Shoot Skip

Yes, it is possible.

 

Absolutely it is possible.

I have talked skip on a barefoot Uniden PC68LTW CB radio from Missouri to Florida.

IMO you really don't need juice to talk skip; mother nature takes over and is going to put your signal where she wants it to go. Meaning you can talk to anyone on a simple unmodified 4 watt CB radio as long as the conditions are right.

 

Yep, mother nature controls your signal. I've talked from PA to Nova Scotia on my old peaked and tuned Galaxy 959.

On my "base" set up which is a Magnum 257 with an Imax 40' up in a tree I've heard but not made contact with guys in Cali, Washington state, Anchorage Alaska and British Columbia on lower side band channel 38 and I'm in PA.
The farthest I've made contact with some one is Phoenix Arizona and this is in my truck on 38 lsb.

 

Lower Side Band is pretty cool. I run a galaxy 979 with a palomar 225. I was just driving down the road in central Alabama one afternoon and there was no skip on any channel. I put it on 38 LSB just for the heck of it and I asked if anybody could hear me. About ten seconds later some guy answered me and said "yeah i hear you". I asked him where he was and he was driving down the interstate 20 miles outside of Houstin, TX. Haha.

 

SHURE you can i have worked Germany and Alaska from the car on 10 meter FM running just 4 watts.

 

A well done look at HF bands ....

http://www.eham.net/articles/23337

 

Now, an amp really doesnt help much because of these reasons:
1) Yeah you can get out but it doesnt help if you cant hear them respond.
2) On a very clean frequency (ie, without a bunch of morons running big amps...), you only need 1 watt. CB radios are supposed to put out 4 watts. Way more than enough.


but i cant believe nobody mentioned this... You need a good antenna. That's way more important than what radio you have or how many watts you have. You aren't going to shoot skip without a good antenna. Good coax helps too. You don't have many good options for a good antenna on a big truck, but a mirror mounted decent quality fiberglass whip will work as long as you aren't using the factory co-ax (it seems to always be damaged! and its usually connected to the am/fm/vhf/uhf systems too, which makes it not work as well for CB...)

it also has to be SWR tuned.........you need a good SWR to get out...

Also, these radios are kind of just thrown together from the factory. You should get it tuned by a good cb shop. They do more than just make it louder. They'll make sure it's on the perfect frequency (a little off will work but not work well), and if it has a frequency counter, they'll check that for accuracy too.

Don't use echo. Roger beep might be annoying but sometimes its helpful for communicating with people you can barely hear.

 

Good point phroziac. A good antenna is a must. Not one of those 2 footers either.

If you don't have a good antenna you will not get out at all.

 

A good antenna system is always a plus when working skip or talking local but I wouldn't say it is nesessary.I've worked stations via skip using a handheld with a rubber-duck antenna.And you probably know that a rubber-duck isn't much of an improvment over a dummyload. Heck, for that matter people have talked skip on a dummy load.Sure there are better antennas for shooting skip but it can be done with antennas as inefficient as a rubber-duck or dummyload.