The Sociological Aspects of CB Radio
By Michael Boyajian
I am a real radio freak going back to my childhood when my late father and I would peruse the now non existent Radio Shack catalog. We would find and purchase radio kits, shortwave radios, marine radios, police scanners and the new at that time FM radios.
Today I host a college radio segment and I am hooked on satellite radio, my regular stereo receiver, weather radio, shortwave radio and CB or Citizens Band radio. You may recall that CB was once huge in the 1970s. Everyone was tuning in and Hollywood made movies revolving around its use while rock stars wrote songs about it.
You could turn on your CB radio back then and hear friendly chatter on any of its frequencies. Now, thanks to the cell phone, the only chatter you hear is on Channel 19, the so called trucker channel.
I tune into this world through my home base radio and through a unit in my car. The total cost for both are just over a hundred dollars and it opens an entire world to me. It is the sociological gateway into the working class world of the highway trucker.
My home base signal brings in drivers along I-84 in Dutchess County and sometimes even the New York State Thruway across the Hudson River and of course anywhere within fifteen or so miles of where ever I am in my car.
It’s a world different than the one most of us with nine to five jobs are used to where we hit the road to go back and forth from work. The trucker on the other hand is in his office, his truck, 24-7 isolated in his cab from the world but for his radios.
Now most of the trucker society consists of hard working people who use the CB as a tool to report to one another on traffic and weather conditions and the location of dreaded police speed traps or what they refer to as “smoky the bear” or just plain old “bears.” Sometimes they talk about their journeys or the places they hail from. There is even a little pirate radio going on. Most CB users are men but there are a growing number of women using it.
Nonetheless there is a small fringe on the CB that are extremely right wing, misogynistic, homophobic, fundamentalist, racist and xenophobic and they are very vocal in a graphic way about their views. I have heard truckers talking about giving the Lincoln treatment to newly elected President Barack Obama. I have heard the N word, the C word and the F bomb. I have heard the poor belittled and healthcare ridiculed and our government trashed with violent talk and even sex offered for sale. So much so that sometimes you wish law enforcement were listening and could track down these crazies.
Contrast this with the CB of the 1970s where everyone was chummy and just talking to one another about better days ahead as they endured a tough economy and you realize what has happened to CB has also happened to our society at large. Why recently I thanked someone for confirming my CB radio signal by saying “10-4, good buddy,” and the guy came back and angrily said “I ain’t your buddy.”
We no longer talk to one another we verbally destroy one another with filthy language, personal attacks and hate speech and no where is this more apparent than on CB radio. Where once children were encouraged to explore the world of CB radio today you wonder if it should be X rated and kept away from the ears of our youth. Perhaps the federal laws governing its use should be enforced so that the behavior I have discussed is prohibited so that average Americans and families can once again engage with this fascinating world.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a First Amendment advocate and I know that the CB world is mostly made up of hardworking truckers just trying to earn a living so they can support their families, but there is still a fringe out their that likes to vent their extreme anger over the public air waves in a way that is a detriment to all others and that is plain wrong.
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