Pastime: Breaker, breaker, One-Nine

By Maylon Rice

Special to the Saline River Chronicle

The Pastime of the legacy of the 8-Track Tape and Warren, I knew, would bring back the other technology craze of the late 1960s and 1970s – the Citizen Band Radio.

Remember that old catch phrase: “Breaker, Breaker, One-Nine?”

Sure you do.

While I never personally owned a CB radio, lots and lots of my peers did – and many of their parents owned them – and loved them.

It was a craze that was, well a love for a new personal communication system. I think the CB craze was akin to “Texting” today. I do “Facebook” and “Instagram,” now, but I must admit all this “Tik Tok” chatter, both in popularity and political subterfuge, leaves us slack-jawed in amazement.

And then there are those other fast-paced tech apps on a cellular phone  somehow – elude me as a technology challenged senior citizen.

But back to the 1970s and the CB radio.

One very popular friend who loves to write about the past as much as I do, Johnny Burch, had a great CB “handle” or nickname back in the day.

Burch’s call sign and “handle” was simply the “Flying Dutchman, KSG3893.”

Do any of you reading this remember your “handle” or better yet, your official Federal Communications Commission registration call sign?

In Warren, in the hey-day of CB radios, couples, often sitting in the living room with the television set turned down low or even turned off, as you monitored the CB “traffic,” nightly. 

The CB lovers held area wide  social events of CB gatherings, called “CB Rodeos,” or “CB Jamborees.”

Often a couple or other members of a “CB Club” wore matching vests, just like motorcycle clubs with their FCC call signs, “handles” and other identifying patches all over these vests.

And there were CB Radio “Clubs” in Warren and all over Southeast Arkansas. One such CB Jamboree for charity back in the 1970s was actually held at the Warren Town Park, down by the old National Guard Armory, where the old steam engine sits.

As the CB “clubs” were formed each adopted a universal  CB “slang language,” evolved alongside 10-codes, similar to those used in emergency services. From these 10-codes, often patterned after law enforcement two-way radio calls, soon came the “Police Scanners Craze” – but that is another Pastime for another week.

At these “CB Jamborees,” the CB aficionados showed up in their personal vehicles, pitched make-shift tents (like at a tail gate for a college football game) and spent the day grilling and talking on the CB radios both in their cars and often a “base” unit, rigged up to talk, talk, talk, to those not at the fundraiser.

If you loved to talk, the CB radio, was your thing.

And there were sold at all radio, TV and appliance stores in Warren. Recently John Burch was mining deep in old 1970s newspaper and found that the Morgan & Lindsey Store on South Main actually was selling CB radios.

The 1970s popularity of the CB radio was compounded by the days after the 1973 oil crisis, the U.S. government imposed a nationwide 55 mph speed limit, and fuel shortages and rationing were widespread.

Drivers (especially commercial truckers) used CB radios to locate service stations with better supplies of fuel, to notify other drivers of speed traps, and to organize blockades and convoys in a 1974 strike protesting the new speed limit and other trucking regulations.

The popularity of the use of CB radios in 1970s made its way into films, television, and music by the late 1970s. Films such as Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Breaker! Breaker! (1977), Citizens Band (a.k.a. Handle with Care (1977), and Convoy (1978), made heavy reference to the phenomenon.

And most of, if not all of these movies were shown at either the Pastime Theater or the Warren Drive In.

Also the CB craze started television series such as Movin' On (debuted in 1974) and The Dukes of Hazzard (debuted 1979) helped cement CB radio's status as a nationwide craze in the United States over the mid- to late-1970s.

And then there was soulful Country music – some of which haunt me until this day. The top song had to be C.W. McCall's novelty song "Convoy"  out in 1975, which climbed to No. 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1976.

Another C. W. McCall ballad, "'Round the World with the Rubber Duck" was a sequel to "Convoy.” It was released in late spring 1976, and peaked at No. 1 in the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 charts.

And who could forget the tear-jerker narrative from Red Sovine, "Teddy Bear."

Many CB radio users “called CBers” referred to Channel 19 "the trucker's channel."

What killed the CB Radios was simply lax enforcement of the rules on authorized use of CB radio led to widespread further disregard of the regulations (notably in antenna height, distance communications, licensing, call signs, and transmitter power).

Many a car, truck or work truck in Warren had high, whip antennae which would still be moving long after the vehicle stopped back in the day.

Individual licensing came to an end on April 28, 1983. And thus, so did the CB radio.