This young man, Joseph Guy, from somewhere in the midwestern United States, has been collecting Social Security for a few years now, but sixty years ago, his mother gave him this CB handheld radio to stay in touch on his way to school.
This photo was taken on a 22-below-zero day, and immediately after the picture was taken, young Joey was camouflaged with a heavy scarf, hat, and mittens. While his mom stayed at the 5-watt base station at home, he walked to school, and mom reminded him to look both ways before crossing busy intersections. When he reached school, he called to report his safe arrival.
The only downside was his occasionally failing to turn it off when he reached school. But rechargeable batteries partially solved that problem. Other mothers, whose children were following him, would often call to see if their children reached school safely.
The photo and story appeared in the July 1963 issue of Popular Electronics.
Is it really a CB radio? Almost all of the hand held radios in the person use and “toy” category are actually FRS radios and won’t broadcast or receive on CB bands.
Probably all GMRS radios, for which you need a license, will pick up FRS bands as well, for which you do not. Owners of GMRS radios tend to find, for that reason, that they pick up a lot of kid transmissions, as well as nursing home transmissions and store transmissions on their GMRS radios on certain channels.
It was almost certainly a 27 MHz CB radio. I have more of the history at this link:
https://onetuberadio.com/2014/08/30/unlicensed-27-mhz-walkie-talkie-history/
Up until 1977, the “toy” walkie talkies were on 27 MHz, usually on CB channel 14. In that year, they moved to 49 MHz. FRS didn’t become a thing until much later, I believe the late 90s. The predecessor of GMRS was around in 1963, but it would have been very expensive and not in common use.
Thanks. That answers a question I long had. I had a memory of a childhood walkie-talkie picking up CB traffic. Now I know why.