AMC Rambler Hornet at Mountain top near Fire Lookout tower - our Antenna mount point. 1975

Alpha-Xray CB Radio Club Information

ALPHA  XRAY  CB Radio Club, an International  Syndicate  of   Professional Citizens Band CB Radio Operators

The Alpha-Xray CB Club International Syndicate was created by a group of highly mobile and extremely powerful ( at least 200+ PEP Watts Please!!) Eleven metre CB Radio stations that operated consistently on the one frequency since about 1972/3?

We were gods!! Or so it seemed at the time;-)(1974/5) LOL!!

In the early days of CB Radio Single Sideband 27 Mhz in Melbourne Australia, there seemed to be a few very strong mobile CB stations that could always take control of the Citizens Band Radio main  call channel (Channel 16, 27.155 LSB )  where ever they seemed to be mobile at the time.  Over a short time span there were about half a dozen individuals that had been bitten by the CB radio bug bad!
This accounted for their superiority over other base and mobile CB Radio stations by virtue of the fact that these guys had spent some time and money setting up their mobiles with some serious 11 metre linear amplifiers of around 200 -500 whiskeys and cb mobile antenna’s that put out signals that were hard for other CB Radio Base stations to get over!

Because of this, the first four pro-creator’s of the future worldwide CB Radio Alpha-Xray International Syndicate had somehow come to the inevitable “CB EYEBALL”.

After getting together for drinks and the usual waffle that goes on after a few times, the notion was raised that we form a bit of a CB group and use a common identifying CB call sign. Well there was some idea’s for consideration!!

To make a long story longer, I would like to say that I was the one that thought of the AX callsign as it was the alternate Australian HAM call to VK that was ever rarely used. Now some could dispute this and to be truthfull I really cant remember the exact discussions and who thought of what! We did often refer to AX as “Amber Xpress” on occasions too!

But whatever transpired , it started the foundations of the awesome Alpha-Xray International CB Radio Syndicate. Whatever!

Anyway the four individuals who we will call (in order of AX number) AX01 Bill, the mighty BIG Bull, AX05 Greg, the Grasshopper/Bellhopper, AX07 Richard, the Fox, and last, but certainly the least, AX10 Ian, the RootStar.

The goodbuddy callsigns were our original calls, but from that fatefull (?) day forward, we were the CB Radio Alpha Xray International Syndicate.

Yeah OK, so we were only four guys in Melbourne Australia but we (I) was thinking big! (HAH and still am… 2022)

We had all picked our lucky numbers except Bill, who always had to be first and best!! The Big Bull was not. Well not where you could notice anyway unless you were a female living in Geelong..   any female that is. Bill was a bit of a Fisherman of the Bay but somehow the womenfolk of the bayside city had to be cast after as well with his big pole. Not that him and the Fox didn’t catch some great Snapper fish now and again that we all shared on the BBQ!!

[RIP AX01] -[Never to be reallocated]

For some reason now that we all had AX or Alpha Xray call signs we seemed to be getting a lot of flak from the other good buddy’s about our total domination of the call channel at that time – 16LSB.(27.155)

Anyone would think we didn’t have jobs, but I was working for Bell & Howell as a mobile tech. repairing clients Micrographic equipment and constantly on the road in the B&H Ford EA Panel Van. Ahhh.. What a great vehicle to create the ultimate CB Radio DX mobile. After tinting the side and back windows and adding curtains, I was ready to install the foam mattress and pillows along with all the latest high powered CB Radio gear.

Just as well I was indispensable(?) or I may not have gotten away with it, after all B&H paid for it and all the petrol that I burned sitting parked between jobs and idling talking on the cb radio pumping about 500W into a quarter wave stainless steel whip.

Hey it takes a bit of current to run that much power and I would soon flatten the battery if I turned the van off. Oh the fun of it all, raising vehicle parking area boom gates with a good whistle into the mike and getting in and out.

I remember the time I nearly crapped my self as a plain clothes copper run up to my window as I was parked outside a jewelry store in the city DX-ing and asking if I had seen anyone breaking in that had set off the silent alarm! Not ME Officer!

If you have had any CB adventures like this Email me for posting on here!

 Are you still reading this crap?

Well the upshot of all the abuse from the Good Buddy’s was we decided to move from the call channel and create our own personal channel. After some consideration and swapping around we settled on 26.995 or #3a as it was known by the more technical CB Radio operators of the time. Of course we used to DX on 27.145 and 27.195 etc. but “The Rat Hole” was Home!!

This made the previous occupants of 26.995 LSB CB frequency either vacate or a few that were more hardy with good equipment, enquire if they could join our AX CB radio group.

It sounds funny now, but we ruled this frequency with a vengeance and only nominated our AX CB Radio callsigns to the best of the best operators. The conditions were simple but the four of us had grown men near tears by not accepting them. One I remember anyway! Most others either swore to get us,  or joined to make the AX CB syndicate unbreakable.

Because we only accepted the most powerful CB radio stations that were able to get on the sub frequencies the new members were technically up with getting out the best, so naturally were able to DX and spread the AX CB membership world wide to other similar stations.

While all  the good buddy’s were wanking about on the normal CB channels and up the top calling CQDX and crapping on about signal reports and such, we were just chatting about more interesting things to some of the best worldwide CB Radio DX’ers while driving around the city and suburbs. Probably playing pretend HAM radio operators and having a good time sums it up. Although we had quite a few Hams with AX CB Radio callsigns as well, as they were enjoying the situation on 11 Metres just as much as us. Easy to get 26.995 LSB CB on a Ham radio!

One of our strategies was we allocated our overseas cb operators by numbers that indicated the country and just chatted to them like locals when the bands opened in their direction. As we often had locals or interstate turkeys try to talk over us if they thought we were talking DX, it did not alert them to the fact that the cb band was open, as we didn’t say anything about locations etc.

 Ahhhh.. The Good Olde Days of the DX Seventies!!

 The AMC Rabler Hornet of mine at a mountain fire tower lookout we were using as an antenna mount for DX in 1975.

But more than anything we were destroying anyone in Melbourne we disliked as our signal from that height was a HAMMER!

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