Who Uses CB Radios?

[charlton289]

I still do I was a truck driver for 26+ yrs. And my last job a local dump truck driver we needed one because loading and dumping at job sites and we hauled shredded steel to the Mills so we had to talk to the scale house and loader operator for both locations in the mill site plus being able to catch up with other drivers who we haven't seen in while too. I'm retired but I still have one in my pickup because I still have friends who I keep up with when I go to town it's easier to holler on the radio then call on the phone because some won't answer the phone but will talk on the radio.

 

[stuckmotor]

Looking back, I can't believe I lived through the 70's and never even talked on a CB radio.
10-4

 

[TractorGuy]

Ugh! Yeah, RED RYDER
This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it?
Well, It's a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56
'57, '58' 59' automobile
It's a '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '67
'68, '69, '70 automobile.

 

[Jstpssng]

I still have to sing along with that last line when it comes on the radio.

 

[mark02tj]

Hard to beat CW McCall for CB songs! Convoy for the win! :laughing:


My first CB when I was a kid was a 3 channel walkie talkie. It came with crystals for one channel (channel 11, I think) and I had to buy the crystals for the other two channels. A few years later I ended up with a 40 channel Robyn with SSB. It was modified so you could talk on the "regular 40" and then flip a switch to go to the "high 40" which were right above the regular 27 Mhz freqs. Thanks to sunspots, I talked all over the country on about 6 or 8 watts of power and a homemade directional antenna. I thought I was something when I was able to buy a real antenna!

 

[Looking4new]

My first license for the CB was XM 42810. A Johnson messenger 123. 23 channels and you weren't allowed to use CH. 1,2,3 or 23. 9 was emergency and 11 was the call channel in the Oshawa, Ontario area. I got a second license and that one was XM 43 3363.
I still have two CBs. A Uniden and a Cobra night watch.

 

[ultrarunner]

Lots of Model A Club members have them and they work real well when touring as a group...

 

[Industrial Toys]

JD 855. I love that song. The end reminds me of an old auctioneer I bought my first two (Police) cars from, now deceased.

I googled my Radio. The cheapest 40 channel, rig that RS built at $59.00. One guy on Youtube did a review, describing the Audio in and out as particulary poor.

I took it on the road and was pleasantly surprised. I heard some local jibber-jabber and learned of a Bear hiding in the Bushes! I may make a cord wired into the audio that I can plug into my stereo.

I would say, having it is worthwhile while travelling the highways.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I threw all mine in the garbage decades ago. The CB-holes, power stations, guys with foot warmers and echo boxes ruined what started off as a good service entirely, in my opinion. Even when I drove over the road and heavy wreckers through the 80's and into the 90's, I left mine turned off nearly 100% of the time. Just garbage and racket most of the time. If the feds had been able to keep up on the enforcement (impossible task, I know), maybe most of the CB-holes would not have sprouted out of the ground. Prelude to the whole Myspace-Twitter-Facebook generations spewing random anonymous gibberish into the interwebs (or air waves as it used to be) I guess. Everyone wanted to be "A Star".

I wouldn't take one for free now.

 

[Industrial Toys]

You need to spend $3.98 to get a good one!

Once I became Ham, I guess I certainly wanted to distance myself from the CB crowd. Not that at times, the Ham crowd was any better.

But I still say, CB radio seems to fill a need that nothing else can. That you can pick up a mic and there is a good chance you can talk to the truck that just passed you.

A friend and I had an argument. He works on brand new Utility trucks and commented that there is no longer a cubby hole for a two way radio in some new trucks. This makes it difficult to install the various trunking radios. But he said, few truckers in the city have CB radios anymore. He is very observant, but I disagreed. The next time I went to the city, I still saw twin truckers on MOST rigs that I saw.

 

[Stimw]

Back in the 70's a guy lived around the corner from me and had the illegal wattage booster and thought he was Voice of America.
When he would transmit it scrambled my TV! (no cable back then)
I got tired of it so I hooked up my CB in the house with a whip antenna in the attic and a battery with charger.
Everytime he would transmit I waited then keyed the mic so he could not hear who was coming back.
He got so PO'ed he started cussing at who ever was walking on him and bragged that he had more power.
That's when I told him that yea but you can't hear!
I would turn the charger on and off to change the sound of my signal and he thought I was mobile.
I heard tires screeching outside as he flew up and down the road looking for someone in a vehicle.
The good old days.

 

[Jcoon]

I don’t think I have seen a over the road truck withOUT a CB in it. All truckers are still using them.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Yeah, I remember the days where threats were made of ripping down towers and pins in the old coax.

A local ham I knew had RFI issues with his neighbor that somehow escalated and somehow he got charged criminally. The worst of it was that he "used" to like going south for stints in Florida, and then found himself ineligible for entry to the states. He had paid a heavy price in that dispute!.

A trucker avoiding one ticket would pay for a CB Radio easily.

 

[coobie]

We use a midland Micro mobile portable CB on long trips.

 

[Looking4new]

Quite a few of the truck drivers nowadays might have the antennas, but the radio in the cab is either shut off or they can't speak English and wont answer you anyway.

Most of the antennas that come 'stock' with a new truck are only 1/4 wave antennas and not worth the powder to blow them to he!!. I always run one full wave antenna. Usually an 'oil coil'. They will handle 1,000 watts and are very flexible so if you clip a low hanging branch from a tree you wont bust your antenna.

 

[Industrial Toys]

When I drove out and back from MN last year, I was a little taken aback by all the foreign truck drivers. Not really used to seeing truckers wearing flip flops at the Tim Hortons! And Blue Tooth Headsets!

 

[k0ua]

Quite a few of the truck drivers nowadays might have the antennas, but the radio in the cab is either shut off or they can't speak English and wont answer you anyway.

Most of the antennas that come 'stock' with a new truck are only 1/4 wave antennas and not worth the powder to blow them to he!!. I always run one full wave antenna. Usually an 'oil coil'. They will handle 1,000 watts and are very flexible so if you clip a low hanging branch from a tree you wont bust your antenna.

I think you might need a little education on antenna theory. Only 1/4 waves huh? If you get your Amateur radio license, and then do a bunch of study, you too will have a bit better understanding of what you just said. I would be happy to help.

BTW a full wave end fed vertical antenna while it could be matched to 50 ohms with an appropriate matching transformer would certainly be a high angle radiator. Not the low angle you would be looking for. Also BTW a full wavelength vertical radiator at 27Mhz would be on the order of 36 feet tall.

Also BTW, any vertical radiator with a loading coil in it will be less than the ideal full size 1/4 wavelength radiator in length, and have less radiation efficiency. Amateur radio antennas for the lower HF frequency's often have loading coils,in them not because that makes them "better", but because they have to due to the size that a true 1/4 wave radiator would have to be. The effeciency of these loaded antennas decrease as you go lower in frequency. Some as low as 1 or 2 percent of a 1/4 wave. As an example on 80 meters, a popular Amateur radio band, the 1/4 wave vertical radiator would need to be about 66 foot tall. That whip is going to be a bit tall to get under most overpasses. On 27mhz the 1/4 wave vertical whip would need to be about 9.1 feet tall. That is doable. So if you see a loaded antenna, you know it is a "compromise" antenna.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Just curious since the vehicle is on rubber, why you could not insulate and isolate the radio and using a tuner, load up the whole vehicle? Forget about the antenna.

 

[k0ua]

Just curious since the vehicle is on rubber, why you could not insulate and isolate the radio and using a tuner, load up the whole vehicle? Forget about the antenna.

You would need the radio outside of the vehicle, and you would need a counterpoise to load against. Having the radio inside of the antenna would be very problematic. RFI of all sorts back into the radio. Talk about common mode currents.. WOW!, bigtime. I talked to a guy once that was using a road grader on 75 meter SSB once. It worked fairly well. He loaded up the county's road grader beside the road and used a fence for the counterpoise/ground side. I have seen people use bridges and fences and things like that for antennas. Not the best, but they can radiate.

 

[k0ua]

Loading up a baseball diamond backstop and other silly things.
35 watts to the baseball backstop thru the tuner on 20 meters using JT65 digital mode and then switching to SSB voice