Questions from a Dummy

5 to 10 miles is easy on a cold clear night in the winter, but talking across the median can be a challenge when most of what I hear is some guy out of New Mexico or someplace talking over everything else. Mind you, I haven't heard the jerk for a month or so now. I get the hobby of talking to people across the country, but why can't they do that on some channel far away from 19?

My antenna is mounted on one truck (the one I drive the most) in the middle of the steel cab (no sleeper) with an NMO base, and SWR according to the Astatic SWR meter that I have is 1.1 on 40 and 1.2 on 1, so I think the antenna is ok. The new 29 classic that I installed yesterday seems to receive well, but I have not had the opportunity to talk at anyone yet (this is the one that has an FM option in the same frequencies as AM, and this is new to me). It is 4', but much taller and I will hit overpasses with it. Second truck (dump truck) has a single Francis on one mirror, and it works well with the radio that is in it, which is a Uniden Bearcat 880. Recently we could talk 4 miles in the middle of the day with some of the other trucks hauling material for us. I am happy with that performance. Third truck is a 379 daycab with a Roadking radio, and twin Francis antennas on the mirrors. Receive and transmit seem ok, but the radio sounds like crap. Maybe mic related?

I just ordered an Anytone Ares 2, and it was checked with some adjustments made prior to shipping. I am interested to see how it does.

We are receiving way less skip now than a few months ago, and performance is now adequate. Not sure if it is weather related or not, but it's nice to be able to talk with the guy 1/4 mile behind you without getting walked on by the big radio guys that talk non-stop and never say anything of value!

 

My original frustration came from not being able to clearly communicate with employees traveling with me, but I understand your point.

Update on the ARES II:

Let me preface this by saying that this is not a hobby of mine, but I have been using CBs since the 70s. That said, some of the features on this radio are new to me. There are a lot of things I don't understand like using channel 19 on FM, but I find the radio easy to use and adjust, and it is a defintite improvement over the standard 4 watt cb. When I installed the radio I checked the SWR with an external meter. The meter in the radio appears to be accurate. I really like that it displays SWR during transmit. I did find that while the SWR was near perfect on low power setting, it would get worse as power was increased, though still acceptable. It displays 1.1 on low power and up to 1.5 on high power. I imagine most of your understand why this occurs, but having no prior experience with a radio in which the power can be adjusted, this was new to me.

The only thing I don't care for is the mic with the up/down buttons, as I would inadvertently hit them while running dowm the road and find myself a channel off frequently. Also, according to my son who I was running with, there is a lot of background noise (we run old trucks that are not the quietest). The sound quality is good when we weren't running down the road. I am going to purchase a noise canceling mic and try that. I believe that I will need to change the mic setting in the radio from electric mic to dynamic?

Anyway, for a hundred bucks more than a 29 ltd, I think it is well worth it so far.

 

I went back to look - you are correct. Here is what we use: