Wednesday, October 15, 2014
15 comments:
Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.
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Gordon- Just shut down the blog now. You're never going to top this post.
ReplyDeleteHa! I was thinking the same thing. I love this one! I was working with some students on their blog for a class and we were looking at Flint Expats. This post led to a 20 minute explanation about CB radios, which they had NEVER heard of. Talk about feeling old.
DeleteHow long did it take to describe the meaning of jellyroll?
Delete...and that cake!?!?!
Does anybody have a CB handy? Maybe Lady Doughgirl is still broadcasting. Definitely worth a shot.
DeleteFirst I had to explain Flint. Then CB radios. Then the purpose these weird postcards, which I don't fully understand. Then the baking references. It was rough.
DeleteThis deserves to be on the side of a van in Flint in 1976. Truly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteCB Radio was a national phenomena in the 1970s and 1980s. It wasn't even limited to West of the Hudson River and East of the San Andreas Fault. Would you rather that your students brought CB Radios to class? Or do you prefer that they just text on their cell phones incessantly during class? Perhaps iPhones are more fashionable, but really it all boils down to the same thing-portable and mobile communications, just in a different era of technology.
ReplyDeleteRadio Society, forgive me if I'm misinterpreting your comment, but I wasn't criticizing CB radios in any way. I loved them! I was merely pointing out that it's difficult to describe cultural trend from an earlier era when the students have never heard a single thing about it. Actually, it was the postcard that was the hardest thing to explain. They got the CB radio concept pretty quickly.
DeleteAnd I've been corrected that these cards were for ham radio users, not CB radio users. Is that right?
CBers used QSL cards also, especially when they were required to have call signs and be registered. Amateur Radio Operators have been required to be licensed since radio became regulated, and have always had call signs. Just outside the Chicago Boulevard Radio Society limits, near Miller and Pershing, lived one Frank D. Fallain, one of Flint's first radio amateurs, whose AMATEUR call sign was 8ZH circa 1920. Bet a QSL Card from 8ZH would be worth something.
ReplyDeleteFinally, a reliable source for this issue. So I'm wondering if most QSL cards with sort of generic, or if there were a lot of them that are personalized like this one. It would be cool to collect some of these for their artistic qualities.
DeleteAlso, are these cards still being exchanged? Are there still ham radio and CB people out there?
I can verify, he is correct. I remember our old CB license number - KDX 5472. Sorry about that unintentional broadcast of "The Man with the X-ray Eyes". Hey, I was a kid, and I didn't realize I had locked the key down!
Deletehence wFDF
Delete"Just outside the Chicago Boulevard Radio Society limits"
ReplyDeleteSociety? Limits? Just how large is this social network?
The founding members of the Chicago Boulevard Radio Society, sadly, have passed away. I mainly got my information from their progeny, and other information about historical Flint radio amateurs from the minutes of The Royal Order Of Wouff Hong, founded in Flint in 1922 at the Annual ARRL Convention, according to at least one online source.
ReplyDeleteHams still exchange QSL cards. Some generic, some fancy, depends on the whim of the station operator. The cards are basically to confirm contact between stations, so they usually contain such info as signal strength & readability. The international shortwave broadcasters (like AM radio, but worldwide) also send them to listeners to verify reception. I used to have some from my younger days of shortwave listening.
ReplyDelete