Who Uses CB Radios?

[Stimw]

Back in the 70's a guy lived around the corner from me and had the illegal wattage booster and thought he was Voice of America.
When he would transmit it scrambled my TV! (no cable back then)
I got tired of it so I hooked up my CB in the house with a whip antenna in the attic and a battery with charger.
Everytime he would transmit I waited then keyed the mic so he could not hear who was coming back.
He got so PO'ed he started cussing at who ever was walking on him and bragged that he had more power.
That's when I told him that yea but you can't hear!
I would turn the charger on and off to change the sound of my signal and he thought I was mobile.
I heard tires screeching outside as he flew up and down the road looking for someone in a vehicle.
The good old days.

 

[Jcoon]

I don’t think I have seen a over the road truck withOUT a CB in it. All truckers are still using them.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Yeah, I remember the days where threats were made of ripping down towers and pins in the old coax.

A local ham I knew had RFI issues with his neighbor that somehow escalated and somehow he got charged criminally. The worst of it was that he "used" to like going south for stints in Florida, and then found himself ineligible for entry to the states. He had paid a heavy price in that dispute!.

A trucker avoiding one ticket would pay for a CB Radio easily.

 

[coobie]

We use a midland Micro mobile portable CB on long trips.

 

[Looking4new]

Quite a few of the truck drivers nowadays might have the antennas, but the radio in the cab is either shut off or they can't speak English and wont answer you anyway.

Most of the antennas that come 'stock' with a new truck are only 1/4 wave antennas and not worth the powder to blow them to he!!. I always run one full wave antenna. Usually an 'oil coil'. They will handle 1,000 watts and are very flexible so if you clip a low hanging branch from a tree you wont bust your antenna.

 

[Industrial Toys]

When I drove out and back from MN last year, I was a little taken aback by all the foreign truck drivers. Not really used to seeing truckers wearing flip flops at the Tim Hortons! And Blue Tooth Headsets!

 

[k0ua]

Quite a few of the truck drivers nowadays might have the antennas, but the radio in the cab is either shut off or they can't speak English and wont answer you anyway.

Most of the antennas that come 'stock' with a new truck are only 1/4 wave antennas and not worth the powder to blow them to he!!. I always run one full wave antenna. Usually an 'oil coil'. They will handle 1,000 watts and are very flexible so if you clip a low hanging branch from a tree you wont bust your antenna.

I think you might need a little education on antenna theory. Only 1/4 waves huh? If you get your Amateur radio license, and then do a bunch of study, you too will have a bit better understanding of what you just said. I would be happy to help.

BTW a full wave end fed vertical antenna while it could be matched to 50 ohms with an appropriate matching transformer would certainly be a high angle radiator. Not the low angle you would be looking for. Also BTW a full wavelength vertical radiator at 27Mhz would be on the order of 36 feet tall.

Also BTW, any vertical radiator with a loading coil in it will be less than the ideal full size 1/4 wavelength radiator in length, and have less radiation efficiency. Amateur radio antennas for the lower HF frequency's often have loading coils,in them not because that makes them "better", but because they have to due to the size that a true 1/4 wave radiator would have to be. The effeciency of these loaded antennas decrease as you go lower in frequency. Some as low as 1 or 2 percent of a 1/4 wave. As an example on 80 meters, a popular Amateur radio band, the 1/4 wave vertical radiator would need to be about 66 foot tall. That whip is going to be a bit tall to get under most overpasses. On 27mhz the 1/4 wave vertical whip would need to be about 9.1 feet tall. That is doable. So if you see a loaded antenna, you know it is a "compromise" antenna.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Just curious since the vehicle is on rubber, why you could not insulate and isolate the radio and using a tuner, load up the whole vehicle? Forget about the antenna.

 

[k0ua]

Just curious since the vehicle is on rubber, why you could not insulate and isolate the radio and using a tuner, load up the whole vehicle? Forget about the antenna.

You would need the radio outside of the vehicle, and you would need a counterpoise to load against. Having the radio inside of the antenna would be very problematic. RFI of all sorts back into the radio. Talk about common mode currents.. WOW!, bigtime. I talked to a guy once that was using a road grader on 75 meter SSB once. It worked fairly well. He loaded up the county's road grader beside the road and used a fence for the counterpoise/ground side. I have seen people use bridges and fences and things like that for antennas. Not the best, but they can radiate.

 

[k0ua]

Loading up a baseball diamond backstop and other silly things.
35 watts to the baseball backstop thru the tuner on 20 meters using JT65 digital mode and then switching to SSB voice