Inspiration comes standard Stryker SR-A10 CB antenna

You actually hit the nail on the head in your last paragraph. These are not legal 4 watt CB radios. A legal cb radio is designed for short range communication. They are using the any tone and the stryker radios that run anywhere from 60 to 70 W PEP on single side band. So therefore that 30 to 40 miles really isn’t such a big deal with those radios, since it’s like they have the amplifier built in, I guess you could say. I use to make the same mistake when I first got on this thread. I would be thinking that they’re using 4 watt Cb radios, when they’re not. That makes a big difference.

 

I was parked the entire time and I did not move at all during the entire recording. Jason was the only one moving.
This diagram should explain stuff.

 

We had to have all our ducks in a row in order to be able to hear each other. Jason sold one of his radios to another driver who was down there at Exit 107 with him and that driver was unable to hear me and I was unable to hear that other driver because that other drivers antenna system wasn't done exactly the same as Jason's. We've done the same thing before when he had his Cobra 29 in his Kenworth and I was able to hear his Cobra 29 from the same distance.
There shouldn't be much difference between 4 Watts or 20 watts. Hardly enough to notice anyway.

 

So your saying 30-40 miles with a 60-70w radio is no big deal?....Man I need some of what your smoking! Can't tell ya how many times I couldn't be herd just 10 miles away running 500w's+! Conditions are everything.

Two things make it possible to talk and hear 30-40 miles away mobile to mobile...

"Conditions" and "Antenna"...ok, make it 3 things..."Antenna placement"....you can have a big antenna, and run thousands of watts, but if the antenna is not mounted in the most optimal spot, you may as well be using a coat-hanger...

A bunch of watt's will help you reach out long distances, but not necessarily the only way you can do it...And then there's SSB (which is a whole other story) on SSB, you can shoot skip hundreds of miles away in a mobile with just a plane ol' stock CB SSB Radio...no problem.

 

One key was that both of our receivers were modified by the same guy.
If I hadn't been in my Chevy Tahoe and if I had been in a Kenworth W900 it would have been very unlikely that we would have been able to hear each other.
The other guy had a General HP40 that produces a lot more power than Jason's radio and I was unable to hear that guy and he was unable to hear me even though his receiver was modified by the same guy that did mine simply because he was using cheap truck stop coax among other things. I'm sure he had some ground issues on his truck probably. Jason and I have grown accustomed to this sort of performance and to us this is normal, and anything less would be unacceptable. If someone has never owned a receiver Modified by Mark it's totally understandable how performance like this would be unimaginable. Generally Jason and I don't need any conditions and we can do this 7 days a week as long as nobody else is talking on the channel covering the other person up. Assuming that we have all our ducks in a row of course. Jason just got a new truck a few months ago and it's taken him quite a while to get his antenna system dialed in to the point where I felt confident he would be able to make the trip to my receiver from that location.

 

Quote: "This diagram should explain stuff."

Well, the illustration still seems to indicate the 27-MHz signals had to either go through, circle around or jump above the intervening peaks between antennas, or use a combination of them, no?

My understanding is that HF has a difficult time with rocks and dry soil, so it must not be penetrating through the mountain peaks. It must be the signals are ground-crawling over or around the peaks or jump-frogging them via troposphere paths or even "skipping" in the ionosphere for the wild-card effect.

As I said, it's befuddling, but interesting.

 

It helps the 27 MHz signal to also travel via cell phone.

Just kidding.

 

Surface wave
The radio signal spreads out from the transmitter along the surface of the Earth. Instead of just travelling in a straight line the radio signals tend to follow the curvature of the Earth. This is because currents are induced in the surface of the earth and this action slows down the wave-front in this region, causing the wave-front of the radio communications signal to tilt downwards towards the Earth. With the wave-front tilted in this direction it is able to curve around the Earth and be received well beyond the horizon.
There is no magic going on.

 

Well it didn’t take long to ruffles someone’s feathers. No I’m not smoking anything, I don’t smoke and I never will. Couldn’t afford it anyway. If you have to use 500 watts too talk to someone 10 miles away, you have other problems, even on 11 meters. Yes I understand about propagation and band conditions, and how important your antenna system is to any radio as far as communications go. Unfortunately you missed the point of my post.

Meteor said:

“ I can see why folks reading about such feats get frustrated and start wondering what they're doing wrong to miss out on what others are doing with theirmobile equipment, especially if they are using factory-legal 4-watt radios.”

My point was that some of the guys here AREN’T using 4 watt cb radios. That’s why they are claiming 30 to 40 miles contacts. I fell for the same trap when I first joined this forum, I assumed they were using real cb radios. I see no reason why you can’t talk this distance on 11 meters with 30 to 70 watt radios. Now if you really want to impress me, do it with a real 4 watt cb radio. When I inquired about the cobra 29, I think rabbi admitted it was beefed up. Maybe it had a rfx75 installed??? I’m can’t remember for sure about that, other then I believe it wasn’t stock. I was simply trying to help meteor understand what was going on.

 

Already done it at four watt carrier Power.
Nothing beats a big sheet metal roof with an antenna bolted right in the center.