Why channel 19?

Cuz Breaker 1-8 or breaker 2-0 sounded worse than breaker 1-9. Just kidding i don't really know but now i'm wondering too. guess i need to follow this thread to find out whyother's think so.

 

Who cares just use what everybody else is on. And it is 17 out here in God's country!

 

I would assume that it had something to do with old (and I mean OLD) radios only going to 19, but really have no idea.

 

I believe that 19 is one of the longest range channels. It has something to do with where in the 11 meter band it falls, if I remember correctly.

 

I believe you are right. Back in the early '60's I had an old EF Johnson that only had 19 channels on it. Also had a transmit switch on the radio itself, rather than a push to talk button on the mic. I grew up around Pueblo, CO and we used 19 as a local call channel back then. Didn't get a lot of interference from truckers either.

 

I think it used to be channel 11 and it was moved to 19 to reduce interference on channel 9.

 

Back in the old days when CB's first started gaining popularity in trucks there was really no set channel nationwide that truckers used as a call channel.

A lot of guys ran on 10 and some ran on 19 and as you went from region to region you had to kind'a figure out where the drivers in that area ran.
A lot of company drivers would congregate on "their" channel and you could always find those guys there.

In Northern California it was 17 and in Southern California it was 15 with the dividing line being at CA. State highway 46. California is still like that today and that's why you don't hear too many "California only" drivers on 19.

In the early 70's there was a push to decide on a "universal call channel" that truckers would all use.
As I recall it was driven by Mike Parkhurst and Overdrive Magazine, I do know that they threw their considerable influence at the effort to get everybody "on the same channel" so to speak.

The movement was successful and after a while channel 19 became the "Truckers channel" and we all just started using it and that's roughly how channel 19 wound up being "The One".

It could have been any one of the available 23 that we had in those days, I just happened to be 19

 

Actually in the 70's it was 19 or 21 depending upon whether you were going east or west on I-40. Then one east coast or the other west coast. It varied over time. But they were courteous and stayed away from 15 to 17 as these were for SSB only by a gentleman's agreement. Something later moved to 35 - 40 until all the locals fighting, treating all with disrespect, increasing numbers, and skip from down south ruined it all for good. 9 was emergency only and stayed that way until the local React units in various towns got sick of all the Mexican skip there. 1-14 except 9 was local talk and 20-23 was where drivers went to not rag chew on the 'business channels'. The out of control kids in towns and cities tearing up everything combined with the increasing skip from south of the border by 87 or so was driving all the die hard SSB skip shooters into the upper funny channels. They virtually all respected staying below 28 MHZ, for all the complaints I have heard I never encountered a SSB skip shooter who failed to respect this. If you listen long there at 28 or higher again it is mostly Mexican skip you hear. Pretty much it is all hopeless anymore, on my favorite SSB channel 37 LSB lately it is useless being jammed with AM Spanish talk.

 

My first CB was a Royce 23 channel radio...it had been my grandpa's radio back in the day...

Looked like this one:


....until some good-fer-nothin' thievin' son-of-a-b!%*# decided I didn't really need it and removed it from the truck.

I friggin' hate thieves. :smt067