CB Radio

[loose cannon]

I used to have a Murphy Homebase a fidelity 3000 Homebase, thunderpole 3 on the side of the house, and a few car cb’s
harrier cbx, president and a midland that you could either bolt in your car or mount a battery pack and aerial that all sat in a little leather case so you could go walkabout,
Then the fox hunts on a Saturday night
Starting from kingsmead car park around midnight then it carried on untill daylight

Edited by loose cannon on Tuesday 11th September 19:52

[Easternlight]

ciege said:

r11co said:

9' genuine 1/4 wave - probably the biggest antenna you can run practically mobile.

Most antennas that claim to be 1/4, 1/2 and 5/8 wave are quoting equivalent electrical length ie. what the transmitter sees. The actual lengths are shorter than your 9' whip because the extra length has been wound round into a loading coil.

Ahh that explains the coil, always wondered.

So how come the same rig was much better (or so it appeared) on the roof of a megane and less so on the boot of the Rover?

Something to do with "ground plane"?





With the engine off to rule out interference etc.

It can't be just the height could it?

[e30m3Mark]

I had a Midland something or other, echo mike and DB47 (?) when I was a 70's kid. Sometimes wonder if people still use them? I borrowed an AM unit with sidebands and listened to some American truckers in the dead of night. It was like listening to aliens on another planet back then.

[UpTheIron]

r11co said:

There's money to be made trading in collectable CB radios though because there's still a few near-mint sets lurking in peoples' lofts.

That I'd true... sold off a few bits a couple of years ago as spares/repairs only as they had not been touched for 20+ years. Lugging a Ham Int Jumbo out the loft brought back fond memories! Couldn't believe how much people would pay.

[s p a c e m a n]

UpTheIron said:

r11co said:

There's money to be made trading in collectable CB radios though because there's still a few near-mint sets lurking in peoples' lofts.

That I'd true... sold off a few bits a couple of years ago as spares/repairs only as they had not been touched for 20+ years. Lugging a Ham Int Jumbo out the loft brought back fond memories! Couldn't believe how much people would pay.

I moved house a few months ago and found my old sommerkamp ranger knock off in the loft along with a burner and a couple of meters, was going to tip it with all of the old TVs and crap but thought I'd stick it on eBay at the last minute. Made the postage £5 so I wouldn't lose money and started it at 99p....


It made £150ish

[Roman Moroni]

I still hanker after a Sigma 4 aerial (although I'm probably 35 years too late!)

[r11co]

Easternlight said:

ciege said:

r11co said:

9' genuine 1/4 wave - probably the biggest antenna you can run practically mobile.

Most antennas that claim to be 1/4, 1/2 and 5/8 wave are quoting equivalent electrical length ie. what the transmitter sees. The actual lengths are shorter than your 9' whip because the extra length has been wound round into a loading coil.

Ahh that explains the coil, always wondered.

So how come the same rig was much better (or so it appeared) on the roof of a megane and less so on the boot of the Rover?

Something to do with "ground plane"?

This explains it quite well...



Combination of height and reflective properties of the vehicle body being used as a ground plane. The antenna is best placed centrally on the roof.

[HiAsAKite]

I have a 28Mhz(?) CB set that I use on navigational touring rallies (e.g. White Hat Rally and the like). Works quite well, better range than PMR bands, albeit I had to build my own ground plane to use it in a fibreglass car.

Worked pretty well all things considering.

[untakenname]

r11co said:

This explains it quite well...



Combination of height and reflective properties of the vehicle body being used as a ground plane. The antenna is best placed centrally on the roof.

Does that diagram still apply today for antennas with frequencies in the 380-400mhz range?

Thanks

[ciege]

r11co said:

Easternlight said:

ciege said:

r11co said:

9' genuine 1/4 wave - probably the biggest antenna you can run practically mobile.

Most antennas that claim to be 1/4, 1/2 and 5/8 wave are quoting equivalent electrical length ie. what the transmitter sees. The actual lengths are shorter than your 9' whip because the extra length has been wound round into a loading coil.

Ahh that explains the coil, always wondered.

So how come the same rig was much better (or so it appeared) on the roof of a megane and less so on the boot of the Rover?

Something to do with "ground plane"?

This explains it quite well...



Combination of height and reflective properties of the vehicle body being used as a ground plane. The antenna is best placed centrally on the roof.

r11co - well bugger me, who'd have thought this would be so, however yes, that's explains it perfectly!!

Other than bunging it on the roof, which will naturally ruin the who Bandit look, is there anything I could so with cabling etc.

I have some ferrite clips around the power, are they really any use?

Could I do anything with extra earth I've wondered.

I think the rig is stock, it pull in pretty well, however certain it's not putting out extra, it pretty clean to be honest and doesn't appear to have been too messed around.

There's a few on around here in Kirk Ella, Hull and around East Yorks.

I'm certain some are the same as 30 years ago...."How's my rig sounding?" "What you doing? Just got up (11.30am) having a brew and a ciggie, going round to Dave's later, he's got a CBX to swap for this power supply etc etc etc"

Happy days!

[grumpy52]

It seems that it's mostly tipper drivers that use it around the quarries these days .
I had an FM rig back in the day a Comtron 40 with a 100watt boot with a custom built boot mounted aerial.
Also had an AM Midland rig that we would take up to Dunstable Downs and if the conditions were right we could connect with the states or Europe .

[Davie]

No idea on the technicalities but used one as part of a group doing a rally to Italy a couple of years back and for the large part, it was a good laugh... as one poster said, great for warning of danger ahead and generally verbally abusing each other to pass the time on French motorways. Also good for playing assorted songs to each other... such as The Lonely Island featuring T-Pain at high volume whilst boarding one of P&O's finest... and even after several hundred outings, the Convoy theme tune never got boring. The only downside was that once we'd all arrived and split up to head home on our own routes, it felt very lonely in the car.

[donkmeister]

Need_A_Username said:

Do people still use CB radios on the road or has that gone the way of the carrier pigeon?

My commute is used by truckers a lot, yet google isn't very good at warning of slow traffic or accidents and I was wondering if being able to hear truckers talk to each other about issues would be a helpful way to avoid delays.

I looked into this a while back for the same reasons... I found a video on YouTube (admittedly in America) where someone bought a CB radio at Walmart, fitted it, then did a long road trip. He made contact just once over a few thousand miles. I then saw another video where someone had a CB at their house, spent hours flicking through all the channels trying to find just something, and most of what he picked up was half of a conversation where one party was within range and the other was not.

So, it would seem truckers no longer sit there chattering away on CB radio. I can't help but wonder that if the logistics firms DID still fit the CBs, perhaps their drivers might be more alert as they would spend less time watching TV/porn on their phones and reading books as they drive.

To me, it seems like the best use now is for a closed group (like the chap above who used them in a rally event) as you would have the airwaves to yourselves now. Use it before the spectrum gets snapped up for something else.

[GC8]

I had a CB radio in my work vehicle for the last four years and I used it every day. I wouldnt consider trying to find a channel that had 'local' drivers talking ste on it. It isnt the early 1980s ffs!

[fttm]

I run trucks in Western Canada hauling cryogenics so safety is paramount even more so during winter months , 2-4 inches of snow on Thurs so it's coming , CB's are part of the safety culture here letting drivers be aware of what they're heading into, be it weather an hour down the road or a wreck around the next bend ,a vital piece of equipment for us .

[e30m3Mark]

Won't we all be dusting them off once the zombie apocalypse comes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV_0UwvXpC0

[r11co]

untakenname said:

Does that diagram still apply today for antennas with frequencies in the 380-400mhz range?

The ground plane effect is not as critical at those wavelengths (approx. 75cm) plus the antenna itself will be more efficient as it doesn't have to be as long to get decent gain so you are probably not going to see the same amount of signal loss, but the general rule of thumb that the higher the better still applies.

[Dog Star]

Davie said:

The Lonely Island featuring T-Pain at high volume

Motherfkerrrrrrrrrrr!

I had one - I still have it - an Amstrad CB901 back in the early 80s.

Great way of getting your end away with council birds.

This caused SERIOUS issues when I was 15, as I met what *sounded* like the sexiest girl ever on it. I can hear her voice even now.
I would sit up all night talking rubbish with this lass.

When I eventually got to meet her it turned out that she was a REALLY council, huge fatty with a six month old kid by the town's stupidest football fan (who she was living with). She was dog rough and 21 years old, but what do you expect a 15 year old to do?

When my parents found out it caused no end of domestic bother, and somehow this got back to my school which was a very strict and expensive private school and it ended up with me getting lectures in the headmasters office and all sorts.

Luckily I was saved by the fact that I got an after school job in my local Tesco and there met this 23 year old (I was 17 by then), very very pretty chubby Itailian girl who was working there part time. This caused me to bin off the council fatty, and that was the end of that chapter. Luckily my mum and dad adored the Italian girl and I went out with her for ten years and still see her now, and I'm 50.

Never used the CB since, though it does switch on.

[baliongo]

When i cleared my fathers loft out last year i found a few old CB`s incl Cobra 148`s (jentec),a Ham jumbo,some Stalker`s, 3 superstar 360`s...and a belcom ls102

I have no idea where they came from and i have never had any interest but i see there is some value in them..

[GC8]

Dog Star said:

Motherfkerrrrrrrrrrr!

I had one - I still have it - an Amstrad CB901 back in the early 80s.

Great way of getting your end away with council birds.

This caused SERIOUS issues when I was 15, as I met what *sounded* like the sexiest girl ever on it. I can hear her voice even now.
I would sit up all night talking rubbish with this lass.

When I eventually got to meet her it turned out that she was a REALLY council, huge fatty with a six month old kid by the town's stupidest football fan (who she was living with). She was dog rough and 21 years old, but what do you expect a 15 year old to do?

When my parents found out it caused no end of domestic bother, and somehow this got back to my school which was a very strict and expensive private school and it ended up with me getting lectures in the headmasters office and all sorts.

Luckily I was saved by the fact that I got an after school job in my local Tesco and there met this 23 year old (I was 17 by then), very very pretty chubby Itailian girl who was working there part time. This caused me to bin off the council fatty, and that was the end of that chapter. Luckily my mum and dad adored the Italian girl and I went out with her for ten years and still see her now, and I'm 50.

Never used the CB since, though it does switch on.

TLDR: “I like fatties”.