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Long Distance CB reception today!

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alcahuete

alcahuete

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dragon48 said:
Starting to have some fun, but haven't made any contacts yet:

I bought a pair of Uniden PRO401HHs. In my NYC apartment, with the stock antennas, I've picked up some clear traffic (01:00 - 03:00 UTC) on channels 6, 38, and 31. Nobody was giving up their 20 or any clue as to where they were. I made some calls out to test the equipment, but the 4 watts wasn't enough to penetrate all the sources of city interference and nobody answered me.

I bought a pair of 42.5 inch ABBREE Tactical Antennas and will taking the setup to a rural area next week. I'm going to try and make contacts at various times during the day. I'm also going to see how far these can talk to each other.

What do you guys think? How far away will the units be able to talk to each other and what's the longest distance contact I can get? I'm hoping and assuming that I'll get much more distance than the shorter waves of FM FRS. I once did an experiment up in the mountains and couldn't get more than 1.3 miles of clear reception between a base receiver and a cheap bubble pack FRS, even though I was travelling in a straight line without obstructions. Recently in the country with a more powerful 5 watt setup, I couldn't get more than .75 of a mile (between two units) on either FRS or 151.82 MURS.
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Don't bother with Channel 6. Those guys are running HUGE amounts of power, and the chances of talking to them, especially with a 4w radio, are zero.

You will likely get a few miles out of those handhelds. Don't expect a lot.
 
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dragon48

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I'm out in East Hampton, N.Y. now.

12:00 - 12:30 UTC, I picked up the following traffic:

Channel 10 Detroit - 718 Miles
Channel 10 Montreal, Canada - 461 Miles
Channel 10 Waterford CT - 48 Miles
Channel 28 Wisconsin - 1065 Miles
Channel 28 New Orleans - 1,416 Miles
Channels 17 and 20 - Clear traffic but from unknown locations.

I still haven't made any contacts though. I called out on these channels, as well as channels 1,3, and 6, and nobody responded.

During the week, I'm going to test unit to unit range with the long antennas.
 
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dragon48

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dragon48 said:
I'm out in East Hampton, N.Y. now.

12:00 - 12:30 UTC, I picked up the following traffic:

Channel 10 Detroit - 718 Miles
Channel 10 Montreal, Canada - 461 Miles
Channel 10 Waterford CT - 48 Miles
Channel 28 Wisconsin - 1065 Miles
Channel 28 New Orleans - 1,416 Miles
Channels 17 and 20 - Clear traffic but from unknown locations.

I still haven't made any contacts though. I called out on those channels, as well as channels 1,3, and 6, and nobody responded.

During the week, I'm going to test unit to unit range with the long antennas.
Click to expand...
 
p1879

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QSO/SWL site showed people were working France,etc. this morning from E. USA on 10M.
the link is the current picture, not when this was happening. At the present 10 m is still hot, but no trans-Atlantic.
 
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dragon48

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With the long antennas, I was able to talk to the units from 1.27 miles away. Nobody wanted to test with me, so I put both units on channel 2, connected one to my laptop, started recording with Audacity and I called out my location every few blocks. The perfect clarity faded a little around the .96 mile mark, but I was able to clearly hear myself the whole way out. I don't know how much farther the units would have reached each other, as I started walking back at the 1.27 mile mark. I would have walked farther, but didn't think the reach was that far. If I take a longer walk, I'll report the reception here.

Skip remains awesome. I've picked up almost the entire length (Maine to Florida) of the east coast of the United States on various channels during the day. I recognize the voice of one guy who frequents channel 6. I'll have to post an audio clip of him one day. I'm sure somebody will recognize him.

Having a lot of fun with the hobby!
 
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slowmover

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As an OTR truck driver I know that skip is rolling whenever I hear a certain truck wash in Central TN. And I’ve heard them from San Diego to Savannah, Albany to Atlanta, and Omaha to Laredo.

Some radio operators. Some radio locations. A number of factors with gear and propagation.

The most fun was a guy in Hawaii sitting on the side of a volcano.

.
 
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dragon48

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I wonder if the east coast truckers were off duty during the storm yesterday and nobody was keying up.

Yesterday at 21:00 UTC, I was outside. My area just got hit with hard winds - no real damage. No traffic on any of the channels.
 
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dragon48

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hippieman556 said:
might have been an off day for the locals
Click to expand...

No local traffic at all while out here in the country. The closest I've picked up has been around 50 miles. Everything else has been skip. Looks to me like skip is still good and people were keyed down during the storm and aftermath. I picked up channel 6 skip from Tampa, Florida, and Montgomery, Alabama on Monday. I recognize the voices of these guys that I've picked up before. Don't remember the exact UTC - probably around 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.
 
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