They didn’t have Zoom classes 60 years ago, but when a polio outbreak struck Nunda, NY, in 1962, the high school tapped the ingenuity of local hams and CB’ers to come up with a method of distance learning.

Several students came down with the disease and were confined to their homes. Initially, they had to discontinue their studies, but the school bought a number of CB radios. Hy-Gain antennas were placed on the school roof, with coaxial cables running to classrooms. The school purchased Johnson transceivers, and volunteer students carried the radios from class to class and plugged the radio into the coax outlet in each room. The teacher was then able to transmit lectures to students at home.

Individual homes had smaller mobile-style whip antennas installed hooked up to transceivers there. When homebound students were called upon, it was a simple matter of pressing the push-to-talk button.

The pictures here appeared in the November 1962 issue of Electronics Illustrated, which pointed out that so far, seven students had received their schooling at home via CB. The teacher shown above was discussing the lesson with a student after class. The magazine confirmed that call letters were always given as required.