Breaker Breaker! CB Radio Lingo Quiz

About Breaker Breaker! CB Radio Lingo Quiz

Give your memory a workout with Breaker Breaker! CB Radio Lingo Quiz: 15 multiple-choice questions aimed at mixed difficulty, free to play right in your browser. From truckers to family road-trippers, Citizens Band radio gave America its own secret language in the 1970s — how many of these colorful terms do you remember? Expect to spend about 7 minutes; every question comes with an explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.

A few sample questions

1. 1. What did the CB radio code "10-4" mean when a trucker used it?

   Answer: Message received and understood

   "10-4" is one of the ten-codes borrowed from law enforcement dispatch and means "message received and acknowledged" — essentially a quick "OK" or "Roger that" over the airwaves.

2. 2. What did CB radio users call a highway patrol officer?

   Answer: Smokey or Smokey Bear

   Highway patrol officers were nicknamed "Smokey" or "Smokey Bear" because their distinctive flat-brimmed campaign hats looked just like the hat worn by Smokey Bear in the famous wildfire-prevention advertisements.

3. 3. What did truckers mean when they warned about a "bear in the air"?

   Answer: A police helicopter was watching the highway

   "Bear in the air" combined "bear" (CB slang for any law enforcement officer) with "air" to alert other drivers that a police helicopter was overhead monitoring traffic speeds.

4. 4. When a CB user said they had the "hammer down," what were they doing?

   Answer: Driving at high speed with the pedal to the floor

   "Hammer down" vividly described pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor — driving as fast as the truck would go, usually to make up time on a long haul.

5. 5. In CB radio culture, what was a trucker's "handle"?

   Answer: Their personal CB nickname or call sign

   A "handle" was the colorful nickname a CB user chose for themselves — memorable handles from the 1975 hit song "Convoy" by C.W. McCall included "Rubber Duck" and "Pig Pen."

Things you'll learn along the way

• ✓"Breaker, Breaker" was the standard way to "break in" on a channel — politely signaling to other users that you wanted to transmit a message and asking them to pause.
• ✓"Rig" was short for "big rig" — a large commercial tractor-trailer truck — and the long-haul drivers who piloted these machines were the heart and soul of 1970s CB radio culture.
• ✓A "chicken hauler" was a trucker whose load was poultry — either live chickens headed to market or processed chicken products — a very common cargo on America's interstate highways.