CB radio was very popular in the 1970s.
The late Don Walsh and I partnered in a company we called “Boss Radio.” We started the company in 1974 in a small store on Youngstown-Poland Road in Struthers, Ohio.
In 1977 we moved to a larger location in Boardman, Ohio, and added TV, home stereo, and microwave oven products to the store.
The sign on the small Struthers, Ohio store, which we opened in 1974.
Outside of the small Struthers, Ohio store, from 1974.
Don Walsh and I are standing at the sales counter in the Struthers, Ohio store.
We stocked 8-track tapes, CB radios, Astatic D-104 mics, police scanners, and a lot of CB antennas at the Struthers, Ohio store.
In 1977 we moved to this larger location on Route 224 in Boardman, Ohio, just across the street from the Southern Park Mall.
For the grand opening of the new store, I set up my service bench on the sales floor for a special promotion. We tested radios for power, modulation and adjacent channel rejection right there on the sales floor. We sold a bunch of Cobra 135 base stations during this promotion, too!
My CB Service Equipment. I had a full complement of test gear. A B&K signal generator, Sencore digital volt meter, frequency counter, B&K modulation tester and a B&K scope gave me all the tools I needed to repair CB radios. I repaired more than 5,000 CB radios during the time this store was open.
The larger store allowed us to stock a lot more makes and models of CB radios. This is only about half of the radios we displayed. The base stations were in another display case. 40-channel radios were just hitting the market at this time.
The Courier Classic III was a very popular 23-channel model back in this era. We sold hundreds of them.
Another very popular 23-channel base station was the Cobra Cam 89. This was a Cobra 29 mobile radio chassis housed in a base station cabinet.
The move to the larger store also allowed us to get into the sales of TV sets and home stereos.
The move to the larger store also allowed us to get into the sales of TV sets and home stereos.
Home VHS video recorders showed up in 1977. This is a very early model RCA VHS machine that had a suggested retail price of $998!
This top-loading VCR was state of the art in 1977.
This Boardman, Ohio location served us well, until the CB boom went bust. We ended up closing this store in 1979. I moved on to managing the Cable TV operation in my home town of Struthers, Ohio.
Our "Boss Radio" advertising logo.