Radio History

Introduction To CB Radio

The Citizens Radio Service was formed in the late 1940's and was originally in the 460-470MHz UHF band.The first CB radios were designed and built by AL Gross and sold through his company, Citizens Radio Corp.In 1957 after a restructuring plan the F.C.C. moved the Citizens Radio Service to it's current location in the 11 meter, 27MHz HF band.

CB was originally intended as a means of short range communication for personal and small business users, but by the mid 1960's people had discovered the long distance"skip" capability's of the HF band and some were using it as a sort of quasi-Ham radio service, chit-chating, calling CQ, talking skip and all kinds of other activities that the F.C.C. had strictly prohibited in what was then called Part 19 of the Rules and Regulations, now known as Part 95.Even thou a few outlaw operators were busted by "Uncle Charlie", the F.C.C. just couldn't enforce the rules with so many new people getting on the air.The problem would only grow form there.

By the mid 1970's CB radio had  exploded in to a national craze.Every body was using them and you could see a CB antenna on almost any vehicle on the road.Big rigs, pick-ups, passenger cars and vans, ambulances, police cruisers and even a few fire trucks.

By the mid 1980's the general public began to loose interest with CB but it still remained popular with motorists and many hobbyists.

Introduction to Amateur Radio

Amateur radio is one of the most exciting and popular pastimes in the world.There are over 1.6 million "Hams" operating from every end of the globe.

Amateur radio as we know it started in the early 20th century right around world war 1 and at that time all amateur communication was done in morse code. Today Continuous Wave or (CW) operation, as it is known to Hams is still a vary popular activity on the amateur bands although morse code is no longer required knowledge to earn an amateur license.

The amateur bands start at 1.8MHz in the 160 meter high frequency (HF) band and end at 1.3GHz in the ultra high frequency (UHF) band and have a total of 15 differint bands that amateurs of the 3 license classes can use.These license classes are...

• Extra: The royal crown for ham operators! Many will not make it to this class and just settle for the more then adequate privileges of the General class, but a few will go for the highest (and hardest) class of all. And for those who do get there, there are special areas of many HF band just for Extra class operators and no one else and not to forget that Extra's have every privilege on every band that there is or that there will ever be.

Hams are involved in many differint hobbies inside the main hobby.These specialties are not only the various modes you can operate in such as AM, FM, Single Side Band(SSB), Packet, Radio Teletype(RTTY) or CW just to name a few but what you do with your radio skills as well. Many hams like to concentrate on long distance communication called DX'ing, others like to work in low power communication called QRP, some like to communicate with hams on the other side of the earth using amateur radio satellites called AMSATs and yet others like to use there knowledge of radio communications to help their community in ways like disaster relief.

There are many differint ways to have fun in Amateur Radio and just as many ways to help others with it as well.If you are interested in becoming a licensed Amateur Radio operator, contact an amateur radio club or group in your area and ask about getting licensed.

Introduction to Scanning

Scanning Receivers or Scanners as they are commonly known can be used to monitor many different agencies and organizations such as police departments, fire departments, ambulance services, airports, railroads, taxi cabs, Amateur (Ham) radio operators and much much more.

Ever since the late 1920's when public safety agencies started using the first one-way radio systems to dispatch calls there have been radio receivers for the general public to use to monitor these agencies.In fact the first police radio calls were transmitted over the AM broadcast band and could be picked up by any consumer radio receiver.The first police radio station was operated by the Detroit,MI. police and licensed under the call letters "KOP".  

KOP was listed officially as an entertainment station. To meet FRC (Federal Radio Commission, predecessor of the FCC) licensing requirements, police officers broadcast recorded music in between crime reports, lists of stolen vehicles and descriptions of missing children.

In the 1940's two-way VHF (Vary High Frequency) radio systems started replacing the one-way systems and the units in the field could now talk to each other as well as the dispatcher at headquarters.When departments started switching over to VHF there were no commercially available radios capable of receiving VHF frequencies so consumers would have to wait about 10 years until VHF receivers became available on the general market.

The late 1960's is when scanning as we know it today began.The first scanning receivers were crystal controled units sold through places like Radio Shack and had features that by today's standards were dismal at best. Most units had no more then 10 channels, no frequency display, no keypad and the channel scanning was indicated only by a row of blinking red LEDs with a corresponding push button below. Programing the frequencies was done by pressing two buttons marked with a 1 and a 0 in a sequence to program each number in the frequency.

The mid to late 1970's saw the development of the digital keypad in scanners which made programing and finding frequencies and channels much simpler. Also during this period new advances in transistor technology replaced crystals which gave scanners  larger memory banks and more channels.

In the early 1990's with advances in computer and two-way radio technology many large metropolitan areas decided to convert their conventional radio systems over to a new trunked system to make better use of frequency space.Trunked systems are computer controlled and can move conversations between units across frequencies so as not to tie up the whole system and can be used by multipule agencies without interference.Tracking these conversations is not possible with a conventional scanner so soon after trunked systems became popular "Trunk Tracker" scanners hit the market (with a heavy price tag) and scanner users could now listen in on departments using these new systems.

Also about this time a new mode of communication was developed "Digital"!

Unlike analog systems where the signal is received just as it was transmitted, digital radios encode the analog signal over to digital binary before it is transmitted and decode it back to analog it after it is received. Listening to a digital transmission on an analog scanner would sound something like the sound your PC makes when logging on to the net. In order to decode a digital signal you will need a digital capable scanner.

Digital systems have been gaining popularity since the mid 1990's but digital capable scanners did not come on to the market until a few years ago and are pretty expensive usually selling for $500-$550 but they are the most advanced and full featured scanners on the available today.

If you plan to get a scanner and use it in your vehicle be sure to check the local laws about scanners so you don't lose it as soon as you get it.