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Citizen's Band radio is a short range, open channel, radio communications device. Short range because typically a standard radio can transmit and receive between 3 and 10 miles as the crow flys. Open channel because when you key your microphone to speak, everyone in your transmit range (or who can get you in their receive range) will hear you provided they are on the same channel.

The fact that the only out going cost is on the equipment you posess means that when ever you use it it is not costing anything, besides the energy to run it which is minimal. Unlike the advancement in digital technology, i.e. Cellular Phones, there is no need to top up with service credit or expect a bill at the end of each month. Once you purchase the equipment necessary, you are literally free to operate whether you are mobile (in a vehicle) or homebased (at a fixed location).

As mentioned previously, CB radios were widely used by people whether they be out on the road driving, out on a boat sailing, walking in the hills or in the shack down the end of the garden. Motorist use CB radios to inform each other of road delays and police checks. When the nights are long for the HGV drivers on the motorway, they can be heard chatting to one another keeping each other amused on their journies.

Sailers might have a CB radio onboard for hobby purposes or more serious uses. A person out on a boat may want to communicate with family and friends back on shore, or even try calling for a station a little further away. A hiker in the hills may walk with a hand held radio with either a hope of speaking to someone or continuing a conversation while walking their dog. The person who has the CB shack at the bottom of the garden may have a variety of uses for the Citizen'z Band with a variety of equipment to match.

The more serious users might have the tendancy to put all of their effort into making contact with distant breakers. When breakers achieve this they usually send each other a QSL which is a card of confirmation of contact. Many of these cards are extrodinary works of art with the breakers personal details printed on them. Also included with the card are details of the contact and sometimes a piece of currency for those who collect coins from across the globe. Contacts could be within a 20 mile radius, or could be 2000miles away but the proof is always confirmed in the QSL. Veteran CBers spent much time calling for contacts and many, if not all, have been rewarded with QSL, postcards, foreign Currency, and small gifts from all over the world.

When it is someone's intent to go for distant contacts they may spend a lot of time experimenting with equipment and trying newer methods of making the 'distance'. All this experimentation and practice gradually leads into a wisom for radio. One may ask "what is the point?" Before the Internet made it possible to connect to the world instantly in a pay per session manner, other methods of communication were used which were as free as one could get it. When the sun did its thing every 11 years with those sun-spots, and at freak times in between,whereby people could talk to each other over great distances, CB became alive as it did in 1992.

There are a minority of breakers who simply use the air waves to give senseless verbal abuse to others. Unfortunately the numbers of these users is increasing slowly as the numbers of the courtious veteran breaker subsides. But it doesn't have to be that way.