How far can you HEAR/Respond to a CB?

I run a $65 Cobra 29 with a Wilson firestik antennea. Not a great set-up, and I get swamped by all the big radios, but since I only used it for guardshacks and traffic conditions I didn't need alot of range. Oh, I also used it to find parking spots at night.

 

NOTHING wrong with what you are running

 

I saw the post by KC0Rey and as usual, couldn't keep my 'thumb off the key'...to the point, I had to register.

First, I firmly agree with the Texas Star leaner info...they are quite nasty...you'd think they could filter them better, then again, for a Franklin, what do you expect? Nothing like a night-squall coming off of those whining things, about 9pm, when you are trying to concentrate...

As for 'leaners' acting as microwaves...uh...not really, kinda maybe?! Actually, microwaves are WAY OUT on the far end of the radio spectrum, in the upper megahtz/gigahtz range...but then again, a magnatron (do-hickey in a microwave that makes the popcorn tastey) is nothing but an antenna for gigawaves, too...so...yep, kinda like a microwave, on a megawave scale...(hey...can I copyright that?) could call it a macrowave!

One other point I caught earlier...someone else said "SWR at 0"...uh...that would mean that your antenna is shorted...actually, a perfect SWR is 1.000...never got there on a good meter, but have come in around 1.1...(2.0 is BAD...more than 2.0 on an swr meter will damage your radio/antenna)...

Westbound, all!!!

MountainDweller

 

How far you can hear/respond to a CB depends on....

What type of terrain you're in; you can get out farther in the middle of flat land Kansas as opposed to in the mountains of North Carolina.

What type of antenna you are running; the bigger and taller the antenna, the further out you can hear and receive. Also the higher in the air you have the antenna, the farther you can talk and receive.

In other words a 102 whip mounted on top of your roof will get you out further and allow you to hear MUCH better as opposed to a 4 foot fiberglass antenna mounted on the mirror.

What time of the day it is; as a rule on AM (which is what all CB's run off of), at night you can hear and talk farther as opposed to the day.

If skip is rolling; when skip is rolling, the signals your radio produces not only come down 4 miles away, but can be sent several hundreds of miles away to other states. This makes for noisy radio channels, and also gets you excited when you're in California and were able to talk to someone in Texas.

However skip also makes it difficult to talk to someone who might be 7 miles up the road due to the noise on the channels. But skip comes and goes and is not always present.

Noise generated by an outside source; since CB radios operate on the AM mode, they are more intolerant of noise generated by such things as overhead power lines, lightning, ignition noise, electric fuel pump noise, fluorescent lamps, etc. When any of these are present near a CB radio, noise in the form of static can be induced into the radio, which causes some of the more distant signals to not be heard as they are not strong enough to overcome the noise of the static on the radio generated by the interference of the outside source.

SWR; to transmit well, an SWR of 1.5:1 is ideal. This means you're radio is working 96% efficiently. However you don't want anymore than a 2.1:1 SWR, which means your radio is working 89% efficiently. Anything higher than a 2.1:1 SWR is limiting how much of a signal your radio is actually sending out, which hinders your transmit distance. It also damages your radios final transistors.

What type of equipment the other party has; you could have the best antenna, a good radio, low SWR, good coax....but if the guy you're trying to talk to has a little antenna and poor coax but a nice Connex radio, he may have problems picking up your signal....and if his antenna is little, he may also have issues with transmitting due to a high SWR issue.

The rule of thumb for antennas is "height is might". The antenna is the heart and soul of the radio. A good 102 whip antenna and a $50 Cobra 19 Ultra IV radio will outperform a $200 General Lee radio with a 4 inch Firestick antenna any day of the week.

Linears; Yes a linear can help you be heard at greater distances. However a linear should not be used as a band aid for a short antenna which it often is. Some linears do incorporate a receive boost but it often picks up a bunch of noise (hash) as a result.

There's probably a few more I'm missing but hopefully this covers most of them.

Yes this makes perfect sense. Unfortunately in the world of CB's no one is on an even playing field anymore. Once upon a time everyone had 4 watts to work with. I believe it all started when someone found an amp designed for 10 meter use could boost a CB's signals, and decided he wanted to be the big dog, so he added the amp to his set up....and so from there on the next guy tried to outdo the other guy until it got to as big as it is now. So now you have people that run big power because they know they can cut the lips off of the other guys w/o the big power and then you have others with even more big power so they can shut down the guy that prides himself on cutting everyone elses lips off. And then you have the guys with the wall to wall amps and antennas in their Suburbans who are in key down contests.