Just getting back into this. ?'s inside

Hello,

Ya just joined up so newb is the term. Many years ago I had a cheap cb in my truck as well as all my buddies just to talk to each other. I have always enjoyed it.

Now traveling as much as I do, about 80,000 miles a year I decided to go back to it. Just to know what is going on on the roads ect. I find it a nice tool.

So I picked up a cobra 29 lx le. I also have a nightwatch to put in my other truck. I have been reading and searching this forum for about a month and am amazed how much information is out there and surprised at how well my original setup worked back in the day for just throwing crap together and never checking anything.

Setup I have is the cobra 29, with 18' of coax and a firestick. I tuned my swr's down to about 1.2. I attempted with a K40 trucker and only got it down to 1.7 as well as the lx le had an antenna fail with it. Don't know why. So I am currently using the firestick. I can hear and talk for at least 6 miles depending on the radio I am talking to. I seem to get out better than I can hear. As in I can sometimes hear people get back to me yet they say I sound good, but I can barely hear them.

On to the questions instead of a babbling post. From what I get I can get out pretty well as well as hear out a ways sometimes. What can I do to make it better? With all the banter back and forth on hear it is tough to tell. Hack, not hack... Should a peak and tune as well as an alignment be what I looking to have done. I use those words like I know what they mean, but have no idea.

Second question? Why do I hear "ham radios" on my cb, or am I mistaking them for something else. They tend to use a three number call sign as well as there handle. Or are these just base stations? They say the same crap repeatedly non stop? To each their own, just wondering.

I am just a greenhorn to all of this. It will never get all that technical for me. So throw it at me in idiot terms if you will.

thanks
jenks

 

Back in the day when I was a kid I thought that was the way the hams operated. It is mostly on channel 6 where they bash and chat to each other all day. When in Louisiana I picked up a guy called yellow man. I am on the other side of the country and still pick the same guy up. Same people which must have some big radios. I get people from east coast to west coast. It just gets a little annoying when they are on 20 and are spewing all over 19 as well.

Any thoughts on the radio mods. Just to make a better radio. I am not talking amps or nothing like that. Just possibly have some better "ears". If I need to talk far away I can make a phone call.

Jenks

 

Sorry I sent that from my phone this afternoon and forgot a little detail. I meant that I thought the call signs were what you had posted and didn't know if things have changed. That is all. I understand that they are not hams, I was just curious as to all these people have these radios pushing out enough juice to talk across the states. If it is skip then it is all the time. I hear the same people day in and day out.


I hear them non stop from across the county and was getting a guy from Hawaii on my way in tonight.

jenks