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Post by Night Ranger on Jul 26, 2014 16:43:47 GMT -5
Rock Hill, South Carolina's oldest still standing CB base antenna Many CB'ers have come and gone over the years in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and their CB base antennas have come and gone with them......all except for one. All the way back in 1975 a young teenage high school girl named Beth wanted to get on the CB radio so she could talk to her teenage friends on Rock Hill, South Carolina's teen channel - channel 13. She saved up her money and purchased a Pearce Simpson Lynx 23 channel base, a Turner +2 amplified desk mic, and a 1/4 wave drooper ground plane. Her CB handle was Sunflower. I remember listening to Sunflower on my three channel 100 milliwatt Realistic TRC-27 walkie talkie back in early 1976 when I was only twelve years old. I may have heard her in late 1975 as well on my Archer Space Patrol walkie talkie. We became CB friends, and I talked to her many times over the next few years. I saw her in person a few times out at the local skating rink. Her voice was very pleasant, she was easy to talk to, and she was a nice looking young girl. As the years went by she used her CB less and less. I imagine she eventually moved out and got married. The last time I remember talking to her on the CB was around 1979 or 1980. Many years later I was driving through her old neighborhood when something caught my eye. Mounted on the back of an old wooden garage was Sunflower's old drooper ground plane antenna. After almost four decades it was still standing where she left it. The house had a "For Rent" sign in front of it, but the antenna still stood intact. So for all those nostagic CB'ers out there I present Sunflower's 1975 1/4 wave drooper ground plane still mounted in it's original position even after almost four decades. I'm pretty sure this is the oldest still standing CB base antenna in all of Rock Hill, South Carolina U.S.A. I wonder if it still works? Sunflower's 1975 drooper ground plane www.shadowstorm.com/cb/antennas/Sunflowers-drooper-ground-plane-resized.jpgThis is the full high resolution un-cropped picture. www.shadowstorm.com/cb/antennas/Sunflowers-drooper-ground-plane-full-size.jpgNight Ranger |
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 27, 2014 15:00:51 GMT -5
Rock Hill, South Carolina's oldest still standing CB base antenna Many CB'ers have come and gone over the years in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and their CB base antennas have come and gone with them......all except for one. All the way back in 1975 a young teenage high school girl named Beth wanted to get on the CB radio so she could talk to her teenage friends on Rock Hill, South Carolina's teen channel - channel 13. She saved up her money and purchased a Pearce Simpson Lynx 23 channel base, a Turner +2 amplified desk mic, and a 1/4 wave drooper ground plane. Her CB handle was Sunflower. I remember listening to Sunflower on my three channel 100 milliwatt Realistic TRC-27 walkie talkie back in early 1976 when I was only twelve years old. I may have heard her in late 1975 as well on my Archer Space Patrol walkie talkie. We became CB friends, and I talked to her many times over the next few years. I saw her in person a few times out at the local skating rink. Her voice was very pleasant, she was easy to talk to, and she was a nice looking young girl. As the years went by she used her CB less and less. I imagine she eventually moved out and got married. The last time I remember talking to her on the CB was around 1979 or 1980. Many years later I was driving through her old neighborhood when something caught my eye. Mounted on the back of an old wooden garage was Sunflower's old drooper ground plane antenna. After almost four decades it was still standing where she left it. The house had a "For Rent" sign in front of it, but the antenna still stood intact. So for all those nostagic CB'ers out there I present Sunflower's 1975 1/4 wave drooper ground plane still mounted in it's original position even after almost four decades. I'm pretty sure this is the oldest still standing CB base antenna in all of Rock Hill, South Carolina U.S.A. I wonder if it still works? Sunflower's 1975 drooper ground plane www.shadowstorm.com/cb/antennas/Sunflowers-drooper-ground-plane-resized.jpgThis is the full high resolution un-cropped picture. www.shadowstorm.com/cb/antennas/Sunflowers-drooper-ground-plane-full-size.jpgNight Ranger Cool story. I might have to take a drive through my old haunts and see if any antennas survive to this day. I suspect not many...... Interesting that this long lasting antenna you saw was a quarter wave. It was definitely not a Radio Shack 1/4 wave. If those lasted more than 2 years before the radials fell off, it was saying something.... |
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Post by Night Ranger on Jul 28, 2014 12:53:05 GMT -5
Rock Hill, South Carolina's oldest still standing CB base antenna Many CB'ers have come and gone over the years in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and their CB base antennas have come and gone with them......all except for one. All the way back in 1975 a young teenage high school girl named Beth wanted to get on the CB radio so she could talk to her teenage friends on Rock Hill, South Carolina's teen channel - channel 13. She saved up her money and purchased a Pearce Simpson Lynx 23 channel base, a Turner +2 amplified desk mic, and a 1/4 wave drooper ground plane. Her CB handle was Sunflower. I remember listening to Sunflower on my three channel 100 milliwatt Realistic TRC-27 walkie talkie back in early 1976 when I was only twelve years old. I may have heard her in late 1975 as well on my Archer Space Patrol walkie talkie. We became CB friends, and I talked to her many times over the next few years. I saw her in person a few times out at the local skating rink. Her voice was very pleasant, she was easy to talk to, and she was a nice looking young girl. As the years went by she used her CB less and less. I imagine she eventually moved out and got married. The last time I remember talking to her on the CB was around 1979 or 1980. Many years later I was driving through her old neighborhood when something caught my eye. Mounted on the back of an old wooden garage was Sunflower's old drooper ground plane antenna. After almost four decades it was still standing where she left it. The house had a "For Rent" sign in front of it, but the antenna still stood intact. So for all those nostagic CB'ers out there I present Sunflower's 1975 1/4 wave drooper ground plane still mounted in it's original position even after almost four decades. I'm pretty sure this is the oldest still standing CB base antenna in all of Rock Hill, South Carolina U.S.A. I wonder if it still works? Sunflower's 1975 drooper ground plane www.shadowstorm.com/cb/antennas/Sunflowers-drooper-ground-plane-resized.jpgThis is the full high resolution un-cropped picture. www.shadowstorm.com/cb/antennas/Sunflowers-drooper-ground-plane-full-size.jpgNight Ranger Cool story. I might have to take a drive through my old haunts and see if any antennas survive to this day. I suspect not many...... Interesting that this long lasting antenna you saw was a quarter wave. It was definitely not a Radio Shack 1/4 wave. If those lasted more than 2 years before the radials fell off, it was saying something.... I think the reason that antenna has lasted so long is because it is made of four 102" steel whips and not aluminum tubing or fiberglass rods. It had to survive the category 1 Hurricane Hugo that wrecked my home town in 1989. Even the local AM broadcast station towers did not survive Hurricane Hugo. It has also survived countless ice storms that snapped, bent, and otherwise devastated the local CB and ham radio antennas. I found a little more information on Sunflower and how she came to be on the CB. I'm going to verify it with old time CB'er "One Watt" when I get home. "One Watt" was playing around with CB walkie talkies when I was still preschool. He was also one of the original channel 13 CB'ers I remember hearing in 1975. I'll add the updated information to my webpage along with new photos and additional material. It has been a while since I updated my webpage. Night Ranger |
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 28, 2014 18:42:52 GMT -5
Cool story. I might have to take a drive through my old haunts and see if any antennas survive to this day. I suspect not many...... Interesting that this long lasting antenna you saw was a quarter wave. It was definitely not a Radio Shack 1/4 wave. If those lasted more than 2 years before the radials fell off, it was saying something.... I think the reason that antenna has lasted so long is because it is made of four 102" steel whips and not aluminum tubing or fiberglass rods. It had to survive the category 1 Hurricane Hugo that wrecked my home town in 1989. Even the local AM broadcast station towers did not survive Hurricane Hugo. It has also survived countless ice storms that snapped, bent, and otherwise devastated the local CB and ham radio antennas. I found a little more information on Sunflower and how she came to be on the CB. I'm going to verify it with old time CB'er "One Watt" when I get home. "One Watt" was playing around with CB walkie talkies when I was still preschool. He was also one of the original channel 13 CB'ers I remember hearing in 1975. I'll add the updated information to my webpage along with new photos and additional material. It has been a while since I updated my webpage. Night Ranger This thread has inspired me to do a search of my old haunts to see if any antennas have survived the years. I'm not all that hopeful as I don't remember seeing many the last time I took notice. Most of my old radio buds have long since moved out, and some have actually passed on. But I do know of at least one guy who's beam is still up in the air. I'll have to check...... A "where are they now" is also interesting. A buddy of mine and I were thinking of putting together a reunion of our 70's era CB group, and were in the process of tracking them down. Some were relatively easy to find. Others have seemingly disappeared. |
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Post by Night Ranger on Jul 28, 2014 20:12:11 GMT -5
I think the reason that antenna has lasted so long is because it is made of four 102" steel whips and not aluminum tubing or fiberglass rods. It had to survive the category 1 Hurricane Hugo that wrecked my home town in 1989. Even the local AM broadcast station towers did not survive Hurricane Hugo. It has also survived countless ice storms that snapped, bent, and otherwise devastated the local CB and ham radio antennas. I found a little more information on Sunflower and how she came to be on the CB. I'm going to verify it with old time CB'er "One Watt" when I get home. "One Watt" was playing around with CB walkie talkies when I was still preschool. He was also one of the original channel 13 CB'ers I remember hearing in 1975. I'll add the updated information to my webpage along with new photos and additional material. It has been a while since I updated my webpage. Night Ranger This thread has inspired me to do a search of my old haunts to see if any antennas have survived the years. I'm not all that hopeful as I don't remember seeing many the last time I took notice. Most of my old radio buds have long since moved out, and some have actually passed on. But I do know of at least one guy who's beam is still up in the air. I'll have to check...... A "where are they now" is also interesting. A buddy of mine and I were thinking of putting together a reunion of our 70's era CB group, and were in the process of tracking them down. Some were relatively easy to find. Others have seemingly disappeared. I know where a few of the original channel 13 CB crowd is. Unfortunately many of the adults I knew as a kid have passed on. The original channel 13 "tweenager" crowd I can find; 1) One Watt - Still lives in Rock Hill 2) Bald Eagle - Still lives in Rock Hill 3) Red Horse - Moved to Columbia, S.C. 4) Heartbreaker - Still lives in Rock Hill 5) Buttercup - Still lives in Rock Hill 6) Little Sniffles - He is on Facebook That is about it. I've lost track of the others or they have passed on. The 1980s channel 24 crowd (Butterfly, Krazy Ken) have stayed steady friends, and we still talk over the Internet. I never did get to meet "Brown Sugar" from the 1976 channel 13 crowd, and with a voice like hers I always wanted to. The fact that her cousin won Miss South Carolina in the 1970s made me all that more curious. UPDATE! Little Sniffles is Brown Sugar's cousin. While I was checking out his Facebook page I saw he listed his family members Facebook pages, and among them was Brown Sugar. Well I know what she looks like "now". I wonder what she looked like "then"? Night Ranger |
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 29, 2014 9:39:25 GMT -5
Little Sniffles - He is on Facebook.......... I never did get to meet "Brown Sugar" from the 1976 channel 13 crowd, and with a voice like hers I always wanted to. The fact that her cousin won Miss South Carolina in the 1970s made me all that more curious. UPDATE! Little Sniffles is Brown Sugar's cousin. While I was checking out his Facebook page I saw he listed his family members Facebook pages, and among them was Brown Sugar. Well I know what she looks like "now". I wonder what she looked like "then"? Night Ranger So....... does that mean that "Little Sniffles" won the Miss South Carolina contest?   |
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Post by cbrown on Jul 29, 2014 12:02:48 GMT -5
So....... does that mean that "Little Sniffles" won the Miss South Carolina contest? And if so, what did the competition look like?  |
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Post by Night Ranger on Jul 29, 2014 12:19:50 GMT -5
Little Sniffles - He is on Facebook.......... I never did get to meet "Brown Sugar" from the 1976 channel 13 crowd, and with a voice like hers I always wanted to. The fact that her cousin won Miss South Carolina in the 1970s made me all that more curious. UPDATE! Little Sniffles is Brown Sugar's cousin. While I was checking out his Facebook page I saw he listed his family members Facebook pages, and among them was Brown Sugar. Well I know what she looks like "now". I wonder what she looked like "then"? Night Ranger So....... does that mean that "Little Sniffles" won the Miss South Carolina contest? If "Little Sniffles" had managed to enter the Miss South Carolina contest he would have definitely lost. South Carolina has plenty of young pretty women. Just don't engage most of them in an intellectual conversation unless you want to see how fast they can run the other way. Unfortunately most of them lose it and get pretty fat after their teen and early twenties. The endless low IQ redneck banter coming out of some of their mouths does not help matters. 2014 Gallup poll of America's fattest states listed below. South Carolina is # 6. Mooooooooooo! www.gallup.com/poll/167642/mississippians-obese-montanans-least-obese.aspxn: ) Night Ranger |
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 30, 2014 13:24:31 GMT -5
So....... does that mean that "Little Sniffles" won the Miss South Carolina contest? If "Little Sniffles" had managed to enter the Miss South Carolina contest he would have definitely lost. South Carolina has plenty of young pretty women. Just don't engage most of them in an intellectual conversation unless you want to see how fast they can run the other way. Unfortunately most of them lose it and get pretty fat after their teen and early twenties. The endless low IQ redneck banter coming out of some of their mouths does not help matters. 2014 Gallup poll of America's fattest states listed below. South Carolina is # 6. Mooooooooooo! www.gallup.com/poll/167642/mississippians-obese-montanans-least-obese.aspxn: ) Night Ranger Am I to infer that "Brown Sugar" has inflated a bit since those glory days? |
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Post by Night Ranger on Jul 30, 2014 13:47:13 GMT -5
If "Little Sniffles" had managed to enter the Miss South Carolina contest he would have definitely lost. South Carolina has plenty of young pretty women. Just don't engage most of them in an intellectual conversation unless you want to see how fast they can run the other way. Unfortunately most of them lose it and get pretty fat after their teen and early twenties. The endless low IQ redneck banter coming out of some of their mouths does not help matters. 2014 Gallup poll of America's fattest states listed below. South Carolina is # 6. Mooooooooooo! www.gallup.com/poll/167642/mississippians-obese-montanans-least-obese.aspxn: ) Night Ranger Am I to infer that "Brown Sugar" has inflated a bit since those glory days? Oh no. Actually she is a slender mid 50 something year old woman judging from her 2009 dated Facebook pictures. I'm just curious as to what she looked like in 1976. It seems like I did get to talk her once in my early 20s. I was talking to some friends and she came on and broke the channel. I had not heard her on the CB in years. I did not realize who it was until she signed out and gave her handle. I immediately said; "Brown Sugar?! I remember you! You use to talk on channel 13 back in 1976." She acknowledged she was the same Brown Sugar. I never heard her on the CB again. You know, I really wish I had made recordings of that 1976 channel 13 group. Well actually I did make one 30 minute or so cassette tape recording of "One Watt" telling a ghost story about a house he use to live in. Unfortunately the tape broke, and I threw it away shortly thereafter. Night Ranger |
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Post by "Doc"Hammer on Jul 30, 2014 14:19:36 GMT -5
"Droopy Drawers" is what they called those...If I remember right, it was made by Antenna Specialists....cost in '73 when I got mine was 14 bucks! It was similar to Radio Shack's quarter wave..(the Shack's had a gamma type match on it)..both were really good antennas...I made my first DX contact from Kansas on it talking to "Lady Buckeye" in Ohio..using a Robyn T123B and a Courier 2 tube base amp..(BL-100?)..I'd love to have another. I'll bet that rascal still works if you replace the coax! There wasn't much to break on them...they were Hell for stout!
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Post by Night Ranger on Jul 30, 2014 15:07:55 GMT -5
"Droopy Drawers" is what they called those...If I remember right, it was made by Antenna Specialists....cost in '73 when I got mine was 14 bucks! It was similar to Radio Shack's quarter wave..(the Shack's had a gamma type match on it)..both were really good antennas...I made my first DX contact from Kansas on it talking to "Lady Buckeye" in Ohio..using a Robyn T123B and a Courier 2 tube base amp..(BL-100?)..I'd love to have another. I'll bet that rascal still works if you replace the coax! There wasn't much to break on them...they were Hell for stout! It had to be stout to still be up, because it survived Hurricane Hugo in 1989. We did not have any electrical power for two weeks. I had sixteen trees blown down in my yard. You could hear chains saws running for weeks. The eye of Hurricane Hugo came right by my home town, and that antenna looks completely unscathed. Hurricane: Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, 1989 www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/hurricanes/articles/hurricane-historical-hurricanes-hugo_2010-06-01Night Ranger |
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 30, 2014 16:26:10 GMT -5
"Droopy Drawers" is what they called those...If I remember right, it was made by Antenna Specialists....cost in '73 when I got mine was 14 bucks! It was similar to Radio Shack's quarter wave..(the Shack's had a gamma type match on it)..both were really good antennas...I made my first DX contact from Kansas on it talking to "Lady Buckeye" in Ohio..using a Robyn T123B and a Courier 2 tube base amp..(BL-100?)..I'd love to have another. I'll bet that rascal still works if you replace the coax! There wasn't much to break on them...they were Hell for stout! There were several versions of that antenna made by various companies. Lafayette had one which listed for a whopping $7.95 in 1973. A standard simple 1/4 wave with 45 degree droopy radials could be directly coax fed with a feedpoint impedance close to 50 ohms. The Radio Shack version with the (flimsy) horizontal radials needed a beta match to provide the proper impedance. Those "droopy" 1/4 waves seemed to last far longer than the other type. I saw one yesterday on my search for antennas, but since I didn't know who's it was, I didn't take a picture of it. Maybe next time...... |
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 30, 2014 16:28:40 GMT -5
Am I to infer that "Brown Sugar" has inflated a bit since those glory days? Oh no. Actually she is a slender mid 50 something year old woman judging from her 2009 dated Facebook pictures. I'm just curious as to what she looked like in 1976........ Night Ranger I guess that would be the case as I am also a mid-50-something. Yea, old age tends to take the luster off of the chrome..... We're all past our prime by now.  |
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