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cb radio

Kain

Kain

3/4 ton status
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Lubbock Texas
Someone Bought me a cb radio for my Birthday. it is a Midland 1001Z 40-Channel CB Radio.
do any of you guys/gals run a cb radio or ham?(planning on getting my ham radio licence soon)

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I've got about 25 of those. Literally. We had them in all the work trucks and most of the tractors until recently. I took them all because they were just going to get pitched. They seemed to work fine, but I'm certainly no CB expert.
 
I run a CB.
Of course, living in Wyoming, i sometimes wonder why.
Occasionally I pick up farmers coordinating their harvesters or bentonite truckers talking about their wives and girlfriends.
Then there are those guys on ch6 with 60million watts broadcasting outta Tennessee.
I have it as a last resort means of communication.
Local, of course.
Lucky to reach 10 miles with this rig.
Yea, it has a microphone.. gotsta disconnect it to get my Tuffy console to close.

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Want to do some wheeling and they all use either can or ham to communicate
Want ham license but no place here offers it have to drive to Dallas or Austin to get it
 
CB is at least the most basic of trail communication. I'm not counting handheld walkie talkie type radios you can get at the sporting goods store.

You need a decent antenna and coax cable to connect between the antenna and the radio. I prefer Firestik antennas as they have a tunable tip to make dialing in the SWR easy.

Which brings this point up, once you get the radio/coax/antenna connected you'll need to "tune" the radio. You'll need to pick up an SWR meter. There is a process to go through that is very well documented online. Key is getting the value as low as you can, preferably under 2. But anything under 3 is safe and won't kill the radio. You just won't reach as far. Mine is down to about 1.4 on each end.

Most organized trail rides are going to use CB as the main form of trail communication as it doesn't require FCC licensing and the need to reach long distances is less as the group might only be spread out over a section of a trail (within a mile or so).

If you haven't had any radio I'd get used to a CB and it's setup first before investing in the HAM stuff. I'd love to get into HAM myself but since most of the guys I go wheeling with had me pestering them to put CB's in their trucks I'd play like hell getting them to go HAM and get a license. So I'd be all by myself.
 
My neibor gave me 2 fire stick antennas and I have cable coming will look into meter
 
I ran CBs for years. I couldn't even get the local club to keep CBs working properly. I'm a Ham but personally lobby for FRS/GMRS. The laws on those changed recently but they still share frequencies and are interoperable. Some cheap hand helds get you on the air and you can upgrade to the no-test license for GMRS that covers your whole household. Best of all, with a GMRS mobile, the antenna is about 6" long for a BIG one and rarely needs tuned if properly installed. Plus the audio is superior being FM instead of AM.

I do still have a hand held CB I occasionally carry on rides but it's a big, heavy PITA.
 
I turned my CB base station on recently for the first time in years--been sitting in my room collecting dust..its a 40 channel Courier Centurion SSB that has had "extra channels" mods done to it..

I was amazed that there was hardly ANY conversations going on any of the channels I tried (the typical 40 channels on AM)...it appears CB's here are actually useful again,now that everyone has gone to cell and smart phones,the airwaves are practically dead silent on all but a few channels,like channel 6,as noted,there are many bootleggers with high powered linear amps on that channel..

I tried asking for a radio check on Ch.19 to see if it still transmits OK,the mike relays have gotten sticky from lack of use,but someone 25 miles away answered me and said I sounded clear,but not that strong a signal..I only have a 9 foot fiberglass "Shakespere" whip on a 30 foot pole in the back yard,my Antron 99 antenna got totaled by several strong winter storms with high winds years ago..
SSB can be reliable up to 50+ miles here now too..fewer folks have sideband radios ..

I noticed a big improvement in the SWR and reception and transmitting when I switched the RG-58U coax in my K5 for some RG-8U,which is much thicker and has lower losses than the skinny 58U...
 
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Those Baofengs have been one of the best, yet also one of the worst, things to happen to ham radio...It's great that we have a cheap option, but then a bunch of people who would have never left the world of CB are now screwing around on the ham bands with those things...:angry1::angry1:

Ok, rant over, lol. I'm a licensed ham guy, and my career involves maintenance on stupid expensive 800MHz trunked Motorola and Harris radio systems. To those that just saw gibberish, just think of the 2 way radios the police use in their cars.

I have a handful of the "high power" export CB radios, such as a Galaxy 94HP with factory 100watt amplifier, and a couple of the higher power Connex radios, along with a bunch of variations of the Cobra 29 radios. The radio that I run more often than not? The $40 Uniden Walmart special. Except in my Samurai, where I'm limited on space, then I run a ham radio that covers CB, ham bands, FRS/GMRS, etc all in one box. Yeah..it's illegal, I don't care, lol. I'm not in the least bit concerned about the FCC coming after me for running an illegal radio on CB or FRS :ROLFLMAO:

As others have mentioned, the antenna and install are FAR FAR FAR FAR more important for radio performance than the radio you run. That 100 watt Galaxy on a cruddy antenna install will get stomped by a cheap radio with a good antenna installation. Oh, and absolutely DO NOT take that thing to any CB guy or shop that offers to do the "peak and tune" service, or talks about needle swing. Just don't...they'll crank up the power (which you don't need any way), but make the performance suck. Kind of like cranking up the volume on a really cheap set of speakers that start distorting at half volume. Doubling the amount of power might make them louder, but they'll sound 10 times worse, lol.

Firestick makes decent antennas, which is surprising as it's obvious by their website that they're made by people without a clue of how radios/antennas should be installed or how RF works, lol. The biggest thing that bugs me about them - that damn 18 foot of coax myth they keep pushing. If switching to an 18 foot coax makes it work better, then the antenna wasn't installed properly to begin with.

I typically run the old standard 102" whip, but more for durability reasons than any performance ones. I've been beating the snot out of the same whip for 20 years without issue, and I consider myself lucky if I get 4 months out of a Firestick. If you don't want that monster of an antenna (which is perfectly understandable), my next preference is the Wilson Flex antenna.

SWR tells you little to nothing on how the radio/antenna will perform. It's merely telling you how well the antenna is matched to the radio, so you don't fry the radio. I can hand you an antenna will be a perfect 1:1 match, but won't send signal past about 2 feet, as well as an antenna that's 2.5:1 that will go for miles. If you can, find a local ham with an antenna analyzer, which is much more than just a fancy SWR meter. That will help to tune the antenna to the vehicle that it's mounted on, which can have a major effect on the antenna's performance and radiation pattern. Visit a local ham radio store if you have to. Yeah, you'll get the sales pitch on how awesome ham radio is, and how horrible CB is, but at the end of the day, most ham guys would rather see a proper CB set up than a poor one that will clobber ham bands too.
 
Make sure you grind the paint off the bar under the mount. Put a light coat of copper anti-seize between the mount and the bare metal of the bar to prevent corrosion. Then you can paint back over it after its mounted but it's imperative that it be good, clean metal to metal contact to provide a good ground plane.
 
One CB I had picked up a lot of alternator whine and static until I ran a ground wire from the antenna's base mount right to the negative battery terminal..reception and transmission improved some also..
 
diesel4me said:
One CB I had picked up a lot of alternator whine and static until I ran a ground wire from the antenna's base mount right to the negative battery terminal..reception and transmission improved some also..
Click to expand...

This was because the ground plane wasn't well established. Just because you have DC continuity doesn't mean you have a good RF ground. This is another reason CB antennas are difficult because of the amount of required ground plane to get the antenna to function properly.

You are SUPPOSED to tie all body panels and the frame together with wide (1"+) braided copper strap to ensure a good ground plane. The OP will probably have to put copper straps from the bull bar to each frame rail to help tie it in. Otherwise the antenna is isolated from most of the vehicle and there isn't a substantial ground plane.
 
The vehicle was my 72 K5.I had mounted the 9 foot whip on the spare tire carrier ,and that was only mounted to the body by a few 3/8" bolts..
Probably a lousy ground with so little contact..
 
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