vabiro
Member
If they "ran a little dirty" why in the world would you want one?
There are tons of radios that don't have lousy transmitters, are easier to get, and aren't going to piss off your neighboor(hood). Why wast you money.
Victor
Weird question, Anyone have a Uniden CB ?
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If they "ran a little dirty" why in the world would you want one?
There are tons of radios that don't have lousy transmitters, are easier to get, and aren't going to piss off your neighboor(hood). Why wast you money.
Victor
garikfox
Member
Kinda funny I built my own CB antenna and when I First transmitted on it (TRC-447), I't blew out my PC Optical Mousey's Laser Diode, ROFLMAO ! 
My antenna is in my room, cuz it cant go outside.
My antenna is in my room, cuz it cant go outside.
N
N_Jay
Guest
Kinda funny I built my own CB antenna and when I First transmitted on it (TRC-447), I't blew out my PC Optical Mousey's Laser Diode, ROFLMAO !
My antenna is in my room, cuz it cant go outside.
How do you know that is what failed?
Did you replace the diode?
Power?
I thought CB's were limited to five watts of power "out" in the USA....
Steve/KB8FAR
I thought CB's were limited to five watts of power "out" in the USA....
Steve/KB8FAR
It only 4 watts output on AM and 12 watts PEP on SSB legally in the US.
Thanks...
Steve/KB8FAR
I knew it wasn't much....So, WHY BUY a radio "with more power"?....(like another poster suggested)
Steve/KB8FAR
dirtfinder
Member
They are in deed very good radios, But I have a cobra 29 that would walk all over these radios in aheart beat. The only radio that I have seen that will walk over mine is a Magnum S-9. There is alot, just like with your scanner, the radio is only as good as your ant. and coax. Now for the old time BIG audio of the past, try finding a tube type radio, This is what I use to shot skip all over the place. I fly the Browning Golden Eagle Mark III for at home base station, The 148 for LSB, and of course the 29 in the mobile. OT787 :twisted:
garikfox
Member
My meter says 7.4, I'f that's what the meter reads, heh
Mousey is fine !, I just restarted the PC and it came back on.
Mousey is fine !, I just restarted the PC and it came back on.
CB radio basically has a few trains of thought.
1) You buy the cheapest radio you can find. These could work fine, but, they could also be a disaster, I'm talking like if you find a "Cobro" radio for $8 kinda disaster.
2) You buy a decent radio from a decent company, like Cobra, or Uniden, and get good sound at full power output, the only thing to worry about here is the antenna. A CB is hard to screw up so spending more will only get you bells and whistles (like SSB, which means 12 watts of power, if you can find someone willing to talk on it, noise filtering, things like that).
3) Buy an "export" radio or some other radio made by Galaxy or Ranger and such. These radios are somewhat of a grey area. Usually people buy them because they can be easy to modify, adding more channels, more power swing, and since they were basically designed for a country where power output doesn't matter, massively violate the watt limit with simple tweaks.
In other words, assuming you don't want to break the 4 watt limit and transmit at say, 200 watts like a jackass, buy a half-decent radio and tune a high-quality antenna for it. The antenna will always be the biggest problem for pickup/transmit.
So why would you want to modify your radio for more channels, or tweak it to up the power, or boost the power with all manners of amplifiers and such? Well, easy. More range. In places where its congested, empty channels.
However the key problem here is two fold. 1, the channels you get by "freebanding" are valid frequencies used by hams, government, etc. Probably not the sanest thing to walk on top of. 2, increasing your power is useless if the guy at the other end wants to talk on 4 watts. Unless you know somebody else who has a huge linear amplifier, you simply waste the channel and annoy everyone by being heard for miles around, which is already bad enough with 4 watts when skip is high.
Plus at 200 watts, a bad SWR can easily fry all your equipment, so its more trouble than its really worth.
Buy a good CB with the features you need. Buy a really good antenna. Tune the SWR carefully. Grab your mike and see whose out there. Thats all you need.
1) You buy the cheapest radio you can find. These could work fine, but, they could also be a disaster, I'm talking like if you find a "Cobro" radio for $8 kinda disaster.
2) You buy a decent radio from a decent company, like Cobra, or Uniden, and get good sound at full power output, the only thing to worry about here is the antenna. A CB is hard to screw up so spending more will only get you bells and whistles (like SSB, which means 12 watts of power, if you can find someone willing to talk on it, noise filtering, things like that).
3) Buy an "export" radio or some other radio made by Galaxy or Ranger and such. These radios are somewhat of a grey area. Usually people buy them because they can be easy to modify, adding more channels, more power swing, and since they were basically designed for a country where power output doesn't matter, massively violate the watt limit with simple tweaks.
In other words, assuming you don't want to break the 4 watt limit and transmit at say, 200 watts like a jackass, buy a half-decent radio and tune a high-quality antenna for it. The antenna will always be the biggest problem for pickup/transmit.
So why would you want to modify your radio for more channels, or tweak it to up the power, or boost the power with all manners of amplifiers and such? Well, easy. More range. In places where its congested, empty channels.
However the key problem here is two fold. 1, the channels you get by "freebanding" are valid frequencies used by hams, government, etc. Probably not the sanest thing to walk on top of. 2, increasing your power is useless if the guy at the other end wants to talk on 4 watts. Unless you know somebody else who has a huge linear amplifier, you simply waste the channel and annoy everyone by being heard for miles around, which is already bad enough with 4 watts when skip is high.
Plus at 200 watts, a bad SWR can easily fry all your equipment, so its more trouble than its really worth.
Buy a good CB with the features you need. Buy a really good antenna. Tune the SWR carefully. Grab your mike and see whose out there. Thats all you need.
vabiro
Member
Let's take a moment to look at what a CB radio is designed for: talking with people in your community.
Having said that, mother nature says that 27 MHz will skip off the atmosphere and land where it does.
Regardless of which brand CB, or antenna, one buys the result is the same. An effective antenna and CB with decent selectivity (receiver) will talk further than the worst piece of Stuf installed with a linear, peaked out to 12 watts, or pumped up with a linear. Installation is king!
My best contact was on channel 37 USB using 4 watts to a mobile in Botswana. No linrear, just a good radio with a good antenna (Long live QRP
)Victor
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whacker
Member
One of the biggest technical shortcomings of typical U.S. CBs was the problem of radios that couldn't modulate all the way to 100%, and be regulated to maintain that output automatically. This makes a huge difference in perceived range and intelligibility of audio. Especially the smaller cheaper radios, which for some reason with the technology of the times (mid-'80s for me), used a limiter that kept the signal clean, mainly by clamping the modulation percentage down near 50%. So lots of people (mainly commercial drivers of various kinds who knew, via word-of-mouth) took their radios to places to have them "tuned" to improve this. Usually this involved simply removing or clipping the lead off a component (often a discrete transistor) that took the limiter totally out of the circuit. This really opened up the output of the radio, for sure, but it made distorted audio common, and also bleedover into adjacent channels. Many found out the benefits of a powered mic in this situation, as it allows you to reduce the audio signal into the radio, and thus control the output. Just key up and talk to a buddy, and ask how your audio sounded (if you cared). This made the sale of such accessories a huge motivation for shops to do this kind of "mod".
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