CB Radio in the UK
A Personal View
By Andrew Westcott
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Radio has always fascinated me, and long before I had a chance to get my full amateur radio licence I was lucky enough to be exposed to CB (Citizen's Band) Radio, which gave me a great insight into antenna design and propagation. I still firmly believe that prospective radio amateurs could do a lot worse than to 'cut their teeth' with CB.
Back when I got interested in the mid to late 1970s, CB radio was illegal in the UK, the only CB radios available being those that got smuggled into the country. Most were basic 40 channel AM radios, although for more money you may have been lucky to get a radio with perhaps 120 channels and covering AM, FM and SSB. Such radios include classics like the Ham International Multimode 2, and the Cobra 148 GTL DX, both highly sought after at the time.
We won't mention anything about the Echo Charlie band, 6.6MHz, 45 metres, which was getting a fair bit of use around that time. I had a dipole tuned to that band stretched between the house chimney and the roof of one of the barns; etiquette demanded that you keep power low, and never give your location any more precisely than just the county or region you were in. "I'm in the South West" would be more than enough. AM CB radios were illegal to use, but transmitting on the 6.6MHz band was considered to be a magnitude of naughtiness worse than that. But we won't talk about it, it's naughty.
The popularity of CB rapidly gained momentum in the UK, thanks in part to films such as Convoy and in particular Smokey & The Bandit, and during 1980 and 1981, the channels became so clogged with activity that it became difficult to find an unused channel. After many marches and demonstrations, the Government eventually bowed to public pressure and in November 1981 they legalised CB in the UK, giving us 40 channels to play with, and FM modulation which reduced the interference caused to the public considerably; this was known as the CB 27/81 specification, and compliant rigs were marked accordingly. No longer would your neighbour be able to hear your conversations on his hi-fi as could happen with AM modulation, so this had to be a good thing.
The newly available legal CB radios using FM modulation had a mixed reception (pun intended), as some found the intense white noise in the absence of a signal to be objectionable; with AM radios and the noise blanker on, the noise was considerably quieter, and you could often get away without using the squelch control. Despite this, the new channel allocations were, almost overnight, completely clogged up with CB users of all ages, but most notably teenagers, who saw this new medium as a rather useful social networking tool. Unfortunately, we also had to contend with music being played and 'blank carriers', the result of people operating the microphone but not saying anything. Both tricks resulted in that particular channel being rendered useless for some distance around the operator, at a time when it was quite difficult to find a vacant channel anyway. "Channel in use!" is not something you hear much these days.
Many years after legalising CB, the Government legalised CB use on the original American channels too, bringing legislation in line with the EU. All modes are now available for use on these new channels, but specifications had been tightened up considerably resulting in radios that are arguably less capable than what went before.
At the bottom of the page is a table of channels and frequencies as currently available for legal use.
How It All Began For Me
(And Some Confessions)
Since I was a kid I'd wanted to build a radio transmitter; my first working one was made when I was around 14, using the modified local oscillator of an FM valve radio; this transmitted on or around 100MHz and therefore within the band II broadcast allocation. With the makeshift transmitter feeding a centre-fed dipole, I had a fair bit of fun 'range testing' by playing music through it and going out to see how far away it could be heard; a surprising three miles was achieved line of sight, with half a mile being more typical.
Other transmitters were attempted which exhibited varying degrees of instability, but eventually I discovered a source of real, production transmitters at a price I could afford. I'm unsure exactly how I became aware of CB being used in the UK; it may have been a report on the news or something a local told me. In any case, I decided to have a listen around the top of the shortwave bands where CBs were allegedly being used; Initially I tried listening on a Murphy B40 admiralty receiver I'd been lent, but in the absence of a decent antenna, I wasn't able to receive much as I lived 'out in the sticks', but did occasionally pick up locals chatting. I lived many miles from the nearest town of Exeter, so my next plan was to take a portable radio up on to the Haldon Hills which overlooked the city, my weapon of choice for this being an Aimor TR105 portable radio, styled to look a tiny bit like a communications receiver.
My old Aimor TR105 radio, only recently sold
From the higher and now much closer to town location, I was able to pick up a fair bit of activity, and made many trips up there on my bike, often with a friend. After a bit, I decided my next move had to be to take my radio into Exeter itself, and have a listen from there.
I couldn't legally drive at that point, so grabbed a lift in with my parents when they went shopping in Sainsbury's, as they did every week. There was a multi-storey car park right next to the shop, so I'd take my portable radio and a piece of wire of around 8 feet in length to act as an antenna, which I plugged into the aerial socket on the back and made my way to the top of the car park and dangled the wire over the side. I was able to pick up a number of conversations going on, at good signal strengths, so for a while this became the norm: go into Exeter with my radio while my parents went shopping.
My last visit to the top of the multi-storey car park was brought to an unusual end: I was up there, happily listening to the chatter going on when I became aware of a coupe of dodgy-looking blokes on their way over to me. I became a little concerned as to their motives, but as they approached, they flashed some ID, showing they were actually plain clothed police officers, and they wanted to know what I was up to.
I explained what I was doing and how I got into Exeter, so they asked if I could take them to my vehicle where they would wait and speak to my parents to verify my story. I did exactly that, and we waited by our Austin Maxi for my parents to come back with their shopping, which they duly did and were able to confirm what I'd told them. I think the officers must have become suspicious about my intentions, perhaps suspecting that I was involved in something crime-related, but once my parents came back, the officers were happy with what I'd told them, and they went on their way.
During my visits to Exeter, I listened in to many conversations and after a while I recognised one of the voices as a Polish gentleman who owned an electronics shop in the city, one I'd visited several times before to buy various bits and pieces. As he's almost certainly no longer with us, it's safe to say that his handle was Red Mini and judging by the nature of various conversations, he seemed to be involved in dealing in these illegal CBs.
The next logical step for me was to try to get my hands on a CB. I got a lift into Exeter with a mate who had recently passed his driving test, and money in pocket, headed for Red Mini's shop in the hope of maybe getting my hands on a CB, or at least finding out a bit more about it. By the entrance to the shop, we met a bloke who was about to take a CB into the shop to sell, so after a bit of haggling, I bought it along with a DV27 antenna for £70. I'd never seen a CB radio before so didn't know what to expect; this radio was a Sharp 4670, quite unlike the CB radios I became familiar with later. This one had a square box housing the speaker, with a large signal meter on the front. The microphone was flat and metallic, and these components plugged into a rectangular box which housed the radio proper, which could be installed somewhere out of the way.
A Sharp 4670 CB radio. (Not my photo)
The above photo shows one of these Sharp 4670 CB radios. I don't have a photo of the one I had, so I stole this off the internet; I hope the copyright owner doesn't mind too much.
Although I understood antenna theory fairly well, I'd never encountered a 'proper' antenna for a CB before, so was unaware at this stage that it should have been mounted on a ground plane, assuming it was a stand-alone design. Despite this, I leant the antenna against the wall and got to grips with how the radio worked, and was able to listen to conversations at my rural location. I learned fast, and fairly soon, with Red Mini's assistance I got myself a GP27/Silver Rod type dipole antenna, and was allowed to fit it to the chimney of our bungalow. This was the turning point, as now I had a fairly competent radio station, and got to know some of the local CB users and began making reliable contact with neighbouring towns.
Sun spot activity was high during this time, and I recall vividly the 'skip' interference on the old AM channels, sometimes getting to S9 and above making attempts at daytime contacts pointless, unless both operators were within a mile or two of each other. However, as the evening wore on, a point would come when the skip interference would fairly quickly cease, this being almost always around 11pm, after which time the channels fell utterly quiet allowing you to contact your friends in the neighbouring town again. Late evenings were, due to this, the best time to engage in attempts at longer distance communication with other CB operators and a local unofficial CB club was congealed, calling ourselves the 'Twilight Breakers' who met regularly in the early hours at Granada Services (as it was then) at junction 30 on the M5.
Operating a CB was illegal of course, and Post Office Telecommunications was the body responsible for catching and prosecuting those who insisted on breaking the law. Buzby was a cartoon bird used by them as their mascot in advertising campaigns around that time, and Buzby became slang for the bloke who may one day knock on your door if you were unlucky. "Don't let Buzby catch you." Prosecutions did happen, so we tended to be a bit careful, particularly regarding our location.
I recall that some CB operators or 'breakers' as they were known, managed to get hold of Buzby toys and would proudly display them in their cars hanging from the rear view mirror, suspended by a noose around the neck to display their disdain for the authorities. I've not seen one of these Buzby toys for many years, but I remember the toy bird in these cases looked dead, with the tongue hanging out of the side of its beak and crosses for eyes having evidently been hanged, so it's possible they were made specifically for CBers by some company or other, or maybe cleverly modified original Buzby toys.
Returning for a moment to what was a meeting of friends, our little unofficial 'Twilight Breakers' Club', it started to become better-known and began to become infested with a load of pseudo CB enthusiasts who's only real interest was some rutting, this eventually leading to a decision to wind up the club. I recall one obnoxious character from that time, Free & Easy he called himself, who for some unknown reason seemed to believe has was God's gift to women. (perhaps it was the silly-looking beard?) As a side note, the ladies I knew thought otherwise, believing him to be a bit of a dick. Anyway, he made it his hobby to stir trouble within the club by telling untruths about other CB operators. I wasn't immune to his odd behaviour either, as at some point he began insisting he'd seen me working for 'Buzby' and that I had infiltrated the club as a spy for them; the founder members (of which I was one) who knew me rather better than he did knew otherwise of course, but it was this kind of silliness which was responsible for the decision to close the club. We ended up occasionally meeting at private adresses to talk CB and put the world to rights. I wonder if the trouble-maker is still with us, and if he's finally overcome his inferiority complex?!
One evening probably around 1979, during a conversation with a local CB operator who called himself Woodworm (now sadly no longer with us), it became apparent that someone in the valley had a couple of Ham International Multimode 2 radios up for grabs, and he wanted £200 for each of them. This person was a solicitor and perhaps should have known better than to be involved in illegal stuff, but as he was an occasional CB user himself, I was able to contact him to discuss getting a sideband rig. He went on to explain that if I didn't have the money for one, I could do odd jobs for him for an agreed hourly rate, until the cost was paid off. Being a destitute teenager, I went for this option; I now had an SSB radio!
Unfortunately around this time my trusty Sharp CB started to exhibit problems, these caused by breaks in the many wires in the lead coming from the microphone: a bit of a design fault I suppose. I eventually swapped it for a big roll of RG8 coaxial cable which I used to connect to a new 5/8 wave antenna which replaced the old dipole on the chimney. From then on the Multimode 2 became my main rig rather than being reserved just for long distance work.
My use of the 11 metre band escalated dramatically, and I began making contacts with other countries and collecting QSL cards, these being essentially post cards that would be sent to you to confirm you'd made contact. Of course you wouldn't give your address over the air as these radios were painfully illegal to use, so local CB users in the area arranged the use of a PO Box for a minimal annual fee, for just this purpose.
Orkney Isles QSL card front |
Orkney Isles QSL card rear |
Besides being able to talk to operators in other countries, occasionally the propogation conditions would allow contacts over a shorter skip distance than was usual, allowing me in the South-West to make contact with CB operators in Ireland and Scotland. The images above are of a QSL card confirming my contact with the Orkney Isles. As you can probably make out, this was in 1982 and my callsign was FB107.
My home was in a valley which limited my range somewhat, so me & a friend used to sometimes go up onto a high bit of ground overnight and erect a 5/8 wave antenna on a pole, securely guyed to keep it upright. Most times someone would have organised a 'link-up', the object being to see just how far you could transmit and be heard, and I used to enjoy these events; some surprising distances could be attained, especially if both operators were stationed on a hilltop.
On one occasion, probably in 1981, there was nothing of interest going on, the heavy channel useage making it very difficult to hear and work any distant stations, so we could do little but wait until the early hours when things would quieten down. I can now admit that on this occasion we got a bit bored and decided to treat the local calling channel, channel 14 to Star Child by Level 42. Once the track had finished, we were rather amused to hear various people claiming they knew where we were, despite them being in towns 20 or more miles from us. "He must be close by, he's hitting me at 9 pounds plus." All very childish, but part of my CB experience; I was young, and Star Child is a great track and should be shared!
Most CB operators knew or had heard about 'burners', some regarding them as almost mystical devices only the very clued-up could get their hands on; these devices were amplifiers connected after the radio to boost your power output, sometimes by as much as ten times, making distant contacts much more reliable, and considering that many of the foreign stations I contacted were using 'burners' or 'linears' anyway, it made sense for me to get one. I made it a mission to seek out a burner to add to my radio station, and finally settled on a new Bremi BRL200 which a shop in Kingsteignton was able to supply.
My old Bremi BRL200, painted black, only recently sold
I carried on like this for some time, enjoying making contacts both home and abroad, while some of the longer established CB operators took their radio amateur exams and gradually disappeared from the local CB scene.
I was always interested in amateur radio but at that time you needed to know Morse code at 12 words per minute to qualify you for shortwave operation, which was where my interest was. I managed to teach myself to send Morse at the required 12 WPM, but I just couldn't read it at anything like that speed, so for a while I lost interest in sitting the exam. I got myself an FRG-7 communications receiver which allowed me to listen in to amateur transmissions which kept my interest alive. (the B40 had long since returned to its owner.)
I still had a great interest in CB radio, and the CB of choice for me was always going to be the York JCB 861; just the basic controls, and most importantly in a mobile radio, the microphone plugged into the front, meaning that during use, the microphone cable didn't get bent at 90 degrees as happened with most other CBs, which could lead to early failure of the cable.
My collection of Eurosonic handheld CBs, still alive!
I recall when the older of my kids were in their early teens; I obtained some walkie-talkies, big heavy things they were, but the kids used to love running about through woodland or moorland with these things, passing inane comments to each other and giggling like idiots. Mobile phones were available to them, but somehow this proved to be so much more fun. I do believe that CB still has a place in our modern smartphone/social media-ridden times, it's just that much of the younger generation have probably never had, and probably never will, have the opportunity to experience the entertainment value of half-duplex instant two-way communication.
In slightly more recent times, post 2000 or so, me and the brats would go off on our annual holiday to Cornwall, usually in three cars: me & the wife and younger kids in one, an older daughter and her boyfriend in another and my son and his girlfriend in the third. It was the done thing to have one of my York CBs in each car with a magmount on the roof; this proved invaluable when only one of us knew (roughly) where we were going, and having this instant communication available made the main trip and subsequent daily outings quite amusing. Mobile phones were tried, but the faff and delay made that system useless; it's so much easier to just grab the microphone and say, "You've gone the wrong way, dickhead. Turn around."
My old faithful York CBs, resplendent in accumulated filth
Above are my York JCB 861 CBs, all well used and pretty grubby. I suppose I could have made an effort to clean the darned things before taking the photo, but they won't work any better for it, so why bother?
Forwarding on a fair bit, I became a member of Torbay Amateur Radio Society, and through them, I finally sat the three exams which were now required to get the Full licence, and fortunately by then, the requirement to know Morse code had been dropped; I passed the tests and became a fully-fledged radio amateur, choosing the callsign MØWAN. Despite this, I still use a CB on occasions; it's all part of the radio hobby, after all.
These days, CB activity has dropped right off, but it's far from dead; if all you're using is a crappy antenna on a car parked in the bottom of a valley, you could be forgiven for thinking there's no-one around. I still regularly visit my favoured spot, a gateway just 5 minutes from my house up on the Blackdown Hills; I fit a full quarter-wave antenna to the magmount and sit there in my car and listen to the banter which goes on, delighting in the practically zero noise level. Sometimes it seems I can hear for ever, but unfortunately few can hear me, as presumably they are in a vehicle or in a high interference area, but that's OK, I'm happy to just listen for the most part.
Unfortunately, CB is almost unusable at my house due to around S7 of interference caused by crappy, non-compliant imported electronics in neighbouring dwellings, and judging by comments on various forums, this is a problem suffered by many CB enthusiasts and may be the main reason why some decide to abandon the hobby. Ofcom are supposed to deal with this kind of interference, but now seem to have now turned a blind eye to it all, but that's a rant for another time and place.
| CB frequencies & modes legal to use in the UK |
| CB 27/81 Channels | EU/CEPT Channels | |||||
| Channel | Frequency (MHz) | Mode | Channel | Frequency (MHz) | Mode | |
| 1 | 27.60125 | FM | 1 | 26.965 | All modes | |
| 2 | 27.61125 | FM | 2 | 26.975 | All modes | |
| 3 | 27.62125 | FM | 3 | 26.985 | All modes | |
| 4 | 27.63125 | FM | 4 | 27.005 | All modes | |
| 5 | 27.64125 | FM | 5 | 27.015 | All modes | |
| 6 | 27.65125 | FM | 6 | 27.025 | All modes | |
| 7 | 27.66125 | FM | 7 | 27.035 | All modes | |
| 8 | 27.67125 | FM | 8 | 27.055 | All modes | |
| 9 | 27.68125 | FM | 9 | 27.065 | All modes | |
| 10 | 27.69125 | FM | 10 | 27.075 | All modes | |
| 11 | 27.70125 | FM | 11 | 27.085 | All modes | |
| 12 | 27.71125 | FM | 12 | 27.105 | All modes | |
| 13 | 27.72125 | FM | 13 | 27.115 | All modes | |
| 14 | 27.73125 | FM | 14 | 27.125 | All modes | |
| 15 | 27.74125 | FM | 15 | 27.135 | All modes | |
| 16 | 27.75125 | FM | 16 | 27.155 | All modes | |
| 17 | 27.76125 | FM | 17 | 27.165 | All modes | |
| 18 | 27.77125 | FM | 18 | 27.175 | All modes | |
| 19 | 27.78125 | FM | 19 | 27.185 | All modes | |
| 20 | 27.79125 | FM | 20 | 27.205 | All modes | |
| 21 | 27.80125 | FM | 21 | 27.215 | All modes | |
| 22 | 27.81125 | FM | 22 | 27.225 | All modes | |
| 23 | 27.82125 | FM | 23 | 27.255 | All modes | |
| 24 | 27.83125 | FM | 24 | 27.235 | All modes | |
| 25 | 27.84125 | FM | 25 | 27.245 | All modes | |
| 26 | 27.85125 | FM | 26 | 27.265 | All modes | |
| 27 | 27.86125 | FM | 27 | 27.275 | All modes | |
| 28 | 27.87125 | FM | 28 | 27.285 | All modes | |
| 29 | 27.88125 | FM | 29 | 27.295 | All modes | |
| 30 | 27.89125 | FM | 30 | 27.305 | All modes | |
| 31 | 27.90125 | FM | 31 | 27.315 | All modes | |
| 32 | 27.91125 | FM | 32 | 27.325 | All modes | |
| 33 | 27.92125 | FM | 33 | 27.335 | All modes | |
| 34 | 27.93125 | FM | 34 | 27.345 | All modes | |
| 35 | 27.94125 | FM | 35 | 27.355 | All modes | |
| 36 | 27.95125 | FM | 36 | 27.365 | All modes | |
| 37 | 27.96125 | FM | 37 | 27.375 | All modes | |
| 38 | 27.97125 | FM | 38 | 27.385 | All modes | |
| 39 | 27.98125 | FM | 39 | 27.395 | All modes | |
| 40 | 27.99125 | FM | 40 | 27.405 | All modes | |
I can be contacted at this address:
Copyright © Andrew Westcott 2003 - 2025
I'm happy for anyone to use this material for private, non-commercial or educational purposes, but credit to the author must be given. For any other use please contact me for permission.