By the summer of 1976, the Citizen’s Band radio craze had completely taken over the Detroit metropolitan area. Fueled by the automotive culture and a massive highway trucking grid, everyone was jumping onto the 11-meter airwaves. In our neighborhood near Redford Township, the local social scene revolved around handles, antennas, and weekend road rallies under my class D station code, KBKD-7611.
For years, my dad Frank and our neighbor Denny kept archery targets set up in our backyards, sharing a deep love for bow hunting. Because of this, I always assumed their on-air handles were strictly hunting-related. My dad went by "Green Arrow" and Denny was "Broken Arrow." Wanting to fit right into the family archery theme (sort of), I chose "Sling Shot" as my very first CB handle. Years later, I discovered a classic pop-culture twist: my dad’s handle wasn't about deer hunting at all—it was inspired by the flagship DC Comics archer character who traveled across America!
As I grew deeper into the hobby, my interests expanded toward astronomy and gazing at the cosmos through a telescope. Around that time is when I retired my old handle and changed it to "Star Child." Turning my basement bedroom into a radio shack became the ultimate 1970s teenage escape. With the glowing blue meters of my newly upgraded radio, the Cobra 2000 GTL, the digital frequency counter, and my dad's old chrome Astatic D-104 "Silver Eagle" microphone standing proud on my desk, that room felt like a high-tech command center. Having a television down there meant I could hunt for distant skip signals on the upper channels, listen to the emergency traffic on Channel 9, and watch my favorite shows without ever leaving my hangout.
I lived in a corner house at that time in Detroit. Operating as Star Child with a giant 45-foot-high Antenna Specialists M-400 "Star Duster" bolted to our roof line felt incredibly cinematic. With those downward-sloping ground radials compressing our signal low toward the horizon, I could easily clear local trees and power lines to talk to a vibrant cast of local characters. There was Chris, my friend living in the house behind us, who went by "Highway Star" after the driving rock anthem of the Canadian group Rush. There was Tim, another friend from Redford Township, operating as the "Texas Ranger," while his mom Marge held down the home front under the handle "Little Egypt."
The 1970s CB "Gimmick" Road Rallies and massive "Coffee Breaks" (jamborees) were the absolute peak of the hobby's social scene. Getting a group together for a trip meant putting together a real-life, local version of C.W. McCall's "Convoy." For a group of car and radio enthusiasts, "The Rally Wheels" was a perfect name. It brilliantly captured Detroit’s automotive culture—where factory "Rallye Wheels" were a major trend—and combined it with mobile CB radio culture. Those weekend adventures were a unique mix of technology and old-school family fun.
Most of the time we ended up at a state park for a picnic, BBQ, or just to go swimming, keeping a line of 10 to 20 regular cars together on the highway using channel tracking to make sure nobody got left behind at a traffic light. Other times we would make the rally into sort of a game. Everyone would meet up at a starting location (like a local mall parking lot) and receive a sheet of cryptic clues in a sealed envelope. The driver had to navigate while the "shotgun" passenger worked the mobile CB radio to talk to other club members or a base station controller. You had to answer trivia about landmarks we passed or find hidden items along the route (like a specific sign or tree) using the clues. On the rallies that ran like a treasure hunt, they usually wrapped up at a local diner or pizza place instead of a park or lake.
During these treks, we routinely monitored the Michigan Emergency Patrol (MEP) volunteers under call sign KBW-5826, who monitored Channel 9 from the top of the Fisher Building and passed traffic alerts straight to the 50,000-watt AM blowtorch of 760 WJR.
The CB craze eventually quieted down as the 1980s arrived, frequencies grew overcrowded, and cell phones eventually stepped in to change communication forever. The Michigan Emergency Patrol closed its chapter in history, and the towering Starduster antennas slowly disappeared from suburban rooflines. But for those of us who lived it, the memories don't fade. Looking back, it wasn't really about the aluminum poles, the wood-grain boxes, or the chrome microphones. For me, it was about the camaraderie. It was about friends (and some family members) sitting in a glowing basement, listening to the heartbeat of a city through the static, waiting to hear that familiar mechanical click of the microphone handle and a voice calling out: "Breaker breaker, Star Child is standing by..."
