I had a sidebander II back in the day. I used to DX the "Freeband", above channel 23. I pulled out one of the xtals and replaced it with an old Simpson signal generator. It was noticeably drifty.Quote:
Originally Posted by kb2crk
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I had a sidebander II back in the day. I used to DX the "Freeband", above channel 23. I pulled out one of the xtals and replaced it with an old Simpson signal generator. It was noticeably drifty.Quote:
Originally Posted by kb2crk
The SBEs in the shack are also both 23 channel. One is a Trinidad and the other is a Console II. My first CB was a Trinidad.
No... been away from it for 40 years. Never been tempted to go back.Quote:
Originally Posted by n2ize
Oh yeah, Starduster. Works good on 10!
I sure see a lot of qrz & eham bios referring to the ole venerable antron A-99. Guys just swearing by them.
I remember swearing AT them. Especially after getting a handful of fiberglass silvers grabbing onto one of the dumb things after it had been up a few years.
Yeah, stardusters......that goes back a ways!
i bought a cheap CB radio intending to set it up and listen in ... it's still in the box. i'm so lazy ...
I see no one in the US has 11 meters on their web SDR receivers. I thought that might have been an easier way to listen in without opening that box. Damn.
Just listen to any of 'those' frequencies on 75, 40 or 20 & get yer fix that way. Right?
I need to get a handheld one. A lot of OHV trails still use CB, and even if my range is only a quarter mile or so it might be useful if I break an axle and need to let the next vehicle ahead know what happened.
Here's how it worked, or didn't work for me back in the daze, make of it what you will. Two were given to me, I never bought one because they're just not what they're cracked up to be. The one with a telescopic whip was just too unwieldy and the one with a loaded whip was rather like a 2M HT with a rubber duck we call a rubber dummy load only worse. The long and short of it they just couldn't get out of my back yard quite literally, the closest station only a few blocks away said I was down in the mud. Since 5 watts is 5 watts they worked like any other rig on the base and mobile antennas.
"...it might be useful if I break an axle and need to let the next vehicle ahead know what happened."
That depends on how far ahead that vehicle is, what sort of rig and antenna it has, what you're using for an antenna and how crowded the channel is. For my money I'd use just what I had in the mobubble, a through hole mounted base loaded whip, a plain Jane radio and a commercial dynamic hand held mic for better than crap "stock mic" audio. No useless bells and whistles on the radio, no roger beeps, gooney birds, echo mic or any of the other nonsense some are so fond of these days, CB is Communicating Band, not Children's Band... but I'd better stop here before I get into why I sold out and moved on.
Oh and by the way, if you break an axle it's nature's way of telling you you're doing it wrong, next time you may break your neck. (;->)
Yeah, I'm resisting the temptation to put antennas on this one for as long as I can. Maybe a 2M/440 whip on the bull bar. I had HF mobile for 10 years, and may have used it a handful of times...Quote:
Originally Posted by kb2vxa
Just means the road is starting to get interesting :yum:
Haven't C B'd in a while. Thinking about reworking the antenna. Extra stormy Summer made the inverted V into a curly L.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WØTKX
Question is not if we can, It is if we should.....
As I type this, my new-to-me TS-930S is tuned to our local free-for-all AM channel. Everything currently in the shack which covers HF is also capable of reception across the band...though for transmitting purposes I gravitate to a Stoner Pro-40. My CP-2000s are tucked away, awaiting replacement of all electrolytic capacitors. Yes, even those used in top-of-the-line equipment tend to age.
If I ever get the space and can find both an OSC-40 scope and an SWR-40 station console, I'd like to put up a Wilson Super Laser...the 16 element version. For an omnidirectional antenna I'd choose a dual-polarity AV-190. I think Don Stoner designed the station console with such an application in mind, as it allows selection of four antennas. Perfect for monitoring then isolating a desired station with the rotary antenna. Vertical polarization would come in handy for those times when one wants to monitor the local AM gang in whatever city.
Go-lee, yew put so mooch e-fart inta cee bee mebbe ahl her yew swimmin in da bowl.
I kinda miss the "Personality-Radio" craze of the 70's and 80's.Quote:
Originally Posted by kb2vxa
Like when my neighbor "Pistol Pete" who ran a 2K Henry was talking to "Lil Bumper" in Mardi Gras City and, I keyed down on top of him and passed the "Bogus Five" (10-5), saying, "Tell that boy to drop that microphone and run like the whole world is on fire and he's got Gasoline drawers on."
My favorite phrase was, "Tell that boy (just about every key-down started with those words) that I said, 'Stop crying and start to buying'."
Citizen's Band radio was my "Viagra" back then, Amateur Radio doesn't have the same effect on me now-a-daze.
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Some repeaters become a bit "piratized" during rag chew sessions, doubling, and such mayhem
Horrors
Ah, the old Saturn for an antenna.. I used an AV-170 first as a chicken band and the adjusted for 10 meters back in 87. they made some damn good antennas.Quote:
Originally Posted by N8YX
The old Saturn? The Saturn I remember is the unfortunately now made of unobtainium Cushcraft Saturn 6 horizontally polarized 6M mobile antenna.
"Citizen's Band radio was my "Viagra" back then, Amateur Radio doesn't have the same effect on me now-a-daze."
Until CB went to Hell in a hand-basket and the sharks had such a feeding frenzy they ate each other and the band died we had a blast every day and night discussing particle physics. Somebody would start the ball rolling with "Our solar system is like an atom, what if it IS an atom in a much larger universe?" and we set a course for the third star to the left and sailed on 'till morning. When CB stood for Chop Busting we had fun for a while and sold out, a few years later traded KMD7606 for KB2VXA after a short stint as WB2UZD an AM Gangsta on the 3885 three ring circus, for a time another CB in its own right.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end. we'd sing and dance forever and a day. Timtron sang his version of Piss Weak Mobile Blues accompanied by Guitar Man playing with a tube as a slide, don't quit your day job Timmy. (;->) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl-DY8IsUB0
Ooh look, another zombie thread awakening. Wake up old, dead thread.
My old friend from Portland, who recently and unexpectedly passed back in August had been something of a radio hoarder in his radio heyday. His widow called me and said she wanted me to have his gear. I was stunned and simultaneously honored to be the recipient of such a personal gift. Oddly enough, the Cobra 2000 another friend gave me a couple years back also came from Monte's stable of rigs originally.
Now I have five cb rigs that could be rotated through the yet to be created 11m operating position. All of them have had the mods most popular on 11; "sliders", extra channels up and down and the peak n tweak. All of it will have to be gone through prior to see how the last decade of storage has affected it. After he had his stroke, the gear was all packed up and in storage in case he got back to being able to communicate. It never came to be.
So the list of 11m gear goes like this:
1) Cobra 2000 prior
2) Uniden Washington
3) Uniden Grant
4) two Uniden HR-2510
With all this stuff to use, it looks like I'll be getting back into CB to some extent, especially with cycle 25 ramping up. Even if I've yet to hear any activity close in the whole 16 years I've been here. Or no antenna yet.
Fun times ahead!
Uniden made some great CB rigs back in the day, now they make some great scanners. It all started as Electra corp. Bearcat scanners, my BC-101 has the hottest single conversion receiver I've ever had, 0.1uV/20dB VHF and 0.25uV/20dB (full) quieting measured on a Cushman Station Monitor borrowed from a New Jersey Turnpike shop.
I remember one of their CBs, don't remember the model number that was dual use, 5W 23ch CB and 30W 4 ch 11M BRS with a resistor jumpered. It had a sweet sounding audio processor when that function was switched on, none of that cheese grater modulation and splatter over half the band after a truck stop "tech's" golden screwdriver got through with it and a "power mic" cranked up to 11. I've done those mods along with a few tweaks and peaks, but I knew where to keep the alignment tools out of. NEVER mess with a crystal synthesizer unless you want transmit AND receive spurs all over the band and out of band! Be sure to thoroughly check out the T&Ps before putting the rigs on the air so you don't end up as the neighbor from Hell, just sayin'.
I've mentioned my AM Gangsta daze starting on CB, not legally of course with boat anchor ham transmitters that I modified the speech amps in. That took a 180 when the band went to hell between overcrowding and all day "skip shooting". That's when a Heathkit Apache went on the warpath with audio that cut through the "Hash, mash, and trash" like a hot knife through butter. I did most of my operating late in the evening when things quieted down and my friends came on. Finally the last straw broke the camel's back and I sold out to a friend 90 air miles to the south who was chomping at the bit to have "the best sounding signal on the band" in his words. Here is my last CB station, everything interconnected by selector switches on the basement wall, one seen in the picture. Then there was my Altec AM Gangsta mic, you can't transmit Angel Music unless you have where it all begins, with the mic.
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