When I first got into trucking, I bought a cheap Cobra CB for $39 at Mortons Truck Stop in Las Vegas, NV. I got rid of it when I took some time off and havn't had another one since. I'm not saying they aren't useful, at times, because they are, especially when you need to find out which lane you should be in when traffic is stopped all of a sudden. Mostly though, it's a waste of time to listen in though, especially when you have more than 4 hours of podcasts to get through during a drive session.
I wouldn’t be without mine. I spent money and got a good one, my antennas are tuned. I wanted to hear and be heard. Communication is essential. There used to be a “rolling community “ going down the road. Not so much anymore. There were drivers that could (and did) tell you about every bear they knew about since they started out that morning, every gator they’d seen, etc. They would warn of accidents, hazards, etc. Now we have a bunch of self absorbed nincompoops that don’t give a #### about anything. Most can’t seem to read signs either.
It’s quiet in my neck of the woods, but my radio is always on. It’s like a gun, better to have one and not need it.
I use it every day and have a backup mounted in the normal CB slot that all I have to do is move the antenna over. Also keep 2 backup mics. Dump trucks are in and out of the rock and asphalt plants all day long and use CB to communicate with loaders and scale houses. And then on the road they are used to warn people of any new dangers that develop, cops hiding down the road etc. Like the other day a big rig had a load of wood pallets shift and he could not get all the way out of the rd and it was in kind of a dangerous location to pass. Just in front of him was a fairly good size hill with limited sight distance. One of the fellow dump truckers warned me he was there before I got to him. Stuff like that, yea they are definitely worth having.
