what is a "2 way radio?"

Yeah....you're right...I know nothing of CB radios....I've only been of great help to others on this site...I've only owned my fair share of radios. Probably have owned more them than you will ever seen in your life time.

statikuz is right...I said "party line".....since you obvious don't know what that means, a party line is where more than 2 people can communicate.

It came from the early days of the telephone where everyone on one city block was tied on the same phone line....the phone would ring once for you, twice for your neighbor, 3 times for the next guy down....you only answered on your ring only but you could eavesdrop on your neighbor and even butt in on the conversation from your own home phone if/when you picked up on his ring.

 

That is correct! Using a cb means everybody within range, and on the same channel, can hear what everybody else is saying.

It is not a private line of communication.

 

I thought "two way radio" meant it works both eastbound AND westbound...

 

The 2 buttons on the left are actually switches. One of them says "CB" and "PA"....it allows you to run the radio in CB mode to talk to people or if you have a PA horn hooked up (you can get them at truck stops in the same section with all the CB stuff) you can flip it to PA and then yell at people by keying up the mic on the CB. It's kind of a fun toy to have.

The other switch says "NOR" and "CH 9"....in the "nor" mode you have access to all 40 channels but when you put it in "Ch 9" mode it instantly puts you on Ch 9 instead you having to flip thru the channels to find it.

"What's channel 9" you ask? It used to be for emergency calling...i.e. if your tire went flat or your vehicle ran out of fuel, you could flip it to channel 9 and call for help and someone monitoring the radio (usually police and REACT teams) would come to your aid. Unfortunately most cops don't monitor channel 9 anymore, much less have a CB in their car. So channel 9 is pretty much a useless feature. Not even sure why they still put it on CB radios.

The "button" on the right is actually 2 knobs...a squelch and an RF gain. The squelch just sets a certain threshold where the sound comes thru...in other words, if you had it all the way CCW, you'd hear nothing but static until someone started talking. But if you set it at let's say 1/2, the radio would be silent until a fairly good signal came in and if you set it all the way Cw, it would take a really strong signal...one of someone within feet of you.....to come thru.

The RF gain just adjusts the sensitivity of the incoming signal. It's useful when you're driving along side someone and you don't need such a strong signal, you can back it down. Most people I know who are radio enthusiasts instead have the RF gain modified so instead it controls a variable deadkey for running linear amps and such.

I can understand not wanting to spend a lot, but if I may say so now, CB stands for "constantly buying". You can buy that radio and you'll find it's a stepping stone, as you'll eventually want to upgrade. That radio is really good for weekend 4 wheeling and an occasional camping trip. But some of the truckers run the big radios that will step on that little radio. As I pointed out there's not a lot of tuning you can do on that radio. In fact if you're dead set on that particular model, I recommend finding a used one. You can probably pick one of those Midland's up for less than $20 if you really looked around.

For first timers, I usually recommend a Cobra 25 LTD or a Uniden PC 68. I've seen those sell for about $20-40 used on average. They come with all the same features that Midland does but they also come with a mic gain which is something you want, and they are also better constructed and tune up well.

HTH.

 

A good signal isn't just about the radio. A good antenna and cable can be worth their weight in gold.

 

Keep the RF gain fully CW unless you're going to be like right next to the guy you're talking to, then you can back it down if you want.

Getting people to come in clear is going to depend on your antenna. If you have a good antenna (not one of those cheap 2 footers either...you need a 3 footer at minimum for good signal) you should be able to pull in decent signals. However some techs can do a receive mod on the radio to improve reception. I don't know if yours is one of them, best thing to do is maybe call Sparky at Sparkys CB shack and ask him. He's considered the god of CB radio work.

 

party line...what a fool

 

Off topic, but funny.

If you recall, just about every party line had two old biddies that listened into everybody's business, OR kept the line tied up gossiping. If you picked up the phone, these old hens would be on practically 24/7; they thought they owned the line.

I had a buddy in 11th grade that was truly funny. He could come up with a one-liner almost anytime and should have gone into entertainment. One Saturday night found us without wheels; we depended on our parents to let us have the car (if they weren't using it and we had been "good"), and this night, my Dad and Mom had their Ford, the Pierces were driving their '65 Chevy farm pickup. So we boys were "stuck" at home to look at 2 channels of B & W telivision, OR we could call a couple of girls. So here we were, Larry & I, in our kitchen picking up the phone to: "YACK YACK YACK YACK, I told so 'n so such 'n such, and she said that the old man was running around on so 'n so, and when I asked if she know'ed it was true, she swore up and down it was SO----YACK YACK YACK YACK".

Click. We'd hang up. Click and pick up softly. "YACK YACK YACK" After an HOUR or two of this, Larry picked up the phone (they were still at it) and said, "HEY LADY! YER BEANS ARE BURNIN'!!!!!!!!!!!"

"OH MY GOODNESS!!!!" CLICK! BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

We had the LINE!!!!!!!!! Maybe one of the ladies DID have something on the stove, but I swear this actually happened, and I literally ROLLED on the kitchen floor in an agony of laughter! I thought my ribs were going to explode! But we kept the line away from the old hens for the next couple of hours while they tried to sneakily listen in.

"Did you GET that, Mrs Cartwright?"


"I hope you wrote that down, Mrs Whitehurst", we'd say being a couple of smart aleck high schoolers. (If both sets of parents had known we were doing that, we both would've been stropped with a belt for disrespecting our elders)

But that was what happened on OUR rural party line in the mid-60's! I bet it was typical.

Gadfly