n 20th December one of the biggest changes to CB for some time occurred - and no one seemed to know about it!!  From that date the CB licence was changed to allow the transmission of Data - a limited form of Packet Radio.
However this change seems to have slipped in almost un-noticed. None of our suppliers have announced it, none of the manufacturers have produced any specific equipment for it, and even the official CB Magazine (RadioActive) have made no mention of it in either their January or February issue (which has just arrived). You would have thought that "news" from 20th December would have been included in a magazine printed in January, in fact you would have thought that the authorities would have told the magazine earlier than that!!
The question is, does anyone really want it ??
I was going to print a copy of the full announcement in this newsletter, but it took up more than a page and mainly consisted of a load of technical "gibberish" anyway, so if anyone does want to see a copy please send a sae or you can see it on our website at:  www.kcb.co.uk/new/data.htm
In summary, what is now allowed is a basic form of one-to-one data transmission. You are not allowed to use features such as digi-peater, mailbox or bulletin boards, which really makes the system very limited. You are not allowed to have "unattended operation of a CB station".
Unfortunately it does not look as if any of the manufacturers will be producing any equipment specifically for CB use, so it will be a case of modifying Amateur equipment to suit. This may not be as straight forwards as it sounds, and I am afraid it may be beyond many users abilities who would otherwise like to give it a try.
So, although the BCBC have been campaigning for this for a long while, I am pessimistic about future of data transmissions on CB. I really do not think there will be many interested in it and feel that there are much better ways that the CB system could have been improved. But we will see...

ome of the more observant amongst you may have noticed a slight change since November - but most of you probably haven't.
In November we became a limited company and those of you who have paid be credit card since then may have seen that we are now "Knights Electrocom Limited".
However this should make no difference to any of our customers - the company is still under the same ownership, with the same staff, and we even continue to trade under the same name of "Knights".
Every year since we started selling CB equipment, 22 years ago now, we have expanded and increased our sales.  We have now reached the point where to expand any more the logical step was to become a limited company.
I am confident that not only will this let us expand further, but we can also continue to offer you the service that you deserve.
As those of you who have visited us at the shop will already know, we stock a wide range of electrical and electronic equipment - although CB remains a very important part of our business we also supply such things as disco equipment (speakers, lights etc), communications equipment, and a wide variety of electronics. If there is anything electronic you are looking for, it's always worth asking. Our expansion of this side of the business will ensure that we are still here to serve you whatever happens to CB in the future.

he first week of the new year and a brand new 80 channel radio arrives - this has got to be a sign of confidence in the future of CB??
The radio in question is the Team MC8, a completely new design in a compact mobile radio.
Initial reactions are good - it looks a little different to all the usual radios, with a silver front rather than the usual black.
When it is turned on the backlight on the LCD display is blue, rather than the usual white or orange, this makes a nice change and I think it is possibly easier to read.
There are no real "fancy" features, just the things you need - volume, squelch, ch9/19, dual watch, scanning, and auto squelch (really just a preset squelch level).
The channel change is by a rotary control on the rig, plus there are up/down buttons on the mic.
The radio works well - the receive and transmit are similar to other comparable radios.
A vox mic is also available as an extra, price £17.95, details later in this newsletter.
At the end of the day the only bad point is that it is made by Team !!