Early on in our radio communications history, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) determined that there was a need for a Citizens Radio service – the year was 1947. One was established in the 400+ MHz range but it had limited appeal to the "citizens" due to the high cost of UHF components. The first CB license was assigned to John M. Mulligan, a radio engineer. He built two radios in the 460MHz range for testing, and reported the results back to industry sources. By the end of the year there were 40 licensed radio stations, and one 3 watt experimental station in use on 11 meters. One radio from the Class C band, the Vocaline JRC400 can still be found in good to excellent condition. It was a very popular commercial grade radio which was sold in the early 50’s. It is also noted that Al Gross is considered by some as the "Father of CB Radio", with his early experimentation in radio design, most notably with portable handheld transceivers. I'm not sure who began their work first, however the only documentation I can find supports the previous statement that the first CB license was issued to John M. Mulligan. Both men were very active in this era, and each deserve their dues.

In 1958, Uncle Charlie (as the FCC is more frequently known) decided to allocate a new block of frequencies for another new citizens band class. Class "D" was officially born on September 11th, 1958.

Nationwide, 11meter Citizens Band radio took off by leaps and bounds thanks to the blue collar working class. Whether it be a plumber, electrician, or furnace oil delivery man, these relatively inexpensive radios became part of each man’s daily routine. The rules existent at that time stated that CB was not intended, in fact forbid hobby-type conversations. At the same time, these same people who used their radios during the day for business, found them especially useful after hours as a means of entertainment - the joy of jabbering on the radio with friends and strangers .

1958 left us, 1959 brought Browning Laboratories into the picture with their R2700 receiver and T2700 transmitter. The receiver was dual conversion, had a 23 channel tunable dial with 5 crystal controlled positions, then finally CB was ushered into the sixties…