Hi Mike,
Thanks for the interesting history lesson. I got my first CB in the late 
70's as a kid and, of course, had no idea this contraversy was going on. 
I do still listen to 27.025 and 27.385 LSB from time to time to check 10 
M propagation possibilities and it hasn't changed a great deal in 30 years.
Mike Duke, K5XU wrote:
> That was a subject of great debate among both Hams and CB operators as 
> late as the mid 60s.
>
> The most prominent reason I heard expressed by hams was not enough 
> amateur activity on 11 meters.
>
> Other hams insisted that there was plenty of activity, including local 
> mobile and emergency nets.
>
> However, since 11 meters was a shared band between the amateur service 
> and various industrial devices as has been discussed here recently, it 
> was much easier for the FCC to boot the amateur service off of the 
> band. I have long suspected that was a strong factor in the decision.
>
> Another reason was economics. CB was intended to be a more affordable 
> radio service for small businesses. In 1956, "good" equipment for 11 
> meters was much cheaper to produce than it would have been for a VHF 
> range, even as low as 6 meters. Yes, there was vhf, and even UHF 
> equipment out there, but the more stable equipment cost big bucks.
>
> By the mid 1970s, there was a proposal for yet another new CB service 
> which would have taken part of the 220 mhz band.
>
> Again, the lack of activity was sited as a reason behind it. But, the 
> fact that the 220 band was not an international amateur allocation 
> also made this proposal, along with the one which ultimately did take 
> 2 mhz out of the band in the early 1990s, much easier for the FCC to 
> handle.
>
> Regarding the 220 MHZ CB proposal, it was supported by groups such as 
> React, and by many individual CB operators who were not interested in 
> being able to talk with stations around the world while not being able 
> to communicate across the street.
>
> The proposal, as you know, ultimately failed. But, while it was alive, 
> rumors flew that many Japanese companies had "warehouses full" of 10 
> channel 220 CB rigs ready to unleash on the marketplace. Midland was 
> the company I remember hearing mentioned most of the time on this 
> subject.
>
> While this was a possibility, many amateurs of the day including me, 
> always thought that excluding a few prototypes for demonstration 
> purposes, these rigs existed for the most part only on paper. The 
> logic for this thinking was that if these rigs really did exist, why 
> weren't they unleashed on the amateur radio market rather than allowed 
> to become trash.
>
>
> Mike Duke, K5XU
> American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
>
>