I wanna hear from the guy's and gal's that are run Big CB's.
You know how you are...none of those cracker jack radios. I'm talkin skip shooter's, foot warmers, bigbear foot rigs. The guys that have no problems communicating with the group on the trail.
Let's hear what works for you. What radio..what antenna..what mic..and so on. Let's keep this talk to just the 11 meter (cb) band.
NO HAM talk here.
I'll start it off for you...
This is my mail order bride. She's bearfoot and can blow a tune across the desert like no tomorrow.
With a Wilson 2000 antenna and a D 104 power mic.
So you all seem to know your stuff. I am a newb to cb. Want to put one in my jeep, one that won't break the bank and is quality. Let me know what you think. Also where I can find um.
Not in my Jeep but I run a Galaxy 99, Texas Star DX350 amp, Road King 56 Mic and twin wilson 2000's in my semi. Tuned by Clay's radio shop in TX. Great performance, not sure of the range but with skip I have talked to a CB shop in FL when I was in Manitoba.
If you just want something fairly simple without all the bells and whistles a lot of people like the Cobra 75, it has all the controls on the mic and you can place the controller almost anywhere. I have a little Uniden 510 that I used to use, fairly compact and decent sound quality. Some coax and a simple antenna such as a Firestik or Francis is about all you need. You can probably find someone local with an SWR meter to borrow to tune the antenna or you can buy them for about $20.00 but you really only need it once to set up the antenna.
I have a Cobra 148GTL cb/ssb and 4' Firefly on the tailgate.
Also run HAM but the cb is more handy for roadtrips.
And usb can really span some distance on skip.
Need a better place to mount it though. Right now I have it on the soundbar next to my head ('14 JKU). Works great but I have to stop and turn around to switch channels...
It's too big to put on the console like I had my other radio.
I dunno but I've never had any problems communicating with everyone in my wheeling groups with my legal 4 watt CB... anything over 4 watts is illegal and can cause problems with other CB'rs on adjacent channels since the more power, the more the transmitted signal will bleed into the adjacent CB channels.
I was at the ARCA rock crawling championship in Johnson Valley years ago and there was one idiot out there with such a powerful CB he was blocking out 5-6 channels adjacent to the channel he was actually transmitting on.
So there's a reason the FCC has made 4 watts the max legal power we can run in our CBs. On my ham radios, I run 75 to 150 watts since ham radios don't transmit on predetermined set-width channels like CBs do. It's just not good (or legal) to do that on the CB band.
That's not the point... as already said above that few seem to comprehend... CB channels have narrow fixed-width channels packed closely together. The more power a CB transmits with, the more width its signal takes and the more channels the signal can bleed over into. Like someone talking loudly can be heard in the next room over but they can't be heard when talking in a normal voice.
Personally, I'm pissed off about the issue because I use my CB enough offroad that I'm sick and tired of jerks running linear amps on their CBs and bleeding over into other channels blocking out those trying to use their CBs legally... like me.
It's a TECHNICAL reason why it's limited to 4 watts, not because the FCC is being Big Brother. They don't limit ham radio use to 4 watts because ham radio doesn't use narrow width channels like CB does.
I hope that reason is clear enough on why I feel the way I do.
FCC pulling someone over, no not really, but the clowns that run amps at home and are causing interference, regularly get nailed. If you really want I'll give citations.
Properly setup CB's work just fine as is and give reliable local communications. The service was never intended for long range and there is no need for it to be used that way.
Settle down Guys.
And Jerry you have my sympathy for being in the same area as the CB Bonehead. I don't usually recommend it but you can always be proactive and plug their ears up. After they finish being all p!ssy about not hearing their Buds trying to get back to them they begin to understand what you are putting up with.
A 4 watt radio will "splatter" the other channels ( not as bad as a five, six and etc. watt will ) too! It's all in the adjustments made to limit how much you hear ( think a mega phone turned backwards ) while you strengthen the output signal ( again think mega phone backwards ).
Some radios look the same outside but aren't anything like they were when the box is dropped at your front door by Mr. Brown.
( The Ex always said my radio was WAY too expensive to be called a hobby )
Generally it's not the radio's that are causing the splatter. It's the garbage amps that have poor, if any filtering, and are way over driven.
Of course if sombody played with the radio, and cranked the modulation all the way up trying for more "swing", then they will be all over the place to. It has nothing to do with the receivers settings, at least not in a CB, bandwidth filters are set.
If the 4 watts on cb isn't enough, use sideband; 12 watts is legal and it can really propagate well.
I echo Jerry's sentiments. We generally use channel 7 on our trail rides and there's a bonehead in the NEXT STATE running a "big" radio on channel 6 that splashes the crap out of us. I have a good radio with filters built in but the guys with cheap boxes get creamed and we have to switch channels. It's a hassle if you're meeting people out in the woods and had a predetermined channel to shout on.
Amateur radio used to be a very polite community. Now only HAM can claim that.
True but that sideband mode can only be used to talk with other CBs with that same sideband ability also known as SSB or single-sideband. Few CBs have that ability any more so it'd be hard to find someone to talk to using sideband. My CB doesn't have that ability. If you heard someone talking on sideband with your standard CB, they'd sound like a totally unintelligible Donald Duck
Nice...a lot of conversation has gone on since the last time I rolled through here. I don't know where some of you guys are from but here in Cali there is just no way you would pick a Channel anywhere close to 6 for a trail. That's a well known no no. Jerry I know you say that 4 watts works fine...but if it did then why is there so many people saying otherwise and looking to move to Ham for the answer. ? Oh and Jerry side band is very much alive..I'm on 38 lower soothing skip all the time....and speaking of skip and bleed. With skip in our parts coming in at 3 and 4 pounds (if not more at times) you sometime need more than 4 watts just to talk to the guy next door.
I run a radio with variable power output and that comes with great responsibility but as a trail leader you need to communicate with your group. There's times that I turn it up so EVERYONE can hear me...I also make sure that someone else in the group (and more and more guys do) has a radio with a little more then 4 watts to run tail gunner. It's not all about bleeding all over the place...it seems like it's always the people with their Ham license that do the most crying. Talk about illegal. ..let's look at all the violations we have going on with our rig.
I dunno Steve, I lead groups too with a well-tuned 2' Firestick FS-2 antenna and 4 watts out of my inexpensive Uniden Pro-5210XL and my radio checks to everyone all the way to the back of the group always come back loud and clear. If you have to crank yours up so those in the back can hear you, how do you hear them transmitting to you with their 4 watt radios?
More than 4 watts on the CB band is illegal and for good reason as was so painstakingly explained above, that should be enough. I know some don't care but...
Well bud...some of the time I can't that's why I have a guy running TG that has a big radio too! ..like I stated in my last post...I also understand that you are taking the stance here that 4 watts is all that's ever needed so for you it's a mute conversation. So way are you here taking part in a thread that you clearly disagree with. There's a lot of things you talk about or are into that other may differ from you but that doesn't give others the right to keep pushing their opinions on you...so why does it you.
And a lot of amps have receive amps or "ears" as we like to call it.
It generally adds 3db to your incoming signal. That's how I can pull those 4 watt radios out of the mud.
If everyone agreed on everything Steve, this would be a boring forum and indeed a boring world. Despite our disagreement on CB transmitter power Steve, I still think along with many others that you're one of the nicest greatest guys I've ever had the pleasure of wheeling with. I wish I was out in your neck of the woods more!
Ho hey bud...believe me this is all armchair talk on here and definitely taken with a grain of salt. Thank you for the kind words and yes we definitely need to get out on some rocks sometime. Did you make it to PVD this year.? I thought I saw you in some pictures.
I guess my point is that just like the tree huggers say that all jeepers tear up the lands or all shooters leave their trash...and we all know that's not true... not all CB'ers transmit with big power just because they can...it's (for me) to overcome obstacles limiting communications on the trail. Just last weekend we had a busted rig on the trail (deep up in Isham canyon) that we were able to get turned around and headed back to camp. Once he made it out of the canyon and back at the road he called out with his big radio and we were able to communicate. I guess I'm just saying that we're not all abusers of power....like we're not all abusers of are lands.
So, I have a general lee as well. But I had it set to go from 4 to 40 with the idea that I run on 4 and if I had an emergency I can always crank it up to 40. Some of the place I wheel has really crappy cell coverage and I figured it is good back up. I have only used it on 40 one time in 5 years.
Is that a vanity call sign or did you luck-out and get "SIK"?
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