah, if you ever
Speaker 1: listen in on a CB radio conversation, it could be
Speaker 1: very entertaining and it can also be very cryptic because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of a lot of slang terms
Speaker 1: that are thrown around that if you're not familiar with them,
Speaker 1: you eventually are going to say, what the heck does
Speaker 1: this mean? But it's it's just like any other, you know,
Speaker 1: culture that has its own kind of slang. So for example,
Speaker 1: the carne culture, if you're with it and for it,
Speaker 1: then you know what I'm talking about. Um if or
Speaker 1: even diners. You know, if you want to eighty six
Speaker 1: the catchup on your burger, you know that that means
Speaker 1: one thing in a diner and may not mean anything
Speaker 1: to you. The same thing with the CB radio. So
Speaker 1: here's some of the stuff that uh that you might hear.
Speaker 1: If you hear any talk about bears, they're probably not
Speaker 1: talking about the large mammal that could eat you and
Speaker 1: frighten Stephen Colbert that that is a grizzly thought. Nah,
Speaker 1: I think you just polarized our audience. So, um, bears
Speaker 1: are police. Yes, that's that would be the the cops,
Speaker 1: the cop. Um smoky also police. Uh so you know
Speaker 1: Smokey the bear has a hat that's very similar to
Speaker 1: state patrol hats. So that would be kind of where
Speaker 1: that came from. Um in the bear in the air,
Speaker 1: that would be like a helicopter. You might also hear astronaut.
Speaker 1: That is often another term for that kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: Bear in the bushes would be, you know, a cop
Speaker 1: that's kind of laying in wait with a speed trap.
Speaker 1: Um bear baiting. That would be someone who is driving erratically.
Speaker 1: You know, it's they're just they're just asking to get
Speaker 1: pulled over, you know. Um, if you were to uh,
Speaker 1: if you were to say that you were checking my
Speaker 1: eyelids for pinholes, it means you're tired. Because the idea
Speaker 1: here is that your you know, your eyes are rooping,
Speaker 1: you're starting to nod off and oh no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not really closing my eyes. I was just checking my
Speaker 1: eyelids for pinholes. That's a serious problem. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: If that happens, you need to pull over and get
Speaker 1: a little sleep. If you if you drop the hammer down,
Speaker 1: that means you're putting the pell to the metal baby,
Speaker 1: which means you're pressing the accelerator. It means you are
Speaker 1: burning rubber, you're peeling out, is what if you are?
Speaker 1: If you say that you that there's a cheese wagon
Speaker 1: up ahead, you know what that is. I think I
Speaker 1: did it one time, but I don't remember. It's a
Speaker 1: school bus because um so if if a school bus
Speaker 1: is a cheese wagon, what do you think an ambulance
Speaker 1: would be. I don't know, meat wagon? That's pleasant. Also,
Speaker 1: bone box. If you see shredded tires along the side
Speaker 1: the road, you might you might report that you saw
Speaker 1: some gator guts. Uh if um. If you receive a
Speaker 1: driving award, that's a speeding ticket. So there are lots
Speaker 1: of these, these cute little phrases that uh that exists
Speaker 1: out there, tons and tons and tons of them. Their
Speaker 1: entire websites dedicated to explaining CB slang. Slang is fun
Speaker 1: no matter what you're doing. Yeah, Because for one thing,
Speaker 1: it makes you feel like you're part of an exclusive group. Right.
Speaker 1: It makes you feel like you know you are included
Speaker 1: within this group and other people are excluded. Therefore you
Speaker 1: are special. So that's why I happen to know a
Speaker 1: lot about slang because special. I like to feel special.
Speaker 1: I have no pretense about being special, no, I but
Speaker 1: I'm able to live with that because I can partition
Speaker 1: my brain. All Right, all right, I I think I've
Speaker 1: I think I've completely exhausted my knowledge of CB radios.
Speaker 1: But I want to say, if you have any other
Speaker 1: technologies like this, um, things that we don't normally talk about.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's only so many conversations we can have
Speaker 1: about Twitter. Yes, Um, this was a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to research because, you know, something that we were both
Speaker 1: familiar with, but I didn't know you know, the ins
Speaker 1: and outs of of CBS and you know, well, frankly,
Speaker 1: I guess I still don't. But it was fun to
Speaker 1: really get into it and look into the culture and
Speaker 1: some of the stuff. And uh yeah, so so please
Speaker 1: right right to us at tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Yeah, that'd be great because this was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It was. I agree, I totally agree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you guys have any other like, there's just this
Speaker 1: this technology that everyone used to use no one does now,
Speaker 1: but I kind of want to know how it works,
Speaker 1: let us know, because that we love to learn about
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Yeah, or you know I can have
Speaker 1: another Amiga podcast and talk about that for another hour
Speaker 1: and a half. Yeah, which is cool because I don't
Speaker 1: even have to show up that day. But you know
Speaker 1: what that brings us to listener. You thought you were
Speaker 1: going to get away with just one Yeah, No, so
Speaker 1: here we go. Hey guys, I just finished listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast regarding how nine one one technology works. Last week,
Speaker 1: I also listened to your podcast regarding GPS games that
Speaker 1: it reminded me of a humorous story that I read
Speaker 1: about several years ago when I was kind of getting
Speaker 1: into geo cashing. There's a famous or perhaps infamous story
Speaker 1: about a guy who was geo cashing in a swampy
Speaker 1: area near his community when he became lost. This guy
Speaker 1: forgot to mark his vehicle as a waypoint on his
Speaker 1: GPS receiver so that he would be able to find
Speaker 1: his car after locating his cash. This is particularly important
Speaker 1: when you are cashing in an undeveloped area with no
Speaker 1: discernible trails or pathways, as it can be easy to
Speaker 1: get turned around and lose track of where you are
Speaker 1: part anyway, after a few unsuccessful hours of trying to
Speaker 1: find his vehicle, he resorted to his last resort of
Speaker 1: using his cell phone to call nine one. As Geo
Speaker 1: cashing lore would have it, he reported his emergency by
Speaker 1: saying that he was lost, but he knew exactly where
Speaker 1: he was. I guess the fire department came and were
Speaker 1: able to locate him with the latitude and longitude coordinates
Speaker 1: that he gave the nine one one operator, and he
Speaker 1: was successfully rescued. Anyway, I thought this was a humorous
Speaker 1: story that tied in two of your recent podcasts and
Speaker 1: thought your other listeners might get a kick of the story.
Speaker 1: Tony from Lincoln, Nebraska, Well, thanks a lot, Tony, I
Speaker 1: gotta kick out of that. I love it sounds like
Speaker 1: something I would say on nearly a daily basis. I'm lost,
Speaker 1: but I know exactly where I am. And it seems
Speaker 1: like the kind of thing that it would be really
Speaker 1: easy to do because you got the GPS and you figure, well,
Speaker 1: i'm safe, I know exactly where I am, and then
Speaker 1: you realize that you know you're lost. So it's shows
Speaker 1: shows what happens when we rely too much on technology
Speaker 1: and not enough uncommon sense or you know, a simple compass. Right. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Tony. That was a great email. If
Speaker 1: you guys want to send us, as Splet mentioned, if
Speaker 1: you want to send us an email about old technologies
Speaker 1: or new ones as well, but you want to hear
Speaker 1: about that would be tech stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Remember, we have blogs. You can access those
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Look on the right
Speaker 1: hand side. You'll see the links there, and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.
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