Same here. I wasn't as into it as much as others but I loved to get on there and chat some but listen alot. There was always some people just hanging around at my age and two or three people were on their way to work and there was always some truck driver in there that would come in and say something every now and then but the part I think I missed the most was chatting with some of the old timers. There was like an old timers club it wasn't an official club or anything there was always a couple old guys on here with a cup of coffee in their hand and a cigarette and the other just passing the time especially in the wee early morning hours.
I'm in my 30's, i'm annoyed by current social media (or social data miners) to the point I've deleted my accounts and that i've just ordered my first cb set!
@@x-Timmer-x That sounds like a great idea! At least you have freedom of speech on CB too! Sadly, I moved from the NYC area to a really remote area and I don't think CB is active in this area. At least when I checked last year, I spent a few days tuning through the channels (yes, I still have my radio from the late 80s) but I wasn't able to hear a single person.
Great memories. In about 1985, I went after school and bought a Midland 4001, 13.8V PSU, SWR meter and a homebase 'Modulator' then struggled home on the bus with it all under my arms. Was so excited. It's a buzz that never leaves you! Your radio is pretty special there Andy!
Your right. That buzz, never leaves you. I wouldn't want it to. I'm recapping & realigning & reflowing all my rigs, and getting back on. It's been a long time comin' . Hopefully the undesirables aren't on still on.
Been into CB since early 1970's. Received my Radio-Telephony merit badge in Scouting with a Radio operator license from the FCC for Citizens Band radio. KZS 0130 I've never left. I enjoy the "CHICKEN BAND" 🤣 Had a 3 channel Transceiver, Radio Shack/Tandy crystalized and a 1/4 wave antenna. 👍✌️ Been on ever since. My Shack is built right, name brand equipment to tune the antenna, and match the impedance. Cool running Rigs means less power loss. I don't tread on ANY Amateur frequencies and still prefer to operate with morals and the oath to the rules of Radio-Telephony.
Ahh the good old days. Got into cb radios here in the states when I first started driving back in the 80s! We all had them in our cars and would talk to each other when on road trips, and talk to truckers too! Fun before cell phones. So much fun to meet people you don't know! Thanks for the reminder. I might even have one in the garage somewhere.
I remember going cross country with the largest Uhaul truck they rented. Was going up the grade and heard the trucker behind me saying come on bed bucket put your pedal to the medal. I called back and said the pedal is smashed to the floor. Why don't you help and push me up the hill? The Trucker was a really good soul and that started so many different conversations with the trucker. What fun recalling that so many years later.
I would imagine that would be prompted with an EMP. Is anybody using Faraday boxes?. We have two. rotate three different HF rigs in and out of them monthly. Are you truly prepared?
Brings back memories this Andy. I spent years of misspent youth on my Harrier CBX after forcing my dad onto the roof of our house to install a Thunderpole III! The reach off that thing with a few tweaked pots in the rig was unbelievable….
I still have a Harrier CBX...infact I might have 2...but been awhile since I looked....Also a DNT M40..and I think a handheld...Realistic..I think...again not sure ..been awhile. I was on in the early mid 80's.
90% of all my great contacts were on s thunderpole 3 great times great mems when I was young every thing into the car a way up the hills and back home on a Sunday and if I got less the 500 contacts it was a bad week end
@@stoatrepublic If I recall the Rotel was a decent rig. My father also had a Harrier CBX...When he passed away just a couple of weeks after my 18th Birthday. I put it in the luton van at work. Was working at a furniture shop at the time. I didn't drive....but went out on deliveries. Other than being the map reader. It was fun using the CB when going further field. I had a DNT-M40 in me bedroom.Meet alot of folks...some good..some bad. Even a girlfriend or two. Don't recall why it all stopped...other than the one in the van got stolen...though I think the driver sold it!..even though it wasn't his to sale. I brought the ones I have now ...some years ago. Was thinking of getting back online after I had moved to Scotland. But never got round to setting them up. And since I lost my life partner to cancer in 2017...I have pretty much lost interest in life in general. I watch YT video's in an attempt to distract me.
Had great fun with my CB27/81, 'Binatone 5 Star', between 1981 and 1985, but then everything ground to a halt in my area, when an increasing number of abusive kids began to spoil conversations. In Essex, 14 was the calling channel, 19 was the truckers channel and 9 was the emergency channel, with all three being respected until 1985. After that, I passed the RAE and became a licensed radio amateur, but I still have my old CB radio, because it became my first real insight into radio communication, and spurred me on to learn more about the technical aspects of transmitters, receivers and antennas.
When I was 13 my dad got a ham raido. He was a CT in the Navy so already knew code. I got into it also of course. I learned code at 20 wpm but never went past my novice license. Good memories chatting with people all over the world.
I'm in a remote rural part of the UK and CB still live and kicking where I am, a lot of farmers and elderly locals still use it to keep in touch with each other.
Oh CB radio! In Sweden in '70s we had them in boats and cars, I even had antenna on my moped and got a Zodiac Contact 24 with a battery pack in a plastic radio compartment. Huge static, the ANC-circuit got totally overloaded! Me and friends built a repeater and put on a hill, squelch-triggered. Also an automated answering thing involving an endless cassette, squelch-triggered. Crazy days!
I've still got my very first CB I bought back in 1980, a Stalker HH1. Had great fun and brings back fond memories. I've been licensed as an M3 for years and during the first lockdown decided to progress to 2E0 which fired up my enthusiasm for radio again. I dipped back into CB after watching this video, and the first conversation on Ch19 was two people effing and jeffing every other word which also brought back memories of CB when it was legalised and moved from AM to FM!! Yes, amateur radio can be old boys telling others off for not following rules that were in place when they passed their exams, and yes it can be a lot of techie talk about antennae and propagation but there's a lot more to Amateur Radio. I mainly use Digital Modes now and it still gives me a buzz to be sat in my car talking to someone in America or Australia or Japan etc on a handheld radio.
I've still got the first CB I bought in 1977. An RCA Co Pilot 14T270 AM. Nothing digital in it or on it. The channel numbers are printed on a large round dial, just like an early '70s TV. It still works as good as it ever did, which is better than most "modern" computer radios.
Think about how much more fun you'd have talking with 4-5 watts without running excessive power ( I Know for Ham's it's legal, but still cheating and not much of a challenge) repeaters, and satallite systems carrying your signal?...... I've been a CB'er since the mid 70's and rarely use more than stock wattage (usually run 1-2 watts deadkey with a 15- 25 watt swing) to talk across ponds from Chicago, Illinois (USA), regular contacts include but are not limited to all of Alaska, Panama, Costa Rica, Australia, Columbia, as well as throughout the states of my own country. I do this from a base station and my mobile radios. Naturally line of sight transmitting prevents me from reaching contacts in China and the like, but I feel I have accomplished greater distances then ham sets using simply the Atmosphere and low wattage. I believe that if I were able to use Repeaters and satallites on 11 meter like ham operators can, I might also be able to contact stations on the other side of the globe...... the sky's the limit.
I enjoyed hearing you guys across the pond last weekend. It sounds like cb radio is alive and well in Europe. I worked England, France, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, and Portugal in less than 1 hour. Here in North America we have seen a massive surge in cb radio ever since the covid lock downs started. We went from 3 or 4 local operators to over 20 in less than a year.
When i was just 11 Years [Young] I got my 1st CB Radio and thought of a COOL Handle [LONEWOLF] The very 1st Time i get on i;m telling the Guy MY NEW HANDLE and he says NO that;s MY Handle, We were BOTH Struck that we had the same Handle [CB Name] What was even STRANGER is the FACT that the guy lived just up the Street so he came down to my Parents House to MAKE SURE i was OK, We have been Friends ever since, He got me my 1st Job Cleaning Cars for Local Garage at just 16.
My Dad and i used to be big radio users.I haven't used the radio since he passed away nearly 20 years ago and sold all my gear. I still have the old Silver Rod vertical aerial still up survived many storms. Been seeing a ton of videos pop up over this last month/ Thanks for posting this one.
Might be better reception/transmission if it was mounted on metal. The roof of the car is supposed to serve as a ground plane. Thanks for the video! Very interesting.
alminium roof, still works just as good if not a bit better. I would get a luggage rack mount or hole, but... careful. I don't trust my ass with thru hole and the garage.
In the USA the FCC recently approved CB to modulate FM as well as traditional AM. CB can be the entry into ham radio / amateur radio , which I highly recommend. Ironically CB is in the 11meter band which fits nicely between a couple of the many ham radio bands (10m and 12m), so it’s possible to share an antenna for all three.
I was 18 in 1962, Here in the US, by the way born in London, 1944, came to US 🇺🇸 on the Queen Mary in 1949. Went back to visit in 1979, with my parents, and my wife in 2013. I was a new ham in 1962. WV2ZPD then. I got the CB call KBG7077, when they issued them But I never really used the band, as I moved up the ranks of amateur radio, WA2ZPD, then W2CH, after obtaing my Extra Class license in 1995. Will be licensed 60 years next March, 2022. I tried the repeaters in London on 2 M and 70 CM, on our 2013 trip, but no luck raising anyone. Cheerio, 73 de W2CH, Ray, New Hampshire.
When I was in high school back in the mid 80's, I would sit out in my driveway talking on the CB while hooking up my dads battery charger to keep power. I had a D-104 power mic and a booster/echo box also. Those were some good times. I may have actually had a beeper back then too.
I'm in USA from the 70's when CB's were booming. I did not know CB was still popular. I have one in a box somewhere. I wrote a program and wired the PLL to an Atari 800 PC and was able select any channel that existed within the bandwidth of the radio.
40 years ago the breaking channel around your way was channel 14. Hertford wasn't good for cb ing as most of it is in a dip. I've still got a HyGain 5 in the loft, so many good memories from those days. It went downhill after being legalised in 1981 though.
Had a cb when I was a kid....uniden something or another......over 30years ago... Had some 250w boots + 21ft gb aerial + couple scaff polls + extra thick coax cable...customisable Roger bleep.....handle was wheelin wizard from Luton.....Good ole days
I think CB was responsible for a LOT of Amateurs gaining their tickets. There were some fairly well run sidebander groups (The "Sandbaggers" were international and very well run, the UK prefix for Sandbaggers was 70 - so you might be "70 Sandbagger 110") Some awesome contacts were made - and the challenge to see how far you could get - and how little power you could do it with. Half a watt over a few hundred miles was not easy but a huge buzz when you did it. FM for CB (for technical reasons, mainly "strongest station wins") was a poor choice - BUT by then a lot of the "sidebanders" had started to become amateurs. Keen to see what the 4 Metre band is like now - apparently a friendly crowd and presumably with reasonable penetration too, 6 metres promises to be good for reasonable distances too.
I agree, after spending a fortune on 3 or more AM 27MHz I then spent £200 on a Ham International Concorde and made lot of long distance contacts using USB and LSB with 100 watts it was great fun, partly because it was illegal. I then obtained my amateur radio certificate and paid a fortune for Yaesu but 2 meters was full of bore arses and if you weren't in local Am Club No One spoke to you
@@StormTrouper3 I find this very disappointing. I've been licensed almost 50 years (G8IQV now G0OIW), and it always disappoints me that so many newly licensed stations get looked down on by those with older or higher grades of licence. The last thing we should be doing is discouraging new amateurs - we all had to start somewhere, CB or otherwise. 😞 Hopefully, that will be less of a problem on HF as overseas stations won't be familiar with the UK licensing system and couldn't care what grade of licence you have. ☺
Back in the late 70's and mid 80's if you had a good base station and good antenna setup with good mobile cb setups you could easily talk 20 to 40 miles pretty reliably, sometimes more. Switch to ssb and it worked great. When the skip was in it really screwed up your local range for around town. Man were the cb bands busy then. Even freeband was busy.
I had a great base station 35 years ago on 27mhz from Australia and had some fantastic overseas conversations on LSB AND USB channel 35 and channels 16 and 11am in fact i remember on AM had a long convo with a guy in the US its a very underrated way of communication
I spent so much time perfecting my antenna installation in my teens, got just as much of a buzz from building/modifying antennas as making DX contacts, built a 2 element beam out of parts from an old Channel 0 VHF antenna and boom (lots of scrap aluminium) 🤣
@@SpectreOZ when i got my driver's licence at 18 everything changed, i went mobile CB and boy was it fun and going out and doing eyeballs i think it was called and met so many cool people, in fact, its how i met my current wife, still kept my base station i think i was running a station master antenna at the time and sold it all due to getting more involved in cars. currently thinking of getting into 27megz again its just the old CB is getting harder to find now.
@@dantheman5222 Indeed, the Uniden Bearcat 980SSB is a decent modern 27Mhz rig, second hand radios can be a bit of a gamble (which is why I kept my AX144). Eyeballs were great fun, a deadly treadly and a handheld radio was all you needed to go "mobile" back in the day 🤣 The advent of affordable UHF and improved repeater network saw a major change in the radio scene with many either running both or migrating completely to UHF.
Welcome back 😁 you are more than welcome to join the Tango Charlie Net any time. You were working amazing and i know a lot of the stations could hear you and would of loved to of made the contact. We are on every Saturday night on 27.585usb at 7pm so if you find yourself playing radio again come on in 😁 TC88 Maxine (Sat on the Long Mynd shropshire with TC74 John)
Ah the good old days, remember it well back in the day, it was like our social media back then! Had all sorts of ssb radios before cb27/81 uk fm40 came into operation. Nato 2000 was my last rig.
Brings back memories of the 70. A guy who's handle was Yorkie don used to being rigs from the US. AM was so much nicer on the ears than FM, when it went legal I lost internet due to the bullying the started and got my ham license. That wasn't as fun as the old days of AM so my rigs lay silent.. going to pull out my FT817 for a listen.
Thanks for the videos, got back into CB radio during the start of the pandemic like many others probably? Just wondering if you have any more info on the battery pack you are using and would it give me an hour or two of listening and maybe a few mins transmitting power for a CRT 9900? Are they available on Amazon? Many thanks, Carl
CB was all the rage in the 70's. I now a couple of good quality ip67 handheld 5W CB, hardly use them. On the motorcycle replaced by on helmet Cardo PackTalk dynamic mesh network units for short range, and for long range Bluetooth into the phone and use cellphone call or facetime. I built a couple of CB radio Bluetooth adapters to pair into the PackTalk but yet to test them out on the bike. Would mean we can be on a ride and I can be monitoring the truckies channel.
This is a good example of what FM on CB sounds like; FCC just allowed that in the US, but they still won’t let you use a ham radio on CB. If you ran a 857 on CB over here you’d get a mob of angry hams raging at the FCC and probably at your doorstep if your address is public.
@Porco Porco according to his latest video, someone cared so much they complained to his local ham radio store, RSGB, and OFCOM. Ridiculous. But you're probably getting at the FCC (and probably OFCOM), who certainly doesn't give a damn about aggressively high power CB operations, and even less so with regular CB DXers using ham radios and decent antennas on CB bands since it's victimless like growing/using cannabis recreationally, sleeping in your van in a business' parking lot overnight, or repairing your John Deere tractor yourself, especially when your radio is a top of the line $1500 SDR, which only puts out 10W anyway, and you're a licensed ham who actually knows what you're doing.
I remember the 148 I had one was illegal back in the day . As fm was the only units we were legally allowed to have . My dad was a ham operator and rig doctor. So was well lucky lol 😆 😜
Still got my very first rig - a Colt 210 AM set complete with box in A1 condition, bought early 1981 before legalisation. Also got my Realistic AM set, Cobra 148GTL-DX and Binatone 5 Star all bought since then.
Hi Andy, A lot of people are also using PMR446 as a sort of UHF CB to escape QRM that effects 11 meters as well as different propogation characteristics. it might be worth checking it out as there is a weekly nationwide net every Sunday on channel 8, starting at 8PM.
@@aurtisanminer2827 Yes that is true which can be a deal breaker for some, although the local range on PMR with a well performing antenna such as the diamond X-50 or sirio CX 440 can be surpisingly far. I have communicated with stations 50+ miles away before. PMR is also suitable for those who for whatever reason cannot have a large antenna set up that 27 MHZ requires.
@@pmr446 Hi Decoder. Yep - agreed. As you, I have frequently been on the Sunday CH8 @ 8pm PMR446 net and reached 40/50 miles plus - with a handie talkie, albeit from high ground (around 1200ft +). My furthest PMR contact was in June 2019, during tropospheric lift conditions, from Dartmoor National Park, England, to the Pyrenees, distance 550 miles on 500mW (half Watt). It can be done, but patience is required and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s why I still use 27MHz!
@@aurtisanminer2827 That can be an advantage: in the illegal AM days (which coincided with high sunspot activity) I was frequently unable to chat to my friend half a mile away because it was impossible to find a channel not blocked by Italians (mornings) or Americans (afternoon) running hundreds of watts into beam antennas. :-(
Memories of the good old days in the 70's and 80's, loads of people had them in their cars and houses. I had one on a pushbike while doing a paper round. It was addictive back then, eyeballs, convoys and all 40 foot Ariel bolted on the back of the house. Paper license from the post office.......😁😁
Was going to get me ham licence just recently but could hardly find anyone on so bought superstar3900 setup and yes here we are back in 1979 nice vid dude
Great memories brought back watching that mate. Remember having a powerful rig back in the 80's that used to interfere with all the neighbours televisions. Good times.
as a kid, my dad had one in every one of his vehicles.....i liked it, was fun as long as you played by the rules.....i was scolded more than once for my behavior by fellow CBers lol, its pretty cool in general.
Aaah I love CB radio. No need for complicated coarse exams to talk to people via radio. I'm Dyscalculic (number version of dyslexia) and have issues working with numbers, numeracy and remembering number strings. This has prevented me from following my dreams, doing my dream careers and doing hobbies I want to do. I've always wanted to try the HAM/Amateur radio side but the amount of number stuff messes my brain up.
Yeah! Looking forward to that, UK to USA even on FM, remember that when Conditions were good last cycle, apparently this next cycle is going to be off the chart.
Only problem cycle 25 may be the solar flares of all solar flares similar to the 1920s torching cw shacks teleworks powered grids world wide only thing tech was so new few even knew it happened
Back in the late 80's and early 90's here in the states I had a RCI 2950 and a Palimar 150watt kicker. Was able to get out pretty well. Still have the 2950 barefoot (rarely use) and a President Ronald 50 watts (in my current vehicle). Not much happening around the Chicago area. Just use it mostly when traveling or talking to my 4X4 truck group.
dead here in British Columbia, Canada. Our CH 19, is 27.18.5 VHF where truckers use Ladd 1 (154.100) I use to take to UK stations on 26.195 or something like that when I drove a truck.
Yes and no. UK has 40 chans FM 27.60125 , 10KHZ apart. the US channels are used europe wide 4W AM/FM and 12W pep SSB. referred as "UK block" and "EU Block"
@@MWOCQU Not entirely true. Channels 23, 24 and 25 are "straightened out" in Europe, in the US there is that strange jump in frequency. This is what I found on Wikipedia: "The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) adopted the North American channel assignments, except channel 23, frequency 27.235 MHz; channel 24, frequency 27.245 MHz; and channel 25, frequency 27.255 MHz"
0:23 - possible solution for that: get a somewhat 1/2" thick neodymium magnet (don't get them too big, those things can get dangerous the bigger you get them) and then you could place, or duck tape the neodymium magnet on the inside of your car, directly under the antena section, and then the magnet under your antena should get a strong grip to the neodymium magnet, just make sure that before you duck tape the magnet inside, that you are putting it on the correct side so that it won't repel the magnetic field of the antenna, but you want it to attract it (as in pull it, instead of pushing it forward).
It used to be 14 back in the 70's. 11m was open, during the 70's and we worked the USA and beyond on just a few watts. I had one the first Cobra 148's My handle was 'Disco Duck'
CB is very much alive in the US also I have a CB in my truck and have had one for years we have a bunch of local boys(NC) on 15 And all the truckers are still on 19
Running a 100 Watt radio with 50% more FM deviation on a band that has a maximum legal output of 4 Watts makes you get heard surprisingly well, even with that tiny antenna :-)
We used to try to do it the other way, doing anything we could to improve/modify/tweek/tune an antenna - and then see what we could do on half a watt. The advantage then also being that you could then usually hear the other guy answer! Loads of fun - dropping "in the holes" where there was double spacing on (iirC) five channels so they were always very quiet and perfect for dx. 3, 11, 15, 19 and 22 (I think) had the double spacing so "Go low, 11 in the hole" meant you were sitting nicely between channel 11 and 12, one range down - and it was super quiet. I seem to recall the 10KC shift was nothing more (on most radios) than cutting a track to the PLL and bridging it with a 1n4148 and a 1n4148 via a switch to either 12v or deck. Four decades ago though, so i might be a bit out!
This brings back great memories mate. We had a President Mckinley in my dads VW camper. Loved it. Thanks for this vid. 14 for a copy and 19 was truckers.
Your frequencys are different then ours in america. We could get a big fine for transmitting on 27.785. Our channel 19 is 27.185. We go from 26.965 to 27.405, 1 to 40. Around here we use channel 38 alot but not on am but on LSB
I was on the radio back in the 90's, local am/fm and sidebands for a bit of dxing. Had QSL cards from all around the world. Then the internet really took off and all my friends stopped. It's a great hobby. I had a simple Superstar 3900 and a 100watt linear amp. Modest setup but did the job!
I still use my cb got back into it as a base a few years ago .. always had one in my truck .... when skip is rolling people come out of the woodwork .. its a fun time
Cheers Andy, I’m loving CB after many years , I have a Ham licence (thanks Covid) but CB for me is just so much better, nothing better than making that contact , all the best mate
On CB if you do not have enough power to burn the finals of the local emergency communications center equipment need to get more. When I was a young boy 1980’s my dad had 500k in his truck alone and the base was pushing no less than 1 mil. When my dad gave his call sign everybody gave him the channel or was repairing their radio. For those wandering what 1 million watts of transmitting power can do you can be heard on unplugged televisions.
Still looking/hearing out for you Andy. 54 Dallas! I've been hearing alot of y'all here in Texas. 4 double 4 out of Scotland comes across almost every day, 711 Dublin, Ireland, Irish 13 Ireland, 888 Scotland, 037 Andy Yorkshire UK, 676 Serge Northern UK, 45 UK, and many more I couldn't write down fast enough. You guys are BANGING IN!! Big Radios in England. Rogeo, Rogeo!! 54 David Dallas!
That CB you're using looks fancier than most police scanners I've used. 😂 I have an old 40 channel "Realistic" handheld from Radio Shack that I tried about a year ago. Takes like 10 batteries, has an antenna a mile long. It still works, and works WELL. I was surprised.
All you blokes worrying about the antenna mount and the VSWR, look at the display, around 1.2-1.3 to 1! An aluminium roof will still offer a ground plane. Mag mount antennas generally do not require "grounding". Antenna "ground" and "ground plane" are not the same thing.The 891 is a cracking radio built for Ham use and has with way more functionality and config than you really need on CB. I use one on the Ham bands with an ATAS antenna and it's great. I'll not go on about the legalities of it but it's quite an expensive radio to use just for CB.
as far as your mag mount not sticking to the car, prepare a steel plate to mount inside the headliner, strip some 14awg wire (1/8 of the length of the whip of the antenna) solder the wire ground radials to the plate and attach it all inside the headliner. Then you can have your mag mount stick very well.
I started in cb back in the early to mid 1970. I had a Thor 6 converted to a cb set. Mine was a dsb set and running 50 watts. I has to wait to transmit and needed time to warm up. That was a tube set back then. Now I'm on ham bands but go back to cb and listen to traffic.
good times indeed - as u had to be discreet, I had an electric telescopic 27mghz aerial that worked just fine - Also bought a 100 watt 'burner' whilst in the Tyrol, but never got to use it (prob just as well!)
Awesome to see the radio going off over there in the UK!! Check out the CB Lounge 2112 on my channel for a thriving local CB community in Northern Nevada, CB is alive and well here!! 73's from 2112, Carson City, Nevada.
I got into CB radio here in the states back in the mid-1960s. Plus I used CB in trucking for over forty years. After all the idiots started ruining CB I only used it to communicate with my fellow company drivers. I started to get into Ham radio back then but I couldn't afford to buy the equipment. Later on, when I could afford the equipment I was turned off by the self-appointed Ham radio gods who wanted to point out every mistake that was made and to criticize and expected you to bow down to their authority like they were an extension of the FCC. I may still get my ham ticket. I have the GMRS license I first got it back in the early 1990s then I let it lapse Finally got it again in 2013. 73's Cheers and Beers
That was fun. Good memories. I will now break out my old radio and mag-mount (also aluminium roof) and give it a try next week. Cheers from the states. Maybe we'll catch up.
Yeah do it! I've got a video coming about how I got around the aluminium roof issue. I cant wait for the sunspot cycle to reach its peak this time so we can chat to you guys over there!
Thanks for posting this feature on CB radio, I was on CB back in 1990s in Portsmouth, I often think about getting a rig again to see what it's like nowadays.
I always thought it was 14 for a copy. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me after 40 years. A very interesting exercise and thanks for the info. Well done. Keep getting out there.😊
In the illegal AM and early days of legal FM, the convention (in my area, at any rate) was that 14 was, indeed, the general calling and 19 was the truckers' channel. But for many years now, 19 has been the calling channel for everyone. Unfortunately, in many areas it seems to be hogged by people who sit on 19, don't move to a working channel, and swear a lot. :-(
Maybe it was a local thing, back in the late 70s before FM, for the naughty people who had AM rigs, the calling channel was 27. In fact the one and only local CB radio shop was called 'Breaker 27'. Then when FM came along in '81 the calling channel was 14, for some reason. Happy days!
@@MisterCreamyDude one four for a copy come back ! Here in Sussex on the AM rigs we used late 70's early 80's they transmitted further distances than the FM legals
CB is for best long haul highways which there's an abundance of in the States, hence why its still a thing with US truckers. I prefer GMRS because there are repeaters; one on a nearby mountain allows me to talk over an entire metroplèx
Just come across your video, good stuff , I was on 585 on Sat as always call in on there, but i was on the homebase and we do get alot of noise with modern equipment causing all kinds of problems , but find and open space on a hill and you get out for miles. Ive been back on the radio for 3 years and its been great fun, also make my own videos about it. Best 73.
Awesome, I'll have to listen out for you! Yeah I'm struggling big time with noise at my office location it's almost full scale!!! If you go outside portable/mobile then suddenly the radio comes alive, I'm still amazed how far signals on 27mhz travel on sideband.
i still have all my cb radio gear from 35 years ago, bet it still works , how many watts were you using back in the eighties we only had very low watts 10-15 as standard if remember correctly but you used to be able to buy extra larger amplifiers to get out further not sure if all thta stuff is still available
I live near Basildon in Essex and I own a cb. Since this adventure are you going to get a set up at home or find an mount for the car that won't come off when you drive down the m25 going 70 mph ?
Mrs Thatcher sold the Am requencies to the emergency services and put a big hole in CB radio FM was hard to adjust to for many people and harder tom set up for a good clean transmission, rigs were either good or bad there were a lot of crap rigs out there.
This is one huge reason I think for things coming back. I know I bought radio gear and got my Tech license I need get off my duff and go after general.
Emax, plenty of info in the web. Depends upon your load. I have 3 deep cycle marine batteries along with a charge controller, 200 watt solar panel and a pure sine wave inverter. $600 total cost.
Just hooked one up for the first time in about 15 years in the US, different frequencies than across the pond. No locals so I called for a radio check on 36lsb. A guy 1,500mi away in Washington state gave me a clean bill of health😂😂 the next day I talked to another guy in southern UK from Tennessee. What roughly 4,300 miles? Good times
*Ah CB... the real social media, no blocking, banning or censorship, it forced you to deal with the difficulties of living in society and finding amicable compromises* 👍
Damn I miss the good old days, 163DT220 Calling here, used to 3 element yag in the garden and still have my QXL cards in the loft from all over the wold. had a 1kw valve burner too for SSB😀
@@MauriatOttolink QXL means "quick sell" - it was also the name of an auction website. In this case, though, I am sure the post is meant to refer to QSL cards - typically a personalised and postcard sized confirmation of the radio contact, swapped between hams and CBers, back in the day.
What killed CB here in North Norway was to many users with high power transmitters making so you could not speak with your neighbour 1km away because some guy with a Billion watt transmitter in Italy or Russia overpowering you... This was in the late 1990s.
CB isn't dead, probably won't be in the next 40 years either. I bought a Baofeng before covid to mess around with and got the local repeaters tuned in here in Australia and literally every night there is the same crowd on there chatting away.
Hi Andy listen there's still loads of action on the UK FM muppets and plenty of other stuff on the SSB and the mid band EU when it's open and don't worry about using a amateur radio opened everybody does it even I do it I've got a Yaesu FT-950 and a Sigma Venom 5/8 wave hy-gain silver rod in my back garden around 25 foot in the air and I get loads of stuff on the CB radio it's all really good fun and I've been licensed as a radio amateur since 01 and it's all been absolutely brilliant and I've been on the CB for the last 28 years and never given up so I do enjoy both sides of the hobby. Thanks and best 73's cheers. Stephen M3SNV 73's.
Ha ha ...I remember wee Bobby Jamieson commandeered channel 19 and made it the porno channel .Reading the stories from the mags to a silent audience .What a laugh it was .....Ps that would be circa 1981 or 82
