Leagally Trashing The Bands; The New CB'ers

[koØm]

As I sat there on 7.163 MHz listening to a station employing "Wide-Band /Hi-Fi" SSB who was there assisting a normal SSB'er with his audio, I could not help but to think about Cee-Bee. The "Big Gun" whose signal occupied at least 3 Kc with a bass response probably down to 20 cps sounded like "WLW - The Big One"; "Clear Channel AUDIO" but, the adjacent frequencies were unusable because of his (for lack of a better term) "Bleed-over". Either you listened and hopefully talked to him or, you had two choices; QSY to a different frequency or sit there watching your radio like you watch TV.

So, I asked myself, "What's the real difference between the Citizens Band Service and the Amateur Radio Service?" They both resemble each other quite closely.

The entry point for one service is very low in dollars while, the other service involves jumping through a lot of hoops and spending a goo-gob of money (compared to CB) just to say "CQ". Here, is where the differences become clearer; While there are (comparatively) only a few Big Gun CB operators left on 11 meters, there are many-many Amateur operators who have invested multiple "Beau-Greena" into Wide Side Bands", California Kilowatts" and, Stacked Arrays who just 'Heterodyne' the bands. They (along with the OO's and wanna-be'er) are always there to tell you how to run your radio station according to the FCC Level Ground rules. "This frequency is in use"......., "W-blank-blank-blank for I.D. on the 10's" ......., "CQ Contest-DX"......etc; Radio with a stick stuck up their backsides!

"Cee-Bee" is radio with personality; you can be yourself, speak in any manner natural to you (Hi-Hi) without being ostracized, and rag chew as long as you can hold the frequency. You can key on your friend and pass "Bogus Fives" and make people laugh from here to "Skipland"......"Is the frequency in use........?" "Damn right the "Frequency" is in use while I use my "Lip Cutter" on that Mudduck.....!

Well, I will turn my receive down on my 'Propagation Monitor" and go back to 20 or 40 meters and humor myself with 20 watts on PSK (canned transmissions or multiple mistyped words). Has anyone figured out have to convert speech to text in a PSK environment......Wishful thinking

......"Tell him I keyed on him, I been there and gone". "Leave that Cotton-chopper slobbering in his mic; talk to who you hear, not who you kinow!"

Dee-Eee, "Knock-Out-Zero-Mike for I.D. on the ten."

.

[PA5COR]

With my FT 2000 D i can listen up to 4 KHz wide.
Our novices that have 7050 to 7100 are doing lots of audio things as well, mostly if i hear one with lots of lows i ask him why? wasting precious power of his max 25 watts in the frequncy band it is useless?
I use the EQplus for the 2000 most under 200 Hz is filtered out, mid/high emphasized for my low voice.
One call is mostly enough to break a pile up getting unsollicitated good audio reports clear, loud and no distortion.
Normal qso's 100-2900 Hz setting dx always 300-2700 Hz settings.

I tell our novices to put as much effort into building and understanding antenna's as they now do with their audio settings equalisers etc.
Now there is some serious gain to be made.
I'm not a BBC news reader, i do in communication as effective and as clean can.
C.B. here is almost dead, most die hards went for the novice license.
The rest just died out.

[KJ3N]

[N8YX]

Pretty much.

As far as that Cee Bee thing, the CP2000 I tout so regularly needs no audio modifications to make it sound good, and the receiver has one of the highest (if not THE highest) 10KHz-spacing rejection figures of anything in the Class D market - past or present. Let the boys splatter - this thing doesn't give a sh!t. It's the Honey Badger of 11M gear. What's it spend its life doing? Eating Cobras... :rofl:

[WX7P]

Pretty much.

Let the boys splatter - this thing doesn't give a sh!t. It's the Honey Badger of 11M gear. What's it spend its life doing? Eating Cobras... :rofl:

Cute. But I like it!

[KG4CGC]

If you're not splattering across 40 plus channels then you're not doing it right, was the mantra of the 80s and 90s. I couldn't stand it. Used to hear one guy back in the day even after I disconnected my antenna.
His reasoning? "I paid mah taxes!"

[kb2vxa]

"If you're not splattering across 40 plus channels then you're not doing it right, was the mantra of the 80s and 90s. I couldn't stand it."

That reminds me of one such case back in my CB daze. I was hearing splatter across the band and beyond (my receiver was a Heathkit RX-1 Mohawk) and I never experienced receiver front end overload so I decided to look for the operating channel. After much aggravating tuning around I found this pipsqueak signal with horribly distorted audio which led me to wonder if he was using a cheese grater for a mic with a meat grinder for a non linear linear. Amazing, wasting all that power over a considerable frequency spread as a piss weaker when if it were concentrated where it belonged he would have had an S9 signal. Now for some TV and music ripoffs, Splatter, what's the matter with you? (Chatter was a monkey.) When you think over modulation equals loud audio your signal becomes a Puddle Of Mudd.

Maybe I'm the one
Maybe I'm the one who is the schizophrenic psycho (yeah)
Maybe I'm the one
Maybe I'm the one who is the paranoid flake-o

"Used to hear one guy back in the day even after I disconnected my antenna."

The classic case of front end overload, it may have been a clean signal but being CB I tend to doubt it. (;->) That reminds me of the locals "down the shore" trying to locate The Crusher on Thunder Base, the most powerful station in Ocean County. The antenna was hidden in a tree and whenever they got into Beachwood, a little postage stamp town like this one their receivers would overload and the S meters would read backward. They were quite jealous because Crusher attracted the crowds with his funny antics and High Pockets in particular because his stacked 3s on a 60' tower fed by a 100W amp couldn't compete with Thunder Base rather appropriately named. The really funny part is not a one ever thought of disconnecting the antenna... DUH?

As an aside, I tracked down a number of pirate radio stations back in the heyday by listening on the car radio (not easy with AGC on AM and IF limiters on FM) and disconnecting the antenna when I got in close. Being a pirate myself at the time the guys were quite friendly and each one when found became a sister station in our underground network but now I'm rambling like Ramblin' Jack on Thunder Base.

I leave you with this thought. Splattering across the band gives you a distinct advantage, unlike the others you don't have to change channels when you're on ALL channels.

[NY4Q]

[AE1PT]

Has anyone figured out have to convert speech to text in a PSK environment......Wishful thinking

I been doing it for years--but cannot attest it will work with PSK programs other than DM780.

You must first buy Nuance 'Dragon' Naturally Speaking and install it on your station computer. I have found to avoid lots of conflict and line issues it's best to use a USB sound device for your microphone. For my shack I have used a Microsoft Lifechat headset--and am currently using a Plantronics UC+ Pro bluetooth headset.

Train the application to recognize your voice. Takes about 15 minutes at the start, and then spend about an hour reading out of a Reader's Digest or something. Make yourself a list in a word processing program of special words used in ham radio. Abbreviations one has to get a bit creative with--as you must train the NS engine to recognize the word or abbreviation. You can also phonetically spell out any abbreviations. Use the 'scan documents' feature to build your vocabulary from the list.

Customize a couple macros to begin and end sections of the qso. One jumps in with voice recognition after the opening macro, and has a couple others to close out and stop transmitting.

Also, make sure that the shack box has balls enough to run DM780 and Naturally Speaking. An old Celeron with 1 gig is not going to get it...

[NQ6U]

Does anyone else see the irony in using a speech-to-text app to work PSK-31?