Utah CB Radio

[w7sar]

Hope you all had a GREAT Christmas! Besides a nap and a visit from the grandkids, it was a great day. Listening to all the "snow" traffic was exciting. I was stuck with a county Crown Vic and my prayers were answered -- no callout! Driving a crown vic in the snow is absolute torture.

Anyway....

One of my new toys is a Midland CB that actually scans. It took a while to find one of these, but it's been fun, sort of. For a lot of years I've included CB in my array of gear both at home and in the car. I added GMRS and FRS to my scanning mobiles (home and car) and that's been fun (most of the time) as I travel around.

Waaaay back in the 1960s I was "KCU2188" on CB and involved heavily with REACT. Those were actually fun days and that's probably why I still like to keep a CB around. At home I've parked on Channel 3 because that's where the gravel trucks stay when they're getting dirt at the nearby pit on 5400 South. They're pretty fun to listen to and mostly polite.

But, with the "scanning" radio, I enjoyed listening to a lot of traffic relating to the weather (and mostly trucks) but have found a few folk to visit with that are near by and have been on CB for a few years. I do wish the radio could lock out Channel 19 (that's the most offensive of the lot) but, you take the good with the bad -- and it has been a nice addition to listening.

So, my question is. Since this is a "radio monitoring" group I feel the need to branch out a little and encourage other kinds of listening as well -- to include FRS and GMRS and MURS and CB. Granted the "excitement" is found on the public safety channels, but listening to FRS in my neighborhood has been fun and listening to CB has allowed recall of many old memories when 11 meters was "the thing!"

I am not aware of any CB groups in Utah. Salt Lake REACT folded some years ago and I cannot find (or hear) any reference to any organized CB group. In that light, are any of you active on CB and do you hear any regular activities, especially on side band? I've not even heard a SSB signal in my week of listening and have found that SSB rigs are pretty rare. The local Radio Shack was a wealth of non-information about CB (mostly the fellow tried to impress me with what he knew -- not realizing that what he was telling me was 100% wrong, but oh well).

So, I'm thinking I'll try to stimulate some discussion about other services! Besides CB, I enjoy listening to Marine Band and Aviation. Aviation is somewhat busy unless you focus on CTAF frequencies. Marine is quite fun and sometimes you'll hear some emergency traffic from vessels on the Great Salt Lake talking to the "Ranger Base" at the marina.

But, those I'll save for another thread. This one is about CB in Utah. Any thoughts? Stories?

Jerry Wellman, W7SAR

p.s. I think my "handle" on CB might be the Kearns Curmudgeon. Still trying to decide.

 

[gldavis]

I have a Texasa Ranger TR-966 SSB radio in my car. I do have the CB freqs programmed in one of my "search" scanners, but keep that bank off most of the time. My old call was KWB4543. When I'm on the road, I listen to Ch-19. My handle was/is Porcupine.
In addition to the FRS, GMRS, MURS, CB, Aviation, and Marine bands, I also search the business "Dot" freqs. There is a lot of RF floating around us.
Back to CB, I am curious as to how many in this group have an operational CB?

 

[LGLHOOK]

I use a CB in my work truck. In the valley I know that us tanker trucks run on channel 25 and out of the valley, most of them run 19. A few have to be diffrent and run on channel 11 between Salt Lake and the Basin areas (i guess they don't think anyone else can hear them if the go to a different channel) ;-0

 

[qlajlu]

I use a CB in my work truck. In the valley I know that us tanker trucks run on channel 25 and out of the valley, most of them run 19. A few have to be different and run on channel 11 between Salt Lake and the Basin areas (i guess they don't think anyone else can hear them if the go to a different channel) ;-0

I was one of those who "had to be different." The ones you are referring to are tanker drivers going after or bringing crude oil back to SLC. We use (used in my case) channel 11 because we all had something in common and wanted to get away from the nonsense and continuous jaw-jacking on channel 19, so I take offense at the underlying accusation even if it was meant to be in fun, LGLHOOK.

 

[LGLHOOK]

I was one of those who "had to be different." The ones you are referring to are tanker drivers going after or bringing crude oil back to SLC. We use (used in my case) channel 11 because we all had something in common and wanted to get away from the nonsense and continuous jaw-jacking on channel 19, so I take offense at the underlying accusation even if it was meant to be in fun, LGLHOOK.

LOL, no I can tell the difference between the Crude haulers and the gas haulers "as they go by" and you are looking at them and hearing them, so you don't fall into that classification

 

[qlajlu]

LOL, no I can tell the difference between the Crude haulers and the gas haulers "as they go by" and you are looking at them and hearing them, so you don't fall into that classification

You've never lived until you've hauled crude oil out of those drilling locations in the Basin on a super-tanker during the winter months. I DO NOT MISS IT!

 

[LGLHOOK]

You've never lived until you've hauled crude oil out of those drilling locations in the Basin on a super-tanker during the winter months. I DO NOT MISS IT!

All I can say is you can have the job, we haul fuel to the rigs and that is bad enough.

 

[Utah_Viper]

Seems some of you have alot more CB information for this area. Could yuou please help out and add some info for the Wiki?

http://utahradio.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Citizens_Band&action=edit&redlink=1

 

[2alpha56]

Continued CB discussion

Hello w7sar. Back in the 60's and 70's, my dad used a CB in his work truck. As you know it was a different animal then. As kids we thought this was pretty cool. As he changed jobs and the years passed, CB went by the wayside. Years ago I started to investigate CB again as something to occupy myself with on the Tooele to Salt Lake commute. I purchased a compact Cobra, installed it in my glove box and put a Wilson antenna behind the cab. I bought the meter to adjust and tune the unit as a whole. When I turned it on, I was so DISAPPOINTED in what I was hearing. I did not know it had degraded to the degree it had. So I mainly use it for the same reasons you do. I tune in to get instant traffic, weather and road conditions from truckers…”traffic and weather every ten minutes on the nines” Not!! LOL. If I am in a traffic jam, I tune in to hear what the problem might be. I rarely ever talk on the thing. Occasionally, will give some directions to someone. I have often wished there was a group that could elevate and potentially change CB a little. It would be nice to connect with some folks who shared similar interests and talk on the CB with them. I would probably buy a better unit with more features, etc. There is a gentleman (possibly retired?) who I think resides in the Kearns or the West Valley area that I hear on the CB very early in the mornings around 4:30 or 5:00a.m. He provides road conditions, weather information and directions for truckers. It seems to be a hobby for him and does it out of the kindness of his heart. I’ll bet he’s an old hand at CB and might be a good source of information and worth talking to. The problem is that I don’t know his name/handle. I will continue to monitor and see what I can find out.
I had looked into SSB years ago and was told there was not much of it being used and it would be a useless purchase. But hey, I am game to monitor CB, FRS, GMRS or communicate with others from the RR group. Possibly we could start to clean up some of the nonsense we all hear and stay clear of CH 19.

 

[yaesu_dave]

Happy New Year To All,

In Ogden there is a group that chats on 38 LSB once or twice a week, sometimes more often depending on the weather and family responsibilities. I suppose that with a good beam antenna pointed in the right direction, those in Salt Lake and the surrounding areas could "make the trip" up north. Unfortunately, my range is rather limited since I've only got an omni directional Solarcon (Antron) 99 with a ground plane kit.

We also have a few people that are on 19 early in the AM (between about 4:30 and 7:00) to help the drivers with directions, road condition info, and so forth. So contrary to popular belief, there are still some decent people on 11 meters willing to help out rather than just create chaos. But I have to admit that 19 does get pretty crazy after 9 or 10 AM . . . which is when I usually shut off the CB and turn on my scanners.

73,
David

 

[dkemple1]

Cb'ing

I have ben listening to the CB a little as of late. I purchased a base (Galaxy DX 2547) about 2 years ago. I listen to it during the week if I am home and monitor a local company that has numerous trucks every day. So then I purchase a piece of junk Cobra 19 Ultra2 40 channel mobile. It is a piece of junk as far as I am concerned. I installed it in our truck, but it isn't worth much to me. It seems the squelch is awful sensitive and anytime I drive through town, I have to turn the squelch way up in order to keep it quiet. I don't do much talking on them, but I do like to monitor them.