TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: What Happened To Channel 1

Re: What Happened To Channel 1

Paul Coxwell (paulcoxwell@tiscali.co.uk)
Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:27:42 -0000

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is an example of how someone
> screwed up when the Citizens Band radio channels were numbered. CB is
> allocated the space between 26.965 kc and (originally) 27.255 kc. The
> 'channels' were 10 kc apart, and there were (originally) 23 channels.
> (Well, not originally, when there were 8 channels, but in later
> years.) If you look at the difference between 27.255 and 26.965 as
> divided in 10 kc increments you get more than 23. That's because the
> FCC took three spaces in the middle and reserved them for use on
> garage door openers. So we had channel 22 as 27.225 and channel 23
> a full 30 kc later, on 27.255. Then the FCC said they would expand the
> CB area all the way up to 27.405, or 40 channels, although common
> sense would imply actually 43 channels if you take 27.405 minus 26.965
> at 10 kc increments. What the FCC did, in an effort to 'tidy up' that
> discrepany was run the channels slightly out of order. After channel
> 22 (27.225) they created channel _24_ at 27.235, channel _25_ at 27.245,
> then they had the (already existing) channel _23_ at 27.255 where it
> had always been, and then by 10 kc up to channel 40 at 27.405.

There were more than three gaps left in the channels for radio-control.
They are at:

26.995 (between channels 3 / 4)
27.045 (7 / 8)
27.095 (11/ 12)
27.145 (15 / 16)
27.195 (19 / 20)

then 27.235 and 27.245 as you say, which were later filled by channels
24 and 25. In addition, 27.255 was shared between CB channel 23 and
the "blue" radio-control channel.

> Having those two channels out of order in the frequency allocations
> did make for some tricky programming of the 'gang switches'
> (revolving knobs which select the channels). PAT]

It also resulted in some interesting switching modifications over here in
Britain as well, as when we finally got a legal CB allocation in the early
1980s it was just 40 channels running in straight 10kHz steps all the way
(27.60125 through 27.99125).

I did quite a lot of EPROM burning to provide UK bands on export sets
20-odd years ago.

- Paul

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