CB Radio - Needed for Pilot Car

cell ph. push 2 talk

 

A Cobra 19 would work and is small. The Cobra 29 is a little bigger and a good radio as is the Uniden 78. You don't see as many Unidens as you once did. You can buy a Cobra 19 for less than $50 at most truck stops and a Cobra 29 for less than $100, depending on the model. There are several versions of the Cobra 29. There is no need to spend several hundred dollars on a radio starting out. You may want to pick up a portable or handheld CB to keep with you in case your ratio or the truck loses their radio.

 

Those are good if everyone you need to communcate with has one. Then you'll need signal too.

 

For a pilot car a cheap $50 cobra will work with a small whip. After you get some money ahead I would upgrade to a 29 or something similar. I run a galaxy in my tractor 959 and I love that radio. I have had cobras in the past and its a hit and miss deal. Has been for me personally anyway. A lot swear by a cobra 29 I haven't had the best luck. Had great luck with my galaxy. Uniden makes a good quality radio as well both small and large radios. Take into account you don't need all the fancy back lighting or an led display. Running oversize you can't drive when its pitch black. And its easy to kick a map light on. If you need to see the meter or channel.

Down the road I would recommend and upgrade from the cheap $50 radios. A lot of my friends run them in their pickups and they don't get out worth a darn, and the sound quality is horrible can't understand half the crap they say. So an upgrade when you get a chance would be a good idea. You don't want that 16'5" height stick smacking a 16ft bridge and not be able to holler stop to the driver or bypass this overpass lol.

 

75% of your signal strength is antennae, not radio. I've always had good luck with the lil' Wil magnet mount antennae on pickup trucks. I'm sure there are others that work well also. a magnet mount is nice because you can move it from the top of the cab if you have to get into a garage or something. once you have that any cb will do just fine, it's not like you are going to be trying to get out 10 miles. I've run Uniden 510's with good luck, they're the itty bitty cigarette pack looking radios, you'll have no troubles with this combination if you are within a couple miles of who you want to talk to. But it you have room for a bigger sized radio, Cobra 29's are on sale at Pilot's and Love's for $69 with mail-in, you can't go wrong at that price.

 

the cobra 19 works just fine, i have one in my pickup as well as my semi and 2-3 others laying around. don't have a lot of features not the best at trying to tune in a weak signal but they do work just fine, plug in a external speaker i have trouble with any cb without a external speaker and on the cobra 19 if you turn the volume up the speaker becomes more distorted and harder to understand. if you don't run a external speaker keep the volume less than max.

i think its called the 19 ultra or something like that has a dual squelch knob with squelch and rf gain. get the one with the rf gain if you can. its a nice feature to have.

there nice for in a pickup cause there small.

 

More than likely, yes. The antenna is a big part of the deal. Get the tallest magnet mount whip you can. I've heard people say nothing but good about the Lil Wil, and if you can spare the extra money the Wilson 1000 (or something comparable) should be more than enough for a stock CB. Just don't get one of those foot long cell phone look-alike antennas.

 

If you need it for a Pilot car, you should not be so far from your truck that it makes much difference in the size of your radio. I used to have a magnetic base antenna when I hauled cars. I usually put it on the top ramp so that I could have more range. It worked just fine. I still have an old Cobra 19 that I bought new many years ago. My Uniden died and I plugged in the 19. It works just fine. I have owned a Cobra 25 and 29. Both are good radio's. I was planning on buying another Uniden, but they are becoming much more difficult to find. As a footnote, when I had a problem with my Uniden, a repair guy took the board out and showed me one from a Cobra 29. They were identical. I will probably buy another Cobra with a little more power at some point. I don't use my radio much anyway. I am amazed that my little 19 is still working so well. I kept it as a back up and am now glad that I did.