Somewhere in the first few months, FOP decided we needed to have a CB radio to use along with the phones on the air. Keep in mind that the CB fad had come and gone almost a decade earlier...no matter, Frank said we needed one, so we got one.Aah, the power of big-league personality!
I'd never used a CB, but FOP had, so we had our base unit wired into the console and we forged ahead...to exactly nothing. That little Uniden unit, tucked deep inside the steel-and-glass frame of the 10th floor of the Westport Gold Tower saw and heard absolutely no signal.
Obviously we needed an outside antenna. CE Mike Gideon figured out a way to snake a cable from our floor to the roof, attached it to a high-gain (and very likely, illegal) antenna...and we were off and talking.
Figure the potential reach of a CB radio (what, 4 watts?) with an antenna at 120 feet HAAT using our probably-illegal high-gain stick beside a VERY busy 1-270 during morning drive. Yes, we made contact, all over, South County to Illinois, and yes, we put them all on the air.
And illegal as hell, it was then, to rebroadcast CB on commercial channels, especially with our elevated and overpowered antenna, but that's what KIX was all about. We didn't use cuss words or make direct sexual references, but this was the way we danced on the cliff.
We discovered the Brothers' Channel, a channel where African-American CB'er's held forth, using language that I with my much-faster-then fingers managed to cover (most of the time but could always deny as our talk) and we made contact with a delightful lady who was sickly and spent her time talking with truckers on her own high-gain rig.
The bloom wore off the CB rose pretty quickly and we went on to other silliness.
But all these years later I still have a couple hand-held, full-power CB's and every now and again I pull them out of the drawer and switch them on to just scan the dial to see who's out there doing what.
You'd be amazed at what's being talked about out there.
Discuss on the STLMedia Message Board. (Registration required).
