That other Patrick :-) said: These are old original historic CB veries from the 40s/50s I believe. ///// Patrick, I think the class A and Class B citizens bands came into being in the late 40s around the end of World War II. They were in the 460 to 470 MHz UHF band. I believe class A eventually evolved into what we now know as GMRS and class B evolved into what we now know as FRS. Class C was for business use. The 27 MHz class D citizens band came into being in the late 50s. The 27 MHz band was formally a government band used mostly by the military and the Forest Service. It was also the 11 meter amateur band on a secondary basis. The original class D call letters were issued as 1 or 2 numeric characters followed by an alpha character and then 4 more numerics such as 2A1402, 7C2155, 16Q2399, or 20F3309. The beginning numerics indicated the call district of the licensee. I believe there were 24 call districts. I lived in northern Illinois which was in the 18th call district. The ham radio operator who sparked my interest in radio in the mid 60s held the CB call 18B2922 in addition to his amateur radio call which was K9YOD. The FCC got into hot water with the ITU over this series of CB calls since the format did not comply with the ITU requirement that US calls start with A, N, K, or W. The FCC thought that since the service was not designed for international use it did not need to comply with the ITU. The ITU didn't agree. The system was then converted to the 3 alpha 4 numeric format that most people are familiar with such as KLK5459 (my old call). If your QSLs are from the early class A or class B UHF service they are probably very rare. But I don't know of any groups that collect them. If the QSLs are from the class D citizens band service they are probably of little value. Huge boxes of these are seen regularly on e-Bay selling for just a few dollars. The shipping usually costs more than the cards themselves.
Patrick Griffith, Westminster CO http://community.webtv.net/N0NNK/ http://community.webtv.net/AM-DXer/ _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://arizona.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
