The nation's busiest party line is a shortwave voice communications setup called the Citizens Radio Service. It was established by the Federal Communications Commission as a short-distance (150 miles maximum) two-way radio system for people who needed it for business or professional reasons: a doctor keeping in touch with his office from his car, taxicab fleets sending directions to cruising cabs, contractors issuing orders to trucks, farm wives calling to their husbands in distant fields. In a rash moment, the FCC also authorized house-to-automobile communi cations on a noncommercial, or "Honey, bring home a loaf of bread'' basis.
That was in 1958. and all went well for a while. Then, in the past 18 months, citizens discovered the Citizens Band. What they have wrought since then has given the FCC one huge pain in the antenna.
Today there are more than 350,000 licensed CBers, and the applications for licenses are flowing in at the rate of 10,000 a month. Unlike the skilled ham operators, whose higher-powered sets can span oceans and continents, CBers need take no tests or otherwise exhibit a capacity any more technical than the ability to sign their names. What's more, CB radio frequencies are so limited (23 channels, from 26,965 megacycles to 27,255 megacycles) that they must be used on a shared basis, like a telephone party line. Result: in any area where CB is the thing, the air waves are choked up day and night with the chatter of garrulous hobbyists.
Highway Patrol. FCC rules prohibit anything but messages of a substantive nature on CB. But that scarcely diminishes the CBers' compulsion to put out CQ ("Anybody listening?") calls, to discuss endlessly the merits of their equipment, to exchange recipes or just to chat.
FCC monitors or ordinary listeners-in can tune in on any channel any night of the week and get an earful of such prohibited gab. Many CBers regularly call each other up and conduct two, four, or six-way conversations, continue them for longer than the five-minute FCC time limit, interspersing their transmissions with "the 10 code'' made popular by TV's Highway Patrolman Broderick Crawford, and usually end up by enraging other CBers who want to get on the air with legitimate and sometimes urgent messages to office, home or delivery truck. One such dialogue took place on Long Island last week. A woman was gabbing with a friend:
Marcie: So awright, Sophie, 10-4; I'm in the driveway of the house; I'll go 10-7-now. and go in the house and give you a land line [telephone call], 10-4?
Sophie: 10-4. Marcie . . . Oh-oh. here's a breaker; come in. breaker, and indentify yourself.
Harry: The breaker is Harry, Sophie. I jes' tuned ya in. Could this be the Golden Verce of Sout' Levittown?
Sophie: 'at's a big 10-4, Harry. I don't know about golden, but I feel a little sinusy tonight . . . Wait a minute. Harry, there's another breaker. Come in, breaker.
Voice: Lissen, you stupid broad, don't you know it's against the FCC to hog the channel? Whyn't you shut up for a while? I'm gonna complain to the FCC about you!