Big radio's this is for you.

The placard is a great idea. I used to think pickup trucks with a CB license call sign and a channel number were hokey (am I that old?) but today it makes sense when going through cities like DFW.. CH 19 is very noisy. I've got in the habit of turning the squelch up all the way, so only someone up to 100 yards away or closer is going to get through. I'm thinking of a magnetic placard, since I got steel out back.

As to the handy talkies that's a good idea too but I hate those things, not because they are low power consumer items, but I don't like fishing around for hand held things while driving and FRS/GMRS especially has trouble getting in and out of the metal bodied truck I have.

You gave me a good idea here.. I have not seen 'mobile' style FRG/GMRS/MURS radio, so I could obtain one of each, remove their cases, and mount them in an old CB radio case. It would be some work, maybe not easy because of the channel display being pancaked onto the circuit board, and something could be made up with one mike and a switch to select which HT guts were to be activated by it. I don't know what impedance the HT's have for the antenna, but it might work to separate the antennas from the sets and remount them on a little external mount, and run coax like wit anything else. Saving $ over buying an antenna.

The annoyance with a channel placard and FRS/GMRS is that there's the Icom scheme and the Motorola scheme for channel number assignmnets. Have to pick a monitoring CH number that is common to both if there is one. They also have "privacy codes" varying from one make to another but I leave that off. It's annoying that manufacturers didn't agree on the numbering scheme. This channel issue (not including privacy codes) is shown here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mobile_Radio_Service

People could use a hacked dual band ham mobile radio for FRS/GMRS/MURS, but it is illegal because of "type acceptance", and I want to operate legally. Others do what they want.

I want to stay legal because it's not worth risking my commercial FCC license + radar endorsement or ham license for.




Lastly the CH19 issue and drivers turning off their radios: Never mind the alligators and minor idiotic stuff, this trucker had his trailer blinkers swapped side for side with the tractor blinkers and it was in rush hour Dallas traffic which is pretty messy. Industrial blvd. and then on I-35. The truck and trailer bore the same obscure private label. I don't remember what now.

I noticed it when he signaled right and then came left into my lane 'normally' -like when the polite driver waits or slows in packed street traffic for the truck to come over (haha I know it is rare) but I knew he was wanting left, because he'd turned the steer wheels.. I didn't realize there was a problem, except maybe a driver mistake with the signal, so didn't consider it further, but later I saw the trailer signal right as he made his left turn from the Industrial BLVD. left turn lane onto the I-35 on-ramp, and it was then I noticed the tractor flashing left, and started watching this more carefully.

I was within 100 yards of this truck for about 20 minutes and heard a couple others try to contact the driver about this with no answer. I was at one point 2 lanes over, within 25FT of the cab and tried but no dice.

I saw he did have a radio. Who knows maybe it was off or broken or he didn't care or was stuck with the trailer and tired of hearing about it for the last 100 miles.

I do not know how this trailer light mixup could have happened because there is a connector that goes on one way, right? It must have been done during an electrical repair but you'd think it would have been noticed. Some idiot repair. This isn't the kind of thing someone would do as a practical joke, right?

So please leave the radio on and increase the squelch if you don't want to hear all the noise in Dallas. That's better than crunching some poor slob's car because the blinker told him the truck was moving the other way. Or an inconvenience might be avoided because another driver announces something.

I'm not telling anyone what to do, just saying why I prefer it.

 

By your logic, McDonald's must have the best hamburgers available because they sell so many of them.

Also, RadioShack was started in 1921, and the two major ham radio chains, Ham Radio Outlet and Amateur Electronic Supply, were both started in the 1970s. Therefore, the knowledge of the people behind the counter in RadioShack must be vastly superior to those in the ham stores, right?

I've had dealings with a company that handles sales, installation, and service of thousands of radios in the area. The company has been in business for over 50 years. They must be even better than Clay's, since they've been around longer, and have more radios in the field, right? Well, no. They overcharge (billed us $500 to fix a $250 radio), and repairs take forever (said radio was out for two months). The problem is that their nearest competition is nearly 100 miles away.

Also, Clay's may have been around for 30 years, but that doesn't mean their tech has been there all that time. It could well be that the current tech has only recently started there. (Given his "knowledge", he probably is new... and not long for the position.)

Clay's profits from selling overpriced illegal products to gullible Tim Taylor (MOAR POWER!!) wannabes. They take a stock radio that puts out 4W key/12W "swing" and make it 2W key/25W "swing". The problem is that the radio went from transmitting a clean 12W on the indicated channel to putting 5W on the channel, and 20W spread across the neighboring ten channels.

 

I don't have any large fleets or customers. I have been in radio since 1965. You can, indeed, finagle with coax and make the antenna match. In fact you can "load" up a 50 ohm, 10 watt resistor and it will present a perfect match! You won't have much of a signal, but it will match! It is what is commonly called a "dummy" load! A so-called "tuner" (misnomer) basically does the same thing. It changes nothing about the antenna; it's still mismatched, but it WILL present a load to the transmitter that is acceptable. Where trucks, for example, have plastic bodies and little place to ground, what I am saying is, trying to tune antennas with coax is still "voodoo" electronics. But in such case it may be the only way to present a load to the antenna that will work. And, of course, the CB shops and uninformed customers want the quick solution and the fast buck. Like those "ground plane thingies you see in truck stops and CB shops---all designed to make the customer THINK he's getting some sort of boost. The shops tell people that that this little tri-bladed thing attached above the loading coil, makes the antenna receive and transmit better. It does no such thing and increases your antenna performance not one iota, it matters not that your trusted CB shop tells you. Think about it: the device is attached to the whip, NOT to ground (remember the word "ground"). All it does is shorten the whip; take it off, and the whip must be lengthened. But no one can convince people that "ground plane" things attached to their antennas don't DO anything--just like the "coax length" crowd.

It doesn't matter HOW many CB shops, or ill-informed customers believe the coax length thing, I assure you that CB is about the ONLY place where you'll hear this. Radio theory is the SAME for EVERY type of radio. Just because CB happens to be on 27 MHZ, it doesn't mean that CB has some special need, exemption, or is "different" from.....say.......ham radio. Hams are subject to the same problems of any radio service, only it must work thru a much broader spectrum. And, thus, the antennas must cover a very wide area. If what the truck stop CB shops say was true, then operations on all these HF frequencies would be difficult if not impossible. The "coax length" thing would discourage them from operating. Yet, using tuners and multiple HF antennas, they work
from 1.8 to 30 MHZ. The screwdriver mobile antenna should convince anyone willing to SEE that ONE coax long enough to reach from the radio to the antenna is enough. IF you have a METAL vehicle, long-established radio theory shows that the way to tune an antenna is by lengthing or shortening the WHIP, adding or removing turns from a loading coil (if any), and matching the feedpoint impedance at the base of the antenna to the required 50 ohms. This can be with a capacitor, a resistor, coil or toroid. If the thousands of screwdrivers in service with Amateur Radio are operating like gangbusters (and they certainly DO), then I want the CB gurus to explain WHY they don't have to have 10 coaxes in the car to do it! Go ahead! 'Splain!!!!!! You CAN'T!!!!!! And the "ground plane" thingie? It's called a "capacitance hat", and is normally a large disk, or circle mounted as high as possible on the antenna. Nothing new here. Its REAL purpose? To allow the antenna to be shortened for use at much lower frequencies than 27 MHZ. No need to list the other reasons.


OTH, if one wants to believe that the correct way to tune antennas with the coax, and it works, no harm no foul. Me, I want the best possible performance from my antennas and, after nearly 50 years in radio from civilian, commercial, military (communications officer) and ham, I know that cutting coax is NOT the way to achieve it!

GF