I actually heard one of the knuckle draggers say one night: "they're doin a double wide, am and sideband at the same time."
The first time I heard that one was about 10 years ago on 160. A bunch of ex-CB slopbucketeers (still giving their "personals" and discussing "ghost talking" in the course of their QSO's) decided to settle on 1888 over the summer. Then they began to piss 'n moan late in the season as the QRN began to subside, and AM signals began "throwing carriers" ever more regularly near 1885. It soon became a full-blown battle as they had all assumed that they had already staked their claim and therefore "owned the channel."
One night I was talking with Tom, W4UOC in Atlanta, who was using a DX-100. After we were well into our QSO the 1888 bunch came on, much in the same style as the 3878 bunch on 75 (not the same group of in-breeds). During the ensuing battle, I overhead one of the slopbucketeers make the remark: "The guy in Atlanta is running AM. But that big strong one up in TN is running
AM and sideband at the same time. I don't know how he does it, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal."
Eventually that group moved their slopbucket CB channel somewhere down below 1870. But in the meantime, the vanity callsign program went into effect. Right away most of the members of this slopbucket group appeared with W4- 1 X 2 callsigns. That demonstrated to me not only that the Extra class had become meaningless (this was even before the 5 wpm code test), but that a 1 X 2 call with a W prefix no longer carried any significance whatsoever. I had been entertaining the idea of applying for some kind of W4xx call, but had agonised over giving up my long-held existing call that everyone knew me by. This was the final nail in the coffin to that idea.