Do truckers still use CB Radios?

[slowmover]

@slowmover will chime in with his usual ramble .....

It’s a question with context. I apologize if your lips tire in spelling out my ideas of what constitutes that context.

One might search my posts on the subject. My radio is on AM-19 an average of 6/days week, 10-12/hrs at 300-days/year.

As a truck driver I run primarily Texas outbound to upper Midwest or East Coast and back again.

I regularly run portions of IH:
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and US + State Highways. In those earlier posts I’ve gone into detail about Who, Where, When. (There are some cities where chatter by locals and OTR is a constant: Knoxville, TN or Oklahoma City, OK or Houston, TX among them).

There are FAR more radios turned On and monitoring for key words and phrases than is ever represented by whatever level of chatter is present.

If CB were “dead” I wouldn’t use it. The difference between today and yesterday (AM-19) is that it’s now self-selected by users who want moment-by-moment road conditions.

For a base station you’ll want a quality vertical with the feed point is 30’ in the air. Less than this won’t capture much, much less allow two-way comms.

Skip is a whole other phenomenon. As is Sideband where activity can be so high (propagation maps) that one can’t get a word in edgewise.

Antenna System is what matters, mobile or base. Contenting ones self with basic or marginal in this will produce less than desirable results (over the full course of a day). I consider DSP plus 40-150W amplification as basics to reliable long-range performance.

To sum up: I haven’t yet been in a populous region (98th Parallel and East) where one can’t raise another in a few tries most of the time (70% or greater chance).

Is CB a toy or a need?

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[CcSkyEye]

I don't monitor much at all, but still some chatter in the far western suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

 

[slowmover]

Is chan 6 still the superbowl?

Yes.

 

[slowmover]

I don't monitor much at all, but still some chatter in the far western suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

They ship a bit of grain in that area? Anywhere truck transport of commodities to where elevators meet rail junctions or river barge operations you’ll have TX.

Same for refineries (outbound loads), container ports (flat best bet), or National into Regional (eastern PA serving Philly, NJ, NYC and New England).

Locally, it’s “the rock haulers” guys home daily who start early and are done mid-afternoon.

Starting about an hour before dawn thru roughly 1600 M-F is highest activity.

Weekends are lowest activity.

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[FiveFilter]

Many pro truckers still have and use CBs, but unlike yesteryear, today there are so many distractions via cell and satellites and etc. that it's become an as-needed-only tool.

When there are big problems on the road, such as wrecks ahead, construction stoppages, black-ice hazards and other such things, drivers will often turn on their radios to inform each other of the dangers ahead. Unfortunately, because many CBs are turned off until drivers perceive there might be problems, a trucker can miss the warnings.

So for many pro truckers in today's world, a CB is still a tool in the toolbox for when it's needed; but for all other times, it's supplanted by all the other on-road devices available for companionship and fun. The advent of FM is unlikely to substantially increase CB's usage; who cares if a gravelly trucker's voice has a bit less static when there's a sexy girlfriend or a beautiful song coming from cells and satellites at the push of a button.

 

[CcSkyEye]

They ship a bit of grain in that area? Anywhere truck transport of commodities to where elevators meet rail junctions or river barge operations you’ll have TX.

Same for refineries (outbound loads), container ports (flat best bet), or National into Regional (eastern PA serving Philly, NJ, NYC and New England).

Locally, it’s “the rock haulers” guys home daily who start early and are done mid-afternoon.

Starting about an hour before dawn thru roughly 1600 M-F is highest activity.

Weekends are lowest activity.

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Definitely, the private road construction haulers are using CB radios.

 

[slowmover]

I drive down Interstate 5 in Northern California to the central coast several times a year. Sometimes to pass the time I will look at trucks to see how many have CB antennas. I would guess around 50 to 60%. Now how many have a CB radio hooked up to them would be anyone's guess.

IH-5 Corridor is pretty much isolated from the rest of the country versus what’s to be experienced in those other places. Most of us would rather drive out to Long Islnd then to put up with West Coast crap (paucity of services biggest complaint). And no one wants to deal with NYC.

Years ago the compass direction routes were on different channels. So, AM-15, 17, & 19 are all possibilities.

More than anything, though, is that you have drivers running the same stretch of road over & over. Local weather is no threat, and traffic patterns are already understood.

The exceptions are in crossing the Sierras. Park near Donner Pass some difficult winter day, you want some “fun” listening.

And, in leaving Lotus Land, there’s always chatter near the Banning Scale House, plus traffic making the climb out of the bowl to IH-40 or IH-15.

Identify the trucks. Day cabs are locals. So are most end dumps. OTR drivers are in longer wheelbase condos and large cars. Vehicle Condition is the other. With some practice you’ll make the correlates more easily.

 

[RobKB1FJR]

19 is hit or miss in NC. I have had chats and heard about conditions. There are some local base stations around here on the upper 30s. I used to like to try to scan CB with my president but with Channel 6 blaring and impossible to lock out I usually just sit on 19.

 

[trentbob]

Is chan 6 still the superbowl?

I live just north of Philly PA and with the new sunspot cycle there are days Channel 6 is banging. I get Texas and other spots in the south great. Of course it's all still gibberish but it comes in good LOL

 

[trentbob]

IH-5 Corridor is pretty much isolated from the rest of the country versus what’s to be experienced in those other places. Most of us would rather drive out to Long Islnd then to put up with West Coast crap (paucity of services biggest complaint). And no one wants to deal with NYC.

Years ago the compass direction routes were on different channels. So, AM-15, 17, & 19 are all possibilities.

More than anything, though, is that you have drivers running the same stretch of road over & over. Local weather is no threat, and traffic patterns are already understood.

The exceptions are in crossing the Sierras. Park near Donner Pass some difficult winter day, you want some “fun” listening.

And, in leaving Lotus Land, there’s always chatter near the Banning Scale House, plus traffic making the climb out of the bowl to IH-40 or IH-15.

Identify the trucks. Day cabs are locals. So are most end dumps. OTR drivers are in longer wheelbase condos and large cars. Vehicle Condition is the other. With some practice you’ll make the correlates more easily.

How would you identify this truck look at all that equipment on the roof, I would assume this truck has a CB radio?

 

[GMB951]

And their is some VHF radio traffic between truckers up north near the boarder mostly

 

[K5MPH]

I always go to the CB radio display case and have a look...so cool.

The Loves here where I live has a good display of CB radio,but mucho money........

 

[K6EEN]

I never hear any trucker chit-chat on Ch19, even with two different types of scanners monitoring.

I never get any CB traffic on the scanner with an indoor 2 ft whip antenna. The OTR truckers tend to keep the radio off or listen-only on Ch19 AM until the interstate backs up with an accident or weather. Then the CB radios are turned on/up and supplement the limited info presented in a navigator app like Waze or Google Maps or a Rand-McNally trucker GPS. I'd say 50% to 60% of big trucks still have CB antennas visibly mounted, but the drivers are probably on their mobile phones, listening to an app like Spotify or Apple Music, or listening to satellite radio. A lot more radio technology exists than in the 1970s, so the CB competes with other radio services for driver attention.

 

[spikestabber]

The 401 corridor in Canada gets a lot of cb chatter especially when things slow down traffic-wise, occasional rants too and anger at bad drivers, makes it fun having a cb nearby. Mostly owner ops seem to have cb's but many dump trucks have them also, but in most cases many only engage their radios when things aren't normal.

 

[RadioJonD]

The last couple of times I have stopped to assist a truck driver way off course on a back road, having gotten there by a GPS smart app/device, English wasn't the driver's first language. So, I doubt CB would help in that situation. Not really sure I even helped at all.

Certainly, local truckers in North Alabama still communicate via CB. Granted, I only listen to Ch-19 via a scanner with an antenna not cut for 27MHz, so my knowledge is limited as far as OTR driver use.

I have also heard trucker simplex comms on business itinerant/low power frequencies and on marine band VHF. Since this isn't constant, I assume these are OTR drivers passing through.

 

[bharvey2]

I'm in the SF Bay Area. I've got a few older CBs and an HF ham radio, all of which I use periodically to monitor 11 meters. (No I don't transmit on 11 meters with my HR rig. It's unmodified and currently incapable) I hardly ever hear any traffic on the CB band. The company I work for sends a log of truck traffic to the local shipping port and the drivers have CBs in their trucks. I'm told they're sometimes used around the port by the truckers. Other than that, there is some freebander traffic and I've heard it once or twice.

 

[WX4JCW]

The Loves here where I live has a good display of CB radio,but mucho money........

Better to go to a reputable CB Shop unless you use points

 

[WX4JCW]

I have a CB, sometimes we will find another truck to run with and it’s great to pass the time, but it isn’t the same as it used to be

 

[Citywide173]

I have driven from Boston to Detroit twice this year and had one radio scanning the CB frequencies both ways/both trips. I didn't hear much. While in Detroit, Canadian Border Service Officers instituted a Work-to-Rule job action that backed up traffic for miles on I-75, I-94 and I-96. The traffic was almost non-stop on multiple channels for hours and it was hilarious to listen to. Someone mentioned it earlier inthe thread, unless there's a reason to talk, there are probably many more radios listening at any given time than talking.

Also, back in the 80s, I ran A/S MON-R 33 and MON-R 52 series antennas that were great on low band but a friend and I would disconnect our CBs and use our K-40 antennas plugged into the scanner to monitor distant 33, 42 and 46 Mhz stations and it worked pretty well, so while resonant on 27 Mhz, you can get better low band performance from a CB antenna than many of the "all band" scanner antennas on the market today.

 

[WX4JCW]

View attachment 112166

How would you identify this truck look at all that equipment on the roof, I would assume this truck has a CB radio?

not Neccesarily but way nice 110' sleeper, wonder if thats Bolt or ARI

here is mine