Getting Back Into CB

[n2ize]

Have any former CB'ers turned Ham's thought about getting back into CB ?

[K7SGJ]

No

[KC2UGV]

Have any former CB'ers turned Ham's thought about getting back into CB ?

I do both. CB radio channel 11 here can be rather interesting later at night, with some good folk chatting. No noise toys, super power (I think one person runs 50W sometimes), etc etc. Channel 21 on the weekends can be a hoot, there's one old codger who is pretty hilarious when drinking.

Depending on location, MURS can be fun too sometimes. Especially when in close proximity to a Walmart.

[N8YX]

I do both.

Likewise. I'm a radio enthusiast, not just a "ham operator"...and those motorcycle-mounted CB sets come in handy when traveling with a group of bikes.

CB radio channel 11 here can be rather interesting later at night, with some good folk chatting.

32 in this area, although I rarely frequent it. Most of my 11M activity is on CH38 LSB or on CH1 AM (the motorcycle mobile calling frequency).

No noise toys, super power (I think one person runs 50W sometimes), etc etc. Channel 21 on the weekends can be a hoot, there's one old codger who is pretty hilarious when drinking.

In the Stoner thread I mention one of the locals with a mistuned Ranger product. Most of the crowd in this area doesn't understand the "minimum power" bit. If I was one of them (and didn't value my amateur license) I could easily bring any number of HF rigs plus amplifiers to bear on those frequencies. Alas, I keep it legal and try to maximize signal through antenna work. Hence the search for the perfect type-accepted set.

Depending on location, MURS can be fun too sometimes. Especially when in close proximity to a Walmart.

I have a 19-1210 mobile rig plus 4 SV-220 handhelds around the shack. The mobile rig is tied into one of my tri-band Comet verticals and the Spirits are set up to track its channel and PL scheme. Anywhere in the general neighborhood vicinity is doable as far as communications between base and handhelds is concerned.

[W2NAP]

I do both. CB radio channel 11 here can be rather interesting later at night, with some good folk chatting. No noise toys, super power (I think one person runs 50W sometimes), etc etc. Channel 21 on the weekends can be a hoot, there's one old codger who is pretty hilarious when drinking.

Depending on location, MURS can be fun too sometimes. Especially when in close proximity to a Walmart.

I dont mess with 11m around here all that is left is pretty much the bottom of the barrel.
I dont always do MURS but when I do its always channel 4 or 5 close to a china-mart

[NY4Q]

For kicks, I just scanned from 28.0 down to 26.8. I never heard one word of English. 27.025 was just a roar of noise.

Have at it!

[N8YX]

For kicks, I just scanned from 28.0 down to 26.8. I never heard one word of English. 27.025 was just a roar of noise.

Have at it!

There is a goodly amount of "sane" (note qualifier) activity on the SSB spots. When the band rolls up for the night I turn the BC2000's preamp on and see what there is to see in the way of weak signals from CH36-40.

Back in the waning days of the boom (say, from 1980 onwards) many of the regulars didn't bother to turn their radios on until well after sunset local time. After the omnipresent summer Es racket died off and things quieted down, we routinely worked stations which were 60-100mi away. If you've ever played around with weak-signal 2 and 6M SSB, the experience was much like that. A good receiver and a good directional antenna were a must. Many people (myself included) slaved high(er) performance communications receivers to our Class D transceivers and used them to dig out weak signals.

Mind you, this was back in the days where the average 11M operator was running one of three classes of equipment: An older crystal-controlled transceiver such as a Browning Mark III or Tram D201 in conjunction with an external VFO, an early generation synthesized transceiver (23 or 40CH) or some model of ham transceiver. Of the latter, the most popular set by far was the FT-101 series and the Drake TR7 brought up a close second...though other amateur equipment was heard 'round the band at times.

The key thing to remember is that unless Dr. Diddlesticks got his fat fingers into a "vintage" radio, almost none of them would create splatter to the point which required one to lean heavily on the filtering provided by a commercial-grade receiver in order to hear those weak signals. The current crop of garbage "export" radios flooding the U.S. have noisy synthesizers (which results in an increase in transmitted wide-band noise) and many don't incorporate an optimally designed PA. Thus, good luck working those distant neighbors late at night if the Power Rangers (and Galaxys too!) set up shop in your vicinity.

[NY4Q]

I enjoyed a lot of the CB band, but mostly used "THE FREE BAND". On CB, I remember "459 Bakersville" and The old "North Carolina Moonshiner". Ahh those days. Mom would get up at 3AM and find me in the laundry room where I had my CB and run my ass to bed.

I had a Realistic TRC-458 (uPD858 PLL), modified the clarifier circuit for TX/RX "slide", modded the 1st RF amp for a wider bandwidth. The radio could actually RX pretty good from about 26.8 to 27.9, and I built a fairly decent amp with a pair of 6HF5s and a power transformer from an RCA TV that died. I still have those tubes.

Nightly, we'd get on 27.505 LSB and have great fun. I was in high school then, so let's say that was about 1979. OH, and I had a Starduster in a Pine tree in the front yard. I would guess it was up there about 50 feet.

[WØTKX]

I do from time to time, my Johnson Messenger 352 is a good radio.

Just a 23 channel, but I do catch some SSB anyway.

There's some reasonably sane local AM ragchews in the Denver area.

[W5BRM]

I use CB just about every day as my job pretty much demands it. It's been years since I viewed CB as a hobby though.

Back in the late 80's I used to live in Central NY and there were a whole bunch of us that used to get on from around 9pm to as late as 2-3 in the morning. We formed a club called "Catskill Transmitters" and used ch34 as the club freq. At our peak I think we had a roster of around 90 if memory serves. Not too many of them are still around anymore. A lot of them have passed on. Our coverage area was from about East Worcester NY to Sydney NY and running north almost to Utica and south to around Delhi NY. We had quite a few from Cooperstown and other small burgs all over that area. There are quite a few that actually got into ham radio although you could never get them to admit now that they were on CB BEFORE the were hams....lol

We had a small hardcore group that used to freeband almost all the time. I was hardly ever in that group though. I had the radio for it though.

Had a Galaxy Saturn that actually helped me get interested in Ham Radio. I used to listen to CW and try to figure it out but never was very good at it. During the 5 years or so I was really into CB, I had the Galaxy Saturn, Cobra 2000, Cobra 142gtl, 148gtl mobile, President Grant and other assorted lower quality radio's. I had a Johnson Messeger at one point as well. All the radios were all mic'd with D-104 lollipop mics.

As to getting back into it now? I doubt I would ever get back into it as a hobbyist. All my friends are mostly gone or moved away. I dont live up in NY anymore and where I live now is mostly dead for CB. It's gone to me now and I could never go back.