CB Radio: Still a vital tool despite its recent reputation as "old school"...

Last over the road setup Included Magnum S9 matched to 6x 2sc2879 amp class c
tuned by Mark Sherman with Electro Voice
602t microphone into matched pair of homemade antennas mounted on Volvo 770 rear fairings

 

I really don't care about profanity one way or the other. I'm a grown man and hearing bad words doesn't get my undies in a knot the way it apparently does some. Really, I'm just not that delicate. What has caused me to turn the radio down or off a few times are the idiots with those retarded sounding echo mics that never seem to shut up. Those things are like fingernails on a chalk board to me. They make the user sound distorted, harder to understand, and like their IQ is a solid 30 points lower, which it probably is.

I've lost track of the number of times I was meeting drivers who were hammer down and tried in vain to warn them of multi-smokey speed traps back where I was coming from, as well as other road hazards. I guess those satellite radios, i pods, and cell phones are worth the loss they take for not monitoring the CB.

Ham radio is nice but worthless for road info. You don't know which of a few dozen repeaters or simplex channels other hams might be on, spread over 2m, 220MHz, or 440 MHz, but you know if someone on the road is on CB, they'll be on channel 19.

 

220?

HF isn't bad. 6 meters isn't either.

 

Oh, I have nothing against any of the bands, just that it is exceedingly rare to meet up on any ham frequency, because there are so many of them, with someone who can tell you what the road behind them is like for 30, 50, 100, miles behind them as you can on CB. IF you have your ham rig set to 27.185 MHz, that might be a different story.

 

I was hoping to be a roving contact for my local club and various ham friends while I'm out and off duty or on reset time.

 

When I first moved from Noo Joisey to KL7-land, I was in a VW bus. I had a Courier TR5 (with Ch 19 in it), a U43GGT on 146.52 simplex, a Lafayette (Laughing-Yet) HE-45b set on 50.400 (AM), and a Griefkit SB-102 with Hustler RM antenna. A placard covered my rear window listing "CB 19; 52 simplex; 50.4 AM; 7255 LSB" (a popular ham net frequency). The whole drive, except for a couple of checkins on EastCARS and WestCARS 40 meter nets, the only traffic I ever heard was on the CB. Made some friends along the Alaska Highway, and even ended up sorta caravanning with a couple of big rigs, stopping for meal breaks with them, etc. I hardly every go anywhere on the freeways here in NC without a CB running on 19 to hear about uh-ohs on the road ahead of me. If I had an emergency someplace rural, I can expect that there would be precisely zero folks listening on 40M, 6M, or 2M simplex near enough to be of any assistance.
73

 

I agree with you there, handlebar. I did have a 2m when I last drove, but got nothing as far as contacts. I know a few folk on 20m that I might be able to hit now and then.