CB radio has remained useful for me, as many off road parks still have loads of vehicles equipped with CB's. Not everyone has jumped to FRS/GMRS or MURS or something else. There are many people that like having a huge antenna hanging off of their truck.
The other day I saw a pretty beat up Chevy pickup on this "off-road" park road. He had the big towing mirrors and then one CB antenna hanging off of each. There was no cable and no radio. So I asked what those were for. The response was that they looked "cool". I then said it would be more useful to actually have a radio hooked to them, as many people were using them that day.
My antipathy toward CB is based primarily on the fact that in my general area, if conditions are favorable at all to be able to use the radio to communicate, then it's a 40 channel snowstorm chock full of idiots who are cranking out so much power that they make your refrigerator talk and you can almost see the ionization in the air around their antennas. I HAVE, in fact, seen some guy sitting in his pickup truck by the river and he was transmitting enough power that the tip of his antenna was glowing red. All these loudmouthed "good buddies" seem to have nothing to do but to jam the airwaves and tell you what you can do with your request to get a break to talk to a friend who's travelling with you. Your life must indeed be a pathetic thing if your "hobby" is to badly tune and overmodulate an illegal imported Galaxy "10/11 meter" rig with a 3000 watt power amp, key up your D104 run through a delay and echo box, and scream "Audio, audio, audio!" into the mic at the top of your drunken lungs for hours at a time.
It's people like that who make me wish that the United States Air Force would equip all its aircraft with HARM missiles tuned to automatically launch and track and destroy any detected transmitter operating between 26.9650 MHz to 27.4050 MHz and with an ERP of greater than 50 watts.
My antipathy for CB is almost as intense as my antipathy toward corrupt politicians. For the reasons stated.
Hopefully, and possibly, CB is more useful in your area. In which case, great. Use it if it's useful. Around my neck of the woods, it is NOT thanks to the aforementioned class of dolts.
