mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
And got hung up on not allowing FM until it was way too late.
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I guess channel 19 is dead??? what are the truck drivers doing now?
- Thread starter niceguy71
- Start date
And got hung up on not allowing FM until it was way too late.
niceguy71
Active Member
your right.... I have 50 little handheld CB walkie talkies I like to use from the woods /yard to the base or mobile... their just fun to have out in the woods and see what I can get for range back to the base.... also I have talked most of my friends into putting CB's into their 4X4s so I can't let it go yet.Believe me, it doesn't work that way
K6GBW
Member
For all my comments, the beauty of the two-way radio hobby is that you can do whatever it is that YOU want. If tweaking a 27 MHz CB is your thing, then that's absolutely what you should do. I can't say I haven't thought about it. I think my aspirations are, in part, motivated by my experiences with CB growing up. It was my first experience with two-way radio and it was an absolute blast back then. I'd probably still have a CB in my car right now if didn't get so frustrated with the idiots on the band. The idea of a super clean install, using good quality components to get the most out of it is appealing. But then I hear some guy yelling, "Four ten..four ten..four..ten..you got night rider..four ten.." For ten hours straight! Ugh...
During the day we ran with squelch set to hear the other side of the freeway, after dark when the band went out you could open the squelch and enjoy drivers talking miles ahead of you. Understand at that time, there were no cell phones, AM/FM cassettes radios was what we had. And as drivers we all got along and liked each other and helped each other, we respected law enforcement. Most of the country was on the same page. We all wanted what was best for the country, multicultural and all the other isms were not glamorized. There were always misfits with big radios, but they were the 1 percenters. It was fun to work a base station for 30 miles in the middle of the night while you trucked through their town. There was little electronic pollution and you could hear for miles and miles. CB's were not computers, they were real analog devices and each one was unique and had different pros and cons. They did not all work the same, they did not sound the same. They did not all look the same. They we're not about looks and cool names, they were about features and innovation. 19 is still alive, its just different, very different.
Bob1955
Member
niceguy- CB is a dead TOPIC.
Let the truckers here in Westchester County, NY "STOP" blaming their GPS for bridge strikes on our parkways that cause damage to our bridges and tie up traffic for hours on the Hutchinson River Parkway and the #1 bridge strike is Purchase Street on the CT Borderline AKA Rt.120A and Westchester County Police are tired of this nonsense.
Also, Weaver Street (Rt.125)/Mill Road over-pass /Lincoln Avenue in Pelham Manor/Old Mamaroneck Road/North Street in Harrison and the list goes on and on and on.
Sorry TRUCKERS, the CB got me going. lol
Back in the days when I used to run commercial 4WD tours, we required all our client vehicles to have CB radio. It readily available, easy to use and no license was required. We used CH 1. Our backcounty comms were frequently overridden (especially in the afternoons) by some guy we called "audio man". Typical "down home" accent, repeatedly calling, "Hellooo--aud-dee-ooo, aud--dee-ooo..." He had a surprisingly clean signal. I don't recall ever hearing anything else out of him.
On the road, I'd monitor CH 19 for traffic info and general "trucker talk". There was a general professionalism in the channel and minimal horseplay. I found it considerably more useful than ham radio on the road. It's been a few years since I had a CB in my vehicle, but the last time I tuned in CH 19, it was surprisingly quiet with occasional interruptions by a$$ha+s running high power, over modulated rigs.
K6GBW
Member
Yep, somewhere in the DSM5 I'm sure there is an identified mental health issue with people that sit in their dark trailer ranting on the radio. Unfortunately, we all have to deal with the outcome of their severe mental illness. These days I imagine these people are mostly on forums....Uh...present company accepted of course!
- Joined
- May 6, 2024
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- 6
I have just recently bought my 5th Jeep and the first in 10 years. When I was looking to get a CB for it, I soon discovered it was a platform not really being used by the community and hence why I am here now. So, I don't think it is just channel 19 that is dead.. now I am GMRS on a slippery slope to HAM.
Bored_Technician
Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2024
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- 20
I just started with CB and I'm wondering if I should skip to HAM before I actually put any money into it lol.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I just drove through Southwest Utah and had my mobile scanning GMRS and FRS. A -lot- of off road users talking, many of the channels very active. Lots of discussion on which path to take, checking trail conditions, calling out turns to others on the trail. I was really surprised how active it was.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Depends on what you want to do. I've been a ham for several decades and while I like it, it is not the right radio service for everything. GMRS can be much more useful if you want to talk to others that are not hams (interoperable with FRS on many channels) and one GMRS license will cover your entire family.
Ham has it's place, but so does GMRS.
K6GBW
Member
I agree with mmckenna. I'm about to drive from Los Angeles to Montana. I'm going to be scanning the FRS/GMRS channels along the way. I'm kind of curious to find out what I hear out there. UHF is just a better band for short distance communications. I'm talking 5-10 miles, which is what CB was supposed to be. But with the solar cycle at its peak now we are getting skip really bad. UHF, even at higher power levels, doesn't really have that problem.
I too remember hearing “audio man” over, and over, and over again…
ChadStevens
Newbie
That's the part I don't understand. I don't begrudge the high powered, overmodulated, skip shooters. At least they're doing something with 11 meters. But why can't they just stay off of Channel 19? They have all the other channels and more if you count the outband channels to do that stuff on.
The last time I put a CB and magnet mount antenna in the car on a road trip pre-COVID, I just gave up and shut it off.
I work for a trucking company with a 1500 truck fleet that covers the lower 48 plus Canada. After reading this thread a few weeks back I decided to make it a point to see how many of our drivers still had cb radios in their trucks. Just about all of them had one. I questioned some of them about how much they used them and most said all the time unless they were near or in a truck stop because of all the cussing and vulgar language. Some that run dedicated routes said that they talk to the usual base stations on other channels until they are out of range.
I just did a 420 mile round trip today with a buddy to pick up his daughter from college. His vehicle is equipped with a UV-5R set up with murs/frs/gmrs freqs attached to a permanent mount antenna, and a bone stock President Bill CB attached to a permanent mount antenna. Both radios in scan mode were quiet until we hit Madison, WI. Multiple drivers on the CB let everybody know about a 3 car pile up with backed up traffic for miles. Hearing this we found an alternate route to bypass that mess. CB is not dead. People just don't seem to randomly chit-chat on it like the old days. Key up, say something, and usually you’ll get a response.
niceguy71
Active Member
That president Bill is cute....and I guess it worked out ok ... I always wonder if something so small can really receive and transmit well. I guess it did... Nice to hear
Got to love technology. No longer do we need radios the size of lunch boxes any more. The "mini rigs" that have been popping up lately do just fine.
DeeEx
Member
Even the Uniden 510 was sufficient for most casual users back in the day. The PC66 felt like a step up to luxury for many!!
But form factor doesn’t equal success…the Cobra 10 Plus was an audio disaster.
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