Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in news:fnbd2s$i35$1
@aioe.org:

Mine was in 1956,  I was 10.  There was a real transistor radio kit sold
for $12.95 in Popular Science magazine, in the back in the little ads.  
I begged and begged my father to buy it for me.  The transistor was
Raytheon's CK-722:
http://www.ck722museum.com/
There's one in the Smithsonian.  It's a piece of history.
My kit had 2 transistors:
http://www.ck722museum.com/page44.html
This kit was an earlier model.  Mine had a red plastic box and crystal
earphone and ran off two aa or aaa cells.  The CK718s, like it says,
were only sold to hearing aid manufacturers, but the CK722 was in my
kit, in a bright blue plastic mount with 3 tiny wires coming out the
bottom.  A red dot showed you where the emitter was.  Like the tubes, it
plugged into a little socket like it shows because soldering then
destroyed them.

When I was 11-12, I used to build Heathkit CB walkie talkie kits:
Heath GW-30.  They were $20 when they first came out, a 4-transistor
superregen transceiver that ran off an expensive 9V big battery:
http://www.retrocom.com/ad's&flyers/HEATHKIT%20GW-30%20&%20CB-1.jpg
No squelch.  It sounded like Niagara Falls listening to its ONE dead
channel.  We thought it was simply wonderful.  Every kid brought me his
to build...(c;

The C-5 CB base under it I built, too.  It only had one crystal socket,
so you laid out your channel crystals on a piece of paper with each
crystal labeled so you could swap the front-mounted crystals fast when
one of the rich smart a.ses with a Globe or Gonset with a channel switch
wanted to change channels....(c;  It sounded like Niagara Falls because
it's tubes were a regen receiver, too.  On its better antenna, you heard
about 3 channels simultaneously if it was busy.

Really rich people had Browning Golden Eagles.....
http://www.retrocom.com/ad's&flyers/BROWNING%20GOLDEN%20EAGLE.jpg

CB started in 1957.  You had to be 18 to get a license.  I got one,
anyway, as I already had a ham license when I was 11.  My mother was
terrified I was going to be mistakenly DRAFTED for the Army...(c;

Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in news:fnbd2s$i35$1
@aioe.org:

I bet your original walkie magazine ad is on:
http://www.retrocom.com/

CB was great fun because the sun spot cycle was awful high in 1957 when the
FCC screwed up and put them on 27 Mhz ham band....instead of Class A on 465
Mhz UHF the manufacturers said couldn't be produced cheaply enough people
would buy them.

Fess up.  How many kilowatts was your biggest CB station?.....(c;

Larry 20W1956
They ran out of W's before my buddy Howard got his 20Q1802.  He's WA2STR
and I still have his original hand-made CB/Ham QSL card on the wall here...

We monitored Channel 11.  Walkies were on 14.
What was your first CB callsign?

January 25, 2008 11:37 AM PST
Sprint & Verizon to ride the patent gravy train
Posted by Marguerite Reardon
Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications both see an opportunity to
make a buck on their IP telephony patents after successfully suing
Vonage Holdings last year.

On Thursday, Sprint Nextel said in a U.S. District Court in Wichita,
Kan., that it was suing four small phone companies. Sprint alleges
that Nuvox Communication, BroadVOX Holdings, Big River Telephone, and
Paetec Communications are infringing on six of its patents.

Those patents, part of a larger portfolio of patents that cover voice
over IP technology owned by Sprint, are the same ones used to
successfully sue Vonage. The two companies eventually settled the
dispute last year. And Vonage agreed to pay Sprint a total of $80
million, which includes $35 million for past use of the license, $40
million for a fully paid future license, and $5 million in prepayment
for services.

Verizon Communications, which won a $120 million settlement from
Vonage last year, is also asserting its patent claims. Earlier this
month the company filed a suit in the Eastern District Court of
Virginia against cable operator Cox Communications for infringing on
eight patents that had to do with voice over IP technology. Two of the
patents in the Cox case are the same ones Verizon successfully sued
Vonage for infringing.

Since Sprint and Verizon have already successfully asserted these
patents, it certainly strengthens their new cases. And it's very
likely the companies will either win in court or be able to pressure
these companies and any other VoIP providers into licensing deals.

This is very good news for Sprint, which would benefit greatly from
turning its existing patent portfolio into a cash cow. The beleaguered
cell phone carrier has been bleeding customers and is in desperate
need of new revenue growth to boost earnings.

Broadcom says hello.