Talk:CB radio in the United States

confusion in Regulation and Enforcement section
"Actions against violations of FCC regulations have been minimal in the past..."

"In recent years, the FCC has had a renewed interest in taking enforcement actions against freebanding..."

"Todays actions of illegal CBer's are usually not cared about by the FCC."

"Many actions have been taken in recent years against the so-called freebanders operating illegally"

all of this will be difficult to source, but the wording of it is confusing to me. i have always been under the impression that fcc enforcement was heavier in the past, when the fcc actually had field agents dedicated to collecting information against offending cber's. i place this date late 60's to late 70's in my own mind, when the cber population exploded in size.

this was followed by (in my mind) a lack of any enforcement on the cb band, followed by in early 2000-present (or so) the notice of apparent liability letters sent primarily to retailers of export radios.

El hombre de haha 22:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Today's actions of illegal CBer's are usually not cared about by the FCC. They will only go after people who disrupt important radio communications, or are reported by people who are having trouble with neighbors who have over-powered CB's. It usually interferes with broadcast television.
 * This has no verifiable basis and is an poorly worded opinon. me  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.133.139.5 (talk) 17:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Frequency table
In the table of US/CEPT frequencies, channels 1 and 7 are labeled "local community channels." In my experience, a given local community will pick a channel based on relative lack of noise and will congregate there, sometimes even performing a "roll call" of local CB'ers. While channels 1 and 7 may be the choice in specific editors' neighborhoods, this hasn't been formally standardized and I doubt it is an informal standard. Separately, the labeling of channel 6 as a "high power illegal activity channel" is nothing more than a commentary about current traffic. Surely all those voices up in the Ozarks running linears have all 40 channels at their disposal and do not feel bound to channel 6. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 02:48, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I saw that and have issues with it too. Most areas only have 19 as a highway channel, and use 17 maybe for SSB.  California and a few other places split the highway channel by north/south.  Community channels of course vary from place to place, nothing special about 1 or 7.  There was actually a book that surveyed CB operators to produce a guide for the popular community channels town by town.  But 6, or "the bowl" is pretty well known for power contests (been going on for years and years), and it would be great if we could source that. Squidfryerchef (talk) 04:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I see that these claims about the use of specific channels were added in two stages by our recent anonymous editor. I've deleted the claims about channels 1 and 7.  Can't help you with a citation on Channel 6.  --Spike-from-NH (talk) 17:08, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "Citation needed" will do fine until somebody finds something about Channel 6 in a magazine. BTW, most of those voices from the Ozarks have about 240 channels at their disposal. Squidfryerchef (talk) 21:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Those are all good comments from 2009. Here we are now in 2021, and it looks like the table and some of this general section will need to be updated with current wikipedia table standards and FM, etc. I will try to improve it with some more details, cites, and table code. Baleywik (talk) 06:20, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Much cleanup - thanks!
Thanks, especially, to voidxor who spent a LOT of time fixing both tag stuff and grammar stuff.

Why on earth is this page "of interest" to the Wiki Project Amateur Radio? Hobby radio, sure, but it's not part of Amateur Radio ... and participants in both hobbies will tell you so ... often loudly. Full disclosure: my new, legal, FM/AM CB comes next week and I've been an amateur radio licensee for over 30 years.

As for FCC enforcement of Part 95 and other relevant regulations under the Communications Act, it's pretty well known by users in many radio services that the FCC will not get involved unless another radio service is affected and that service involves aviation, public safety (i.e., EMS/Fire/Police), or broadcasting. But as well known as that is, there isn't really a citation so it can't be on the page. Unless you have a citation. There are complaints in old CB radio magazines as far back as at least the 1970s about the lack of FCC enforcement. This was galling to CBers then as they were paying $20 for a license and millions of licenses were being issued (fee dropped to $4 then to $0 under Reagan who wanted to abolish the FCC entirely - no cite - this is a talk page). Back then, and still the case now, and surely how it needs to be, is that any fees collected go to the Treasury and the Congress decides how those funds are then allocated. Should the Congress have put some of those license fees back into the FCC? Probably, but that's up to Congress. --plaws (talk) 16:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you! It always feels great to have somebody appreciate my editing! Wikipedia is so often a thankless task, especially on the maintenance side of things.
 * You just reminded me of another talk page thread asking much the same question. To follow the precedent, I'm moving this article and Family Radio Service to WikiProject Radio. —  void  xor  17:28, 4 February 2022 (UTC)


 * In the USA at least, we have CB radio, we have FRS, we have GMRS, more recently we have MURS. All can be considered hobby radio though personal business is permitted on all of them in a way that it's not in Amateur Radio.  All of them are useful to one degree or another and all are fun (to one degree or another) but CB is part of hobby radio and Amateur Radio is part of hobby radio but CB is not part of Amateur radio - so thanks for making the change! Let me also add that listening to radio (LW, MW, SW, etc), particularly for "DX" is also still a thing and very much a part of hobby radio.  --plaws (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

To do - citations
There is an academic paper that explores the culture surrounding the Channel 6/Superb Owl thing and would provide citations for that.

Need to dig up the Report and Order (c.1976) that covers the 40 channel expansion. Also need to dig up some of the FCC opinions (or whatever they were) in the years leading up to that expansion that discuss proposals for a new CB band at 220 MHz or at 900 MHz. Those were 1973-1976 or so.

Worldradiohistory.com has many many old CB magazines that need to be searched for citations.

Is this "original reasearch"? I don't think so - the claims have usually been made, we just need to provide references. --plaws (talk) 16:37, 12 February 2022 (UTC)