Big radio's this is for you.

1 Stryker497 to another , ya gotta love talking 1800 miles plus without a kicker. Good radio selection man I think we're proud owners of a great radio.

 

Ham's are guys like John Denver , Hamburger man , Cadillac man before he was shut down by the FCC , you hear them each day regardless of where your at. There are a bunch others also. Some are even radio repair shops that just run way more power then they need.
hams should not be mistaken for Licensed professional HAM operators, they're not professional , nor do they have alpha-numerical call signs. You want to hear professionals you need to surf the side bands. It's rare you'll hear one identifying his FCC issued ID# on the normal CB channels.
These guys the Licensed ones have a language all of their own , and actually are kinda picky about who they'll talk to on the Radio.
I knew a big ole Indian Guy in Chicago down the street , his whole entire wall in his basement was a communication center. I was friends with his daughter. And spent a lot of time there , He owned a S.63rd st CB shop near Pulaski rd in the 60's and 70's , Older guys that did CB'ing in there youth might remember Tee Pee Electronics , real big store. This guy was alway talking to someone in Norway. Never was it in an unprofessional manner.
You don't here the same CB'rs day in and day out traveling around the country. It just isn't gonna happen.

 

Exactamundo,... "As for the skip here lately on 19...Just hang on for another year and it will be gone for about 10 years..."

As Jessejamesdallas puts it so eloquently, 2012 is part of the 'biorhythmic' curve for periodic sunspot activity that causes the phenomenon we all know as 'skip' and it'll pass (unlike them 500W radio kickers).

I run a simple, stock probably about 8-10W dead key HR-2510 (I never really checked it's output but I know it overdrives my stash of linear amps). I guess I'm happy with it 'as is' though cause people hear me, they hear me clearly and I don't sound like an echo chamber on steroids or like my head's in a trash tin. I can't hardly understand most people who use those arrangements anyway because most of the people who have them either don't know how to set them up properly or don't have any respect for the people who have to listen to that crap. I guess they are supposed to provide some drive to your audio output but my RF gain and volume control dials will pretty much limit the nothing you have to say anyway.

Why people go in ch 19 to shoot skip is beyond me. I remember ch 6 and U/LSB 16 were the skip AM and QSL Sideband channels when I was first getting into CB at the age of 11 (that was 1961... a long time ago).

My Dad used to call us on ch11 on his way home from performing his duties with the PA Fish Commission. We used to sit around the dining room table for hours just waiting to hear him or anyone talking and we could hear Dad sometimes from as far as 12 miles away. Now you're lucky to ever hear a noise level drop low enough to hear someone within a mile.

Years ago I took my radio out of my truck because of all the whining and complaining and cursing. I put it back in about 4 years ago and nothing has changed (I only put it back in because I forgot why I'd taken it out).


The skip will stay for awhile,... but it will fade away.

The ignorant truckers, base stations and people in general on the CB channels unfortunately, will never fade away.

'Bigfoot'
View attachment 39353

 

A sad truth is that, even with a well-tuned receiver and way more output power than the average legal (or modestly boosted) transmitter power at your station, it only takes one nearby station of a watt or two to blank your receiver and kill a QSO. It might be an innocent n00b who has squelch pot maxxed out and just can't hear anything. Maybe he tried to "align" his radio by turning slugs & variable caps blindly. Or it could be a malicious jammer.Imagine one frustrated driver who's trying to while away a half hour at a truck stop before he turns in for the night by chatting responsibly on an AM DX channel like, oh, 23 but finds himself being thwarted by the Watt Warriors who're trying to out-do each other in the parking lot on 26, and the splatter is kiling our guy.So he confirms which channel the interference is on. He turns his mic gain all the way down, and if he has an outboard amp, makes sure it's off (barefoot is enough). A rubber band on the PTT switch, a rag to cover the face of the radio to casual passersby, and then it's probably a good chance to go get a shower and buy some snacks. Betcha when he comes back the Watt Warriors have *all* found they can no longer hear on that channel. A stock, legal (3-4 watt) CB ought to be OK with no modulation for 15 minutes. But then, I've got lots of cheap rebuilt spare radios...but if I had to routinely exceed the published TX duty cycle, I'd either de-rate the power or add a small fan.And of course intentionally interfering with communications would be unlawful, so all fhe foregoing is purely hypothetical.

 

My bad, you are right. What happens when I have two days of cramming for finals just when I get home.

 

Sorry but its bs.. we can't even use the cb cuz so much skip. Get off the cb and use ur ham radios...

 

I don't know what you're trying to get at with this....because 1. neither you, nor I, nor anyone else "owns" the citizen bands, 2. not everyone on CB is a ham, and 3. what you hear on CB isn't just full of people in the U.S....if conditions are right, someone in the Bahamas could be using their CB for whatever reason....and you would pick him up. Does that make it wrong for him to use his/her CB because U.S. truck drivers also use it?

Truth is, CB is/was (as we now know it) a bad choice for the FCC to delegate for short range communications. But back in 1958 it was the way they found to make CB more affordable to the public. Also too, those class C amps that most CB ops like to use help contribute to the noise problem that plagues CB.

I've maybe heard all the guys you mentioned once, but how do you know they're hams? Not everyone on CB is a ham. Yes some hams own/run radio repair shops nothing wrong with that...hopefully they at least know and care about what they're doing. If they run more power than needed, then that's on them and not a ham thing but a mentality thing. Hopefully they at least run clean power. If a ham runs on CB he is not required by FCC to blurt out his call sign nor should he. Also what do you consider a professional ham to be? I myself am a ham but I do some CB stuff too. Just last night I talked to 2 guys on 38 LSB, but I've also been known to chat with folks on AM channels too. To me radio is radio, be it CB, ham, MURS, whatever. However I don't blast 10kw of dirty class C splatter on either the ham bands or the citizens band. In fact I try to utilize a well set up antenna and leave the power down even on ham. Power is nice but overused. To me it's more challenging working someone on 2 watts. It sounds to me like you're making a blanket statement that all hams like to get on CB and run illegal dirty power and play Billy Bad ###, make noises, and act like a child...which might be true for some hams but not for all hams.

 

I know anyone can use em. But I'm talking about cb shop in tx I hear in pa. I heard fl in New mexico. Ca in texas... What's the point of this??

 

Yes and no. There ARE CB stations on the FCC.gov/eb page on a regular basis. Mostly about "export radios", splattering into adjacent frequencies, and where the radios have been cut up (peaked and tuned, beeped and squeaked) out the wazoo. They aren't a regular thing, buy they ARE there. And when they find a "10 Meter 'amateur' radio" that's been modified to cover CB, they will cite them for that, too.

I'll never understand WHY people think BIG WATTS is the do all, be all of radio! It's not! All this "peaking and tuning and clipping" this & that, it does little, either---except transfer money into some CB shops' pockets. After all, when you buy a new car, do you have to "peak and tune" it to get it to run right? NO! Radios are set up AT the factory do do certain things, and the dealers, like the cars, do preliminary testing, etc before the sale. Yet we've been TAUGHT that a radio MUST be "peaked, and tuned, beeped and squeaked, and snipped and clipped before it will work! And it puts $$$ in shady shops' coffers! CB is the only radio group that does this! When I buy a new amateur HF, it will work correctly right out of the box. Your CB should, too! (Sigh) But in that search for that O O O O N N N E tiny extra watt, CB folks strain and struggle for that little eensy watt that will do exactly nothing for your received signal!!!! REALLY! It is mostly a psycho thing---all in your mind. You'd have to increase the PWR by 4 times to move the S-meter one little notch! Oh well................................


GF

 

The point is what you are hearing is known as "propagation", or skip. It's very common on high frequency bands during an increased sun spot cycle, which we are currently in. High frequency bands are from 3 MHz to 30 MHz. CB falls in the upper 26 to mid 27 MHz, as does most of the amateur radio (ham) band. That means on a good day when skip is high, you can be in New Mexico and hear some other CBer in another state. What is more is on a really good day, said CBer could be on a 4 watt radio and STILL talk those distances.

So in other words, when skip is rolling, such as what it has been doing here recently, there's really nothing you can do about it. I know sometimes for short range communications, it sucks....but it's the nature of the best. That's why I mentioned that the FCC made a mistake by taking a former amateur radio band and allotting it to a a localized citizens band, and then imposing a stipulation that you are not supposed to talk more than 155 miles.....yeah right.

Now I will say this....if someone is on channel 19 trying to work skip, that should not be happening....because I understand the need to keep 19 (truckers channel) free for drivers assistance....however even then if someone in PA were asking for directions, then yes it's possible you could still hear them in AR...in which then it would be wrong to say "why can't you stay off 19"...again CB should not have been allotted to work on a frequency known for propagation...VHF would have been better IMO.

Give it a few years and the skip cycle will die down for another 11 years....at which time you won't hear as many out-of-state operators.

HTH