Plowing a path to the past: Conifer snowplow driver wants to keep fellow drivers in touch via CB radios

Breaker, breaker: A Conifer businessman wants to get CB radios back on the airwaves to help snowplow drivers stay safe during nasty weather.

Jim Ferguson of Conifer, owner of Wildhorse Welding, is an independent snowplow driver who clears driveways and parking lots around Conifer. He wants to resurrect a little-used communication method, one that works better in the mountain area than its successor, the cell phone.

Citizen band radios were highly popular in the 1970s.


“They lost popularity in the ‘80s, and now there’s nobody on the channels, and the radios aren’t being used.”
Ferguson has formed the nonprofit Conifer Snow Plow Drivers Association to promote CB use and, he hopes, to get the word out to any of the area’s independent plow drivers who wants to join.

His goal is to help drivers cope with the snowy, slippery and dangerous working conditions by issuing refurbished CB radios to them.

Cell phone reception in isolated mountain areas can be limited, and CB radios make sense for communication during times of bad weather and at night.

“The benefits of having a CB is, a driver can monitor all the other drivers,” Ferguson said. “We get stuck, have equipment breakdowns, and often need another plow driver for assistance.”

Sometimes, plow drivers like Ferguson render assistance in unlikely places.

Ferguson once came across an elderly person whose car was sitting in a ditch at the end of a driveway at 4 a.m., and the car’s doors were blocked. The person had been stuck inside for a long time during bad weather. Ferguson said he needed help getting the person out and would have been able to call for help sooner if he’d had a CB.

In addition, Ferguson has had a couple close calls that could have resulted in his spending a cold night in the cab of his truck.
“Sometimes you can’t see the road, it’s snowing so bad,” Ferguson said.

He hopes people may have old CB radios they can donate, and he will have them repaired and adjusted to boost their signal capability to cut through the “atmospheric radio trash,” a phrase used to describe interference from cell phones.

Five CBs have been donated so far, and they needed only low-cost repairs. After the radios are adjsuted, they will be given to plow drivers who routinely clear the areas that the Colorado Department of Transportation doesn’t touch.

“I’m not trying to re-start a CB fad,” Ferguson said. “I’m just trying to help the drivers.”

From the High Timber Times: December 9, 2009