Talk:CB radio in the United Kingdom
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Not a bad article. I've just read this article for the first time and I can assure anyone reading it that it's a fairly accurate account of what happened. I was very active in the campaign to legalize CB in the UK. It was obvious that the British Government at the time were determined to destroy CB. First of all the government flatly refused to introduce a CB system but a few people started to use illegally imported 27 Mhz rigs. The campaigners' preferred frequency would have been 230 Mhz. When the government finally published its Green Paper suggesting a frquency of 930 Mhz there was a public outcry. Those who had waited patiently realized that they weren't at all serious and immediately went out and got 27 Mhz equipment. In 1981 the British Government introduced a system which was not only impracticable, but it interfered with the system already in massive use. This was seen as a deliberate attempt by the government to get their revenge on CB users for having won their campaign. I now live in France where the legal system on 27 Mhz AM/SSB 4W AM, 12W PEP SSB is still in daily use. It's the same system as the USA It doesn't cause interference. They lied to us! Apgeraint 20:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- I was also very active in the early CB days (79-81) and have been responsible for much of this article. You raise a good question: did the government deliberately create a system that would render CB impossible in practice? They certainly did achieve that. However, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence (and a little paranoia). The question of interference was probably blown out of proportion, but there's no question that there was some interference to television reception, modellers, etc. Modellers had a legitimate gripe since they had a right to use 27 MHz, and any CB popping up on (or even close to, model receivers not usually being very good quality) the channel they were using would send the model out of control. Most TVI was caused (as I suggested in the article) by the use of burners, but not exclusively so - there was some very crappy equipment around and a badly set-up 4 watts can cause TVI. (We've all seen people wiring up antennas with no coax, or without a proper contact to the sheath, or with a short across the coax). Now given that TV reception could be affected at close quarters, it's not unreasonable to suppose that other services such as ambulance and other emergency services (as was often claimed) could be affected. However, I'm sure that any such incidents were isolated, and : exaggerated for obvious reasons by the authorities. I think for them the problem was more to do with lack of any equipment standards, so even if they legalised the "standard" 27 MHz AM service, they'd still have no control over the equipment in use, with the interference problems that that MIGHT cause. The service they did legalise at least allowed them to keep control over that, since equipment had to be DTI approved like every other radio transmitter device sold for use in the UK. The channel offset was intended (officially) to prevent interference because any harmonics would fall in-between the channels used by the emergency services, etc. However, I'm sure, as you suggest, there could well have been a bonus (for them) element of effectively creating havoc on the 27 MHz band where legal and illegal equipment was used simultaneously. The idea being that it would be so crappy as to drive people away altogether. Well, if so, it worked, eventually. I do think personally though that this is unlikely to have been part of the official thinking. I expect they hoped that the legal service would encourage people to leave the AM equipment behind and move to FM - most people I knew really would have preferred to be using the system legally anyway, the lawbreaking was undesirable for most. The fact remains that the US and French (and others) systems notwithstanding, AM or SSB on HF frequencies is not a local, short distance, point-to-point system - it's a long distance, technically demanding system. More like amateur radio. The fact that you can have SSB conversations with US users from northern Europe shows this - what good is it for a Londoner to know that there's a traffic problem on I-95? To this day, I believe that a 220 MHz service would have been very popular, functional and not too expensive (as opposed to the 934 MHz, which was very expensive back then). CB might have not been the flash in the pan it ended up - though then again, one might argue that this was the government's hope all along. Graham 06:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
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- Your assessment of the situation is spot on. I too originally campaigned to have UK CB on FM on the old "Lancaster Bomber" frequencies but anywhere between 40 and 500 Mhz would have been acceptable. In 1981 I couldn't make up my mind if the government were bloodyminded or just incompetent. Whatever the answer, since moving to France in 1990 I've learned that things can be done differently. The reason why 27 Mhz AM/FM/SSB is legal in France is because the French government are not too intransigent to admit that they make mistakes. They are prepared to listen to criticism and are not afraid to do U-turns, because their long-term aim is to "get it right".
There's a saying here; When a Frenchman says "NON!" he doesn't mean "NON!", he means "Maybe you can convince me to say OUI!". Apgeraint 11:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
- Your assessment of the situation is spot on. I too originally campaigned to have UK CB on FM on the old "Lancaster Bomber" frequencies but anywhere between 40 and 500 Mhz would have been acceptable. In 1981 I couldn't make up my mind if the government were bloodyminded or just incompetent. Whatever the answer, since moving to France in 1990 I've learned that things can be done differently. The reason why 27 Mhz AM/FM/SSB is legal in France is because the French government are not too intransigent to admit that they make mistakes. They are prepared to listen to criticism and are not afraid to do U-turns, because their long-term aim is to "get it right".
[edit] Numbers
"At the height of the craze, everyone was either using CB or knew somebody who did – it is important to realise that this was a very significant movement, in terms of numbers". I am very sceptical of this. There are no sources in the article and no absolute numbers. I do not believe that CB radio was as popular in the UK as the article suggests. I believe that this article is perpetually compromised; the only people reading and writing it are British CB radio fans, who are not objective. And in a few years it will fade into nothingness as the people above grow old and die. Ashley Pomeroy 15:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
- Let me clarify a little:- Just before the publication of the Green Paper in August 1980, govenment experts estimated that there were 250.000 CB'ers in the UK . Once the Green Paper was published there was a massive increase in illegal CB use. Incidentally 10,000 people replied to the Green Paper objecting to its proposals. From my own obsevations I can say that I lived in a street of 100 houses, and by 1981 10 of these had CB installed. I can only guess that the same was true for the rest of the country. I also observed that 1 in 2 heavy goods vehicles were equiped with CB at this time. Remember that there were no cellphones. Even cordless phones were illegal and the only way to communicate was by C.B. which was also illegal. Apgeraint 22:01, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I was there too in 1979/1980 and there were a great many people on the CB even back then. In my smal town on the east coast of England there must have been 250 + users on the CB. Thats not taking the truckers. So the assertion that everyone was either using the CB or knew someone who was is quite correct. Onepagan 01:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The bulk of CB users from the 1980's (the heyday of CB) would now be in their late 30's and 40's.--Pandaplodder 00:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
- yep, we are talking 1979, not 1879. I was 17 when I "got into" CB so work it out. I hope I'm not likely to die soon. Stupid idiot (Pomeroy, not you) you'll get old too y'know. 203.87.74.230 (talk) 01:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Facts or opinions?
The article is too subjective, tending to voice opinions rather than neutral information. A re-write would be useful, perhaps putting opinions or criticism of the system under a Criticism heading. Dawd 00:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
- I've just read carefully through the article and I can assure you that it's quite accurate. Those who have written it have done it well. You can't re-write history. Apgeraint 22:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
- I have also read through the article and confirm that it gels with my experience of the use of CB in the UK. The comments about the bomber frequencies I can't verify but subjectively speaking (and objective evidence will be very difficult to unearth) I haven't seen anything that makes me want to say 'WRONG'. Mikebanahan 09:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)mikebanahan
The bomber frequencies were (and in fact the whole CB Radio story) was featured in a book called the British CB Handbook (unforunately I no longer have a copy)which was published in 1981. In the village where I grew up there was 6 users includng myself at one time, in the early 80's the channels wee very crowded,Christmas 1982 saw mail order catalogues selling CB radios (Midlands, Harvard) and many teenager received them christmas presents. It did wonders for tenagers social lives as you met people you wouldn't normally met. I can remember the CB magazine 'Breaker' and a few others. I have noticed that thee is no mention of REACT UK, REACT International or THAMES.
- I agree; the article reads, in some places, like an essay rather than a factual and encylopaedic piece. The use of passive voice is encouraged. NPOV seems to be fine, though. CNash 22:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
--Pandaplodder 23:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
