CB radio alternative for truckers? GMRS ?

[Bootyhunter]

This was my experience when I had trucks (got out in 2022). Younger drivers didn't care at all about radios. Streaming their music and getting road conditions from Google.

Which does nothing to prevent a huge pile up due to an accident in a blind spot. Younger and stupider drivers, spoiled on technology and no real world experience on what can happen and how a cheap little cb can prevent it.

 

[n0esc]

Which does nothing to prevent a huge pile up due to an accident in a blind spot. Younger and stupider drivers, spoiled on technology and no real world experience on what can happen and how a cheap little cb can prevent it.

Like it or not, technology has adapted there quite well. Both Google Maps and more-so Waze will equally live report traffic conditions, speeds, and density. Waze will actively reroute you around traffic jams. Essentially if you are using either app on a phone as navigation, or paired with a car infotainment system using CarPlay or Android Auto you will have real time traffic as quick or quicker and more clear and concise than what gets relayed on C19.

 

[N9EXR66]

When I called myself restarting my otr driving career in 2019, I was struck by how quiet ch19, as well as most 2m repeaters were, even in metro areas. I still had HF, a dual bander, and GMRS in the truck so I wouldn't miss a thing. Radio really is passe today.

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

Like it or not, technology has adapted there quite well. Both Google Maps and more-so Waze will equally live report traffic conditions, speeds, and density. Waze will actively reroute you around traffic jams. Essentially if you are using either app on a phone as navigation, or paired with a car infotainment system using CarPlay or Android Auto you will have real time traffic as quick or quicker and more clear and concise than what gets relayed on C19.

Yep. I drive with a scanner programmed for part of the state and use an iPad mini for my GPS at work. I will know more about that wreck and conditions than anyone with a CB.

 

[Bootyhunter]

Yep. I drive with a scanner programmed for part of the state and use an iPad mini for my GPS at work. I will know more about that wreck and conditions than anyone with a CB.

Bs. You are saying that if a wreck happens over a blind hill, and someone IMMEDIATELY warns drivers behind them on cb19, so that a truck 1000' behind can get on the brakes or switch lanes, that you with all your gadgets will get the same info at the same time??? No way. Plus, staring at an ipad screen while driving is a good way to cause even more accidents. Cb is INSTANTANEOUS, all that ypu are relying on is not. Also most pubil safety agencies are going encrypted these days so your scanner will be a useless brick in the very near future.

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

The thing is, no one will because they are trying to avoid becoming part of the wreck. And since I’m actually looking out the window instead instead of the iPad screen (because why would I be looking at my iPad screen?), I can see what’s happening and make immediate changes as necessary. And my agencies aren’t going encrypted any time soon, if ever so I think I’m good. Also I would find out pretty quick since modern mapping solutions use real time data from others phones, connected devices and other data points to adjust your info. As soon as people start slowing down, that data is fed into the cloud and tells everyone that traffic is slowing ahead.

 

[mmckenna]

Bs. You are saying that if a wreck happens over a blind hill, and someone IMMEDIATELY warns drivers behind them on cb19, so that a truck 1000' behind can get on the brakes or switch lanes, that you with all your gadgets will get the same info at the same time??? No way. Plus, staring at an ipad screen while driving is a good way to cause even more accidents. Cb is INSTANTANEOUS, all that ypu are relying on is not. Also most pubil safety agencies are going encrypted these days so your scanner will be a useless brick in the very near future.

"Tell me you've never used it without telling me you've never used it."

I rarely use google maps while driving. The times I do, it will beep and give a voice alert to what the issue is, how far ahead it is, and what the alternate route is. I don't need to take my eyes off the road, and I don't need to do anything else. It happens as soon as it sense an issue, or as soon as someone manually tags the incident. That can happen many ways and dose not always require it being manually done.

With so many smart phone users out there, this IS a really good tool, like it or not. Companies like Waze will even pull public safety CAD data from appropriate sources and use that to warn people. Some states have figured this out and integrate well with theses systems.

Sure, CB has it's place, but the 70's were 50 years ago now and society has moved on. Expecting new young truck drivers to "join the CB craze" isn't going to happen. Technology has moved on and left us old people in the dust.

In other words: "Get off my lawn, kid!" "Your music is too loud!". "Back in my day…."

 

[KevinC]

Maybe a special service around, say, 38 mHz?

 

[mmckenna]

Maybe a special service around, say, 38 mHz?

Oh God, don't start that up again. Next, we'll have to subdivide the band into AM, FM and SSB users.

 

[spacellamaman]

just to make a real mess of this, as someone without a dog in this fight, which is to say generally objective, while i am no luddite, i have only had a smart phone for a year. thats all. hadn't needed one.

i live out in the semi sticks, and have been using google maps/directions to see if there are any shortcuts i have somehow missed etc. We is high class enough to have stoplights out here, and we have cell towers. I am using TracFones and pay-by-the-gig-out-the-arse service, so i dont exactly have high tech, even so.

late at night, the road ahead is GREEN on the map, not a soul around IRL, the stoplight turns red on a timer, no one else at the intersection, by the time i have come to a complete stop, the road on the map, where i am sitting, turns RED.

That's responsive enough for me.

And more than enough to question the sanity of keeping it.

 

[nd5y]

Cb is INSTANTANEOUS,

Only if there is somebody around reporting stuff that you think is important before you get there.

 

[Bootyhunter]

"Tell me you've never used it without telling me you've never used it."

I rarely use google maps while driving. The times I do, it will beep and give a voice alert to what the issue is, how far ahead it is, and what the alternate route is. I don't need to take my eyes off the road, and I don't need to do anything else. It happens as soon as it sense an issue, or as soon as someone manually tags the incident. That can happen many ways and dose not always require it being manually done.

With so many smart phone users out there, this IS a really good tool, like it or not. Companies like Waze will even pull public safety CAD data from appropriate sources and use that to warn people. Some states have figured this out and integrate well with theses systems.

Sure, CB has it's place, but the 70's were 50 years ago now and society has moved on. Expecting new young truck drivers to "join the CB craze" isn't going to happen. Technology has moved on and left us old people in the dust.

In other words: "Get off my lawn, kid!" "Your music is too loud!". "Back in my day…."

"Tell me you've never been places without cell service without saying it"
Still alot of the country with no service, but hey whatever floats your boat. The more high tech it is, the more easily it can fail. But I will stay back here in the 80's and 90's, times were a hellofalot better then anyway. Yall enjoy your tracking devices, errr, google crap.

 

[PrivatelyJeff]

"Tell me you've never been places without cell service without saying it"
Still alot of the country with no service, but hey whatever floats your boat. The more high tech it is, the more easily it can fail. But I will stay back here in the 80's and 90's, times were a hellofalot better then anyway. Yall enjoy your tracking devices, errr, google crap.

I have and guess what? No one was there so they couldn’t have reported it anyway. And with the latest generation of mobile devices, they can send and receive some signals via satellite and also do peer to peer signaling so it’s just a matter of time before I’m able to receive map data via satellite and exchange positional information in the middle of nowhere with others.

 

[mmckenna]

"Tell me you've never been places without cell service without saying it"
Still alot of the country with no service, but hey whatever floats your boat. The more high tech it is, the more easily it can fail. But I will stay back here in the 80's and 90's, times were a hellofalot better then anyway. Yall enjoy your tracking devices, errr, google crap.

Absolutely, and I've driven through a lot of it. Southwest USA and parts of the west coast are known for being RF black holes. I've driven across large chunks of New Mexico where there was no cell service for a few hours.
Also, no one on the CB.
I minded neither situation, kind of liked the quiet solitude.

The interstate system is pretty well saturated with cellular service, so coverage isn't usually the issue.

Get out in the lonely parts of the country, and cell coverage becomes an issue, but there's also not as much traffic as most stick to the quickest routes. Same with the trucks. Used to have a CB with me, but it was dead quiet most of the places I went, and I got tired of it.

Kind of a toss up, and depends on what your preference is. Mapping apps have their place. Finding addresses you have never been to, including warehouses, cheapest Diesel fuel, etc. all benefits from technology.
CB radio has its place, also.
Utilizing both is an option, but the days of everyone having a CB radio in their car/truck are quickly falling into the history books.

As for tracking, most large trucking companies already have methods of doing that, with or without the driver input.

 

[Lauri-CoyoteFrostbite]

I have always had some sort of CB radio in my vehicles- I seldom turn them on except when out on the Interstates- then they are parked on Channel 19 with the squelch tightly clamped down. I rely of them for stuff that goes on around me within a few miles-- and despite the fewer truckers and 'four wheerer" with "ears"- I still run across many that do, and validate the good reasons to have those radios with us.

A case in point--- I wrote about one such positive CB experience in these Forums a few years ago -- (scroll down to Post #10)

In Search of the Perfect Mobile Frequency- a Cowgirl's Log

. . Two weeks ago I mentioned I and my friend 'Barbi' were going to take a cross country road trip home to the Southwest. We were going in search of colourful leaves, autumn's cool crisp airs of the Appalachians- maybe even get washed away in a midwest flood. But intermixed in there we were...

forums.radioreference.com

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Where I live there are quite a few that use CB for 4X4'ing.... Channel 4 and 16 are popular in my mountains and every spring-thru-autumn I talk to the off-roader's there. The range of 27 MHz in in these hills seems much better than FRS/GMRS/MURS--- and even tho these guys/gals use those too, many have that long whip in their Jeeps as well.

Lauri




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[WaveFront]

I think it is safe to say, YMMV. A lot depends on your area or where you are traveling. Yes the 'good-old-days' of CB are gone, but GMRS is not a replacement. As many point out; some of the CB use-cases are replaced by cell-phones, some by gps and active mapping with traffic, and some with GMRS or other radios. It's just a different world, but there is no simple replacement it's a more complex world with different ways of doing the same things, and some newer things.