Word: cb
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Chaotic Delay. In January 1973, there were 26,682 CB license applications; in January 1975, 79,375; in January 1976, 544,742. At Gettysburg, Pa., where the FCC processes the applications, conditions have been hardly less chaotic than they were in July 1863. Unopened envelopes overflowed into the ladies' lounge; the FCC fell two months behind. Last month the agency moved to cut the delay by allowing anyone who buys a set to obtain an immediate temporary permit on mailing in $4 and an application form...
...While CB "radiddio" is widely used by truckers and ordinary drivers to warn of speed traps ahead, the network is highly esteemed by highway patrols and police for its ever-increasing role in reporting accidents, crimes, stolen cars, fires, traffic tie-ups, even reckless drivers ("Harvey Wallbangers"). Several volunteer organizations of CBers have sprung up to monitor the air waves and provide round-the-clock emergency services. The biggest, called REACT (for Radio Emergency Associated Citizens Teams), claims more than 70,000 members in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, seven Canadian provinces and West Germany. Since its formation...
...social and economic background of CBers is changing rapidly. Once populated mostly by truckers and blue-collar hobbyists, CB land is attracting growing numbers of businessmen and middle-class families who use the sets for safety and information. CB is also a "bodacious" (in CB lingo, super, fantastic) way of relieving freeway tedium-so much so that truckers' use of amphetamines has declined drastically in recent years. Ordinary drivers tend to be as evangelistic about the medium as oldtime gear jammers. "When I'm on the road these days," says New York Businessman Lawrence LeKashman...
...macho world of CB is part soap and part horse opera. Says Amitai Etzioni, the eminent Columbia University sociologist: "A CB allows you to present a false self: to be beautiful, masculine, tall, rich, without being any of those things. Like the traveling salesman who drops into a singles bar and says he's the president of his company, a person can project on the air waves anything he wants to be." The person who installs a CB set and adopts a "handle" (nickname) and starts "modulating" on the air, is creating a character and reaching out to others...
...CB is a godsend for many shut-ins and others who are isolated from the community. For some enthusiasts, like Mrs. Patricia Schey ("Kissy Face") who monitors her "home base" 16 hours a day in Madison, Wis., it is more of a passion. Almost everyone, however, responds to what Manhattan Psychoanalyst Joel Kovel calls "CB's element of voyeurism." That aspect of the CB phenomenon has not been lost on Mitchell Brothers, the porno-film producers. They recently released an opus with the self-explanatory title C.B. Mamas...