Was this “skip”??

[txemt88]

I guess skip was rolling today…or something?

I’ve only been using my CB for about a month now and I wish I would’ve recorded this earlier so y’all could see what I’m talking about but I’ll try to describe it.

I was driving down I-35 S through Waco, as I have done hundreds of times before, but I NEVER catch anything on my CB, except the occasional trucker on ch 19 talking about how bad traffic is on 35 right now. All of the sudden, it’s like there are 4 or 5 different conversations going on ch 19 between two people, and I heard more of them when I adjusted the squelch. This was just ch 19, mind you.

I do a scan and all of the sudden I’m hearing conversations on ch 4, 11, 17, 23, 25, and so on, to where I can’t even break in. I’m hearing people in Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Florida, even Hawaii, all at different points and this isn’t even on sideband. So I scan USB and LSB and it’s more of the same stuff! I even heard some dude called “Motormouth Maul” from the “central coast of California”.

During all this of course there’s all these weird bleeps and blips and funny sounds and some of the guys sounded like preachers screaming into a microphone and some dude was on 2 or 3 different channels at once playing music like it was his personal radio station.

What did I experience? Lol

 

[drbeede]

yep it was skip, I use to talk on the cb back in the day and remember hearing things just like that, people use to make a lot of those bleeps and blips and other funny sounds with power echo mics and voice boxes and such, I had one myself, the good old days. cb is still the wild west though lots of pirates out there running linear amplifiers with who knows how much power, a lot of the reasons they can be heard bleeding over three or four channels and can be heard from coast to coast. I remember one guy around my area who had a tube type amp that was pushing 1500 to 2500 watts, wasn't hard for that guy to reach anywhere he wanted to talk. There are days when I miss having a CB though was always something to listen to or someone to talk with.
High Power Linear Amplifiers

 

[vagrant]

@txemt88 Leave your radio on channel 6 and you'll hear skip more often...and the weird bleeps, blips, echo chambers, etc.

 

[merlin]

Most likely, as months roll by, there will be more and more as the solar cycle climbs.
Besides hetrodyn, some choose to distort their voice with reverbs and use those nefarious tweety birds.
Don't forget roger beeps.
One day years back, I had such nasty bleed over from channel 6 trying to monitor MARS net, I slid 'Big Bertha down to channel 6 and laid some RTTY on the lot. Talking 5 KW here

 

[spikestabber]

I can hear all this from Toronto on certain days, brings back old memories, its highly entertaining, yep all you need is AM. Shows many out there still get their enjoyment out of the band.

 

[arudlang]

Yeah I heard it yesterday too. West coast, Florida, etc. It was pretty great!

 

[drbeede]

Most likely, as months roll by, there will be more and more as the solar cycle climbs.
Besides hetrodyn, some choose to distort their voice with reverbs and use those nefarious tweety birds.
Don't forget roger beeps.
One day years back, I had such nasty bleed over from channel 6 trying to monitor MARS net, I slid 'Big Bertha down to channel 6 and laid some RTTY on the lot. Talking 5 KW here

WOW that's a lot of power and back in the day I use to think I had something with my little Shooting Star 225, LOL.

 

[KEWB-N1EXA]

38 LSB is the channel monitor for band openings along with the super bowl on 6.

This spring should be fantastic.

Pete N1EXA

 

[krokus]

Most likely, as months roll by, there will be more and more as the solar cycle climbs.
Besides hetrodyn, some choose to distort their voice with reverbs and use those nefarious tweety birds.
Don't forget roger beeps.
One day years back, I had such nasty bleed over from channel 6 trying to monitor MARS net, I slid 'Big Bertha down to channel 6 and laid some RTTY on the lot. Talking 5 KW here

Big Bertha looks like the FRT-39, like the one I went to school on.

 

[spikestabber]

My best as a young teenager was from central Labrador in the early 90s, hit a Tennessee trucker "smoke stax" with 4 watts AM from that Antron 99. I never shot skip prior to that, didn't think it was ever possible with what I had as my father kept saying don't even bother trying as he never could. The entire lake melville area is situated in a valley that otherwise blocks most LoS RF unless you owned a big tower. Those times were some of the biggest sunspot periods.

 

[trentbob]

yep it was skip, I use to talk on the cb back in the day and remember hearing things just like that, people use to make a lot of those bleeps and blips and other funny sounds with power echo mics and voice boxes and such, I had one myself, the good old days. cb is still the wild west though lots of pirates out there running linear amplifiers with who knows how much power, a lot of the reasons they can be heard bleeding over three or four channels and can be heard from coast to coast. I remember one guy around my area who had a tube type amp that was pushing 1500 to 2500 watts, wasn't hard for that guy to reach anywhere he wanted to talk. There are days when I miss having a CB though was always something to listen to or someone to talk with.
High Power Linear Amplifiers

I agree... the cycle is just starting as has been said, I agree about the spring and definitely the next couple of years at least.

I can remember the mid-60s as a kid with my Lafayette he90 and my CLR II when I was learning, very cool!

 

[jwt873]

When the skip gets really long, you'll start hearing a lot of Spanish & Portuguese coming out of Central and South America.. When the sunspot numbers get to a constant 130, (Like they did in the 80's and 90's sunspot cycles), the band will be open all day during sunlit hours.

Then you'll hear signals pouring in from all over and combining to give you a constant +10dB on the meter. Going to be interesting to see how the new FM rigs handle this

 

[trentbob]

Okay, Southeastern Pennsylvania just north of Philly is banging on Channel 6 today. Great skip.

 

[jbhunt04]

I can remember picking up Spanish and maybe Portuguese on the cb during the day around 2003-2004. It was usually quiet at night, but that was the best time to talk local. Had a Cobra 19 w/ 102” whip on my pickup.

 

[KC3ECJ]

I was picking up Florida the other day on AM CB here in Pennsylvania.

This week even VHF high around 150mhz was traveling far. I picked up an ambulance department about 640 miles away in Kentucky.