Are we better off without CB? We have FRS....

[KC2UGV]

I'm wondering how much power it takes to do this

10-20Kw, there abouts I'd hazard. You can sometimes get coronal discharge on UHF at about 150W.

[n0iu]

If Quagmire was on during the CB boom he would have had every bored, horny housewife in range beating a path to his door, like this mysterious, intriguing sex god with a party pad had... heh heh heh.

All Herman Munster got was a couple of kids playing space aliens!

[N8YX]

If Quagmire was on during the CB boom he would have had every bored, horny housewife in range beating a path to his door, like this mysterious, intriguing sex god with a party pad had... heh heh heh.

Let me put it thusly:

If - back in the "CB heyday" - you couldn't pull a different piece of trim at least weekly instead of nightly you were doing something horribly wrong.

Amateur radio was for the hard-core experimenter and professional RF geek.
Shortwave radio (SWBC listening in particular) was for the news and political affairs crowd.
Press RTTY monitoring was a combination of the two above. Not everyone had the technical acumen required to construct a demodulator; those who did and could intercept the transmissions were well ahead of the information curve.
GMRS and the other non public service/public safety radio services were for running a business.
CB radio was for getting laid, finding the nearest party...ministering to the heathens and generally making an ass out of one's self.
Scanner monitoring was for keeping localized tabs on what was occurring with the last two via PS dispatch callouts.

As soon as Compuserve hit the scene with its "CB simulator" and online dating facilities, people looking to hook up went there instead of dealing with the incessant roar of skip during the day or the incessant roar of drunk CBers at night.

Fun was to be had on the service, but people wanted a more anonymous way of going about it. The rest is history.

[kb2vxa]

My CB "dating" went on day and night depending on which shift the OM worked.

I was more into MW and SW DXing and more than broadcast.

I didn't have a RTTY setup, but I did browse the TTY room at WERA during regular visits. There was pretty much what you see on TV today, about 10 minutes of news and the rest of the hour fluff and filler. Sometimes there were operator chats, those got rather interesting.

I used 3 scanners, two borrowed had local PD crystals, mine was a 16 channel programmable dedicated to FBI monitoring. It really got interesting when I put it in the car and became the man watching the man watching the man. "HI RHINO!" Heh heh heh heh.....

After a few years vacation from radio a couple of friends, one being Sue KB2SFH arm twisted me into becoming KB2VXA and the rest is another chapter in radio history. Scanning My Back Pages (Dylan) my self taught radio/electronics helped along by CB experimentation launched my two careers, much better than factory employment and Amateur Radio. The test was a snap BTW, the only thing I had to study were the frequency allocations and in 15 minutes I passed with 100%. Not that it was a big accomplishment, so nothing worth bragging about.

[AC8KF WALT]

i see cb making a come back in the next few years. as money tightens, the internet locks down, cell phone restrictions and a more repressive government actions...the youth will rediscover it and make it their own. by then, most of nuts that ruin it will have died off.

[N8YX]

i see cb making a come back in the next few years. as money tightens, the internet locks down, cell phone restrictions and a more repressive government actions...the youth will rediscover it and make it their own. by then, most of nuts that ruin it will have died off.

I have had this same thought on numerous occasions, especially if government "kills" the Internet via draconian control of its traffic. Youth returning in great numbers will drive the idiots away and they'll use the Class D service for a number oof things it wasn't originally intended for - such as digital trasnmissions.

A linked data communications system which utilizes HF (CB), VHF (MURS) and UHF (GMRS/FRS) along with 802.x technology is not only well within the realm of possibility but is in all likelihood inevitable.

[n2ize]

I'm wondering how much power it takes to do this

RF power or brain power ?

[n2ize]

i see cb making a come back in the next few years. as money tightens, the internet locks down, cell phone restrictions and a more repressive government actions...the youth will rediscover it and make it their own. by then, most of nuts that ruin it will have died off.

I doubt it. Old tech is not going to usurp new tech. There are too many apps and features that make new tech desirable. Young people that grew up with new tech are certainly not going to drop it for old tech. It would be like expecting a young person to swap his iPhone for an AM transistor radio. Perhaps if there was an world wide atomic war or some major world calamity what few survive might have to drop down to low tech as a means of communication. But otherwise, I don't see it happening. Certainly not anytime soon. In fact to think about it, if such a major catastrophe were to happen and I somehow managed to survive (for a while at least) I may not want to communicate. Under such circumstances the fewer that know I exist the better.Might be best to remain unseen and unheard.

lastly, I doubt the gubmint is going to lock down the Internet to the point where people stop using it. They are not that stupid. The Internet is a major source of revenue and commerce and if the government forgets that fact the business sector will remind them. . Even if a person never intends to buy anything or spend money on line, sooner or later, via day to day communications, visits to private web sites, etc. something will whet a persons appetite and drive them towards commerce. For example, Ebay has recently gotten a lot of my business. I have been buying and collecting vintage and antique pocket watches. My interest in these old mechanical marvels came via communications I had on the internet that piqued my desire to find and posses at least a few of them. Most are in working order. Ebay made finding and collecting them easy. Think of millions of other transactions that occur. To make the internet so draconian that people are driven away will also drive away a lot of potential revenue.

[KC9SQR]

RF power or brain power ?

I was really wondering about RF power but you bring up a good point actually...
While I agree it's incredibly stupid to run that much power especially that close to ones self and others..

But you kind of wonder, this person has to have some smarts to be able to set up such a system and not kill themselves even on accident... So I sometimes wonder about their level of intelligence when I see stuff like that.. I wouldn't even want to be where the camera person is or within probably a mile of that place if I knew what was going on hahaha

I wonder does this person possess the ability to build such a system capable of such power? If so then how do they not know what is really going on with those levels of RF power..

Do they just simply have lots of money to buy stuff pre built and just got lucky not killing themselves with it installing it?

Or do they just have so much money that they paid someone else a pile of money to buy, build, and install everything for that person and it's just a matter of time before they take the cover off of one of those amplifiers and an effect similar to a squirrel touching more than one lead across a transformer happens when they touch the wrong part?

The things that make ya go hmmmmm

[koØm]

I'm wondering how much power it takes to do this

Cincinnati, Ohio August 2010

It's a "Top Secret" whatever was in the near truck (T-Bird / Bluegill), they will not allow you near it; windows tinted purple, Suburban hauled to the event on a flatbed then offloaded at the venue. They shoot out for the money and then load the Suburban back on the flatbed. Has 12 Leece-Neville (or ElectroDyne) Alternators

Small-Driver (in the decorated Suburban) was running two 3cx-20,000 tubes ( only 10 alternators) and, was doing well over 50 Kilowatts (for 15 seconds signaled by surplus Traffic Light off screen).

At the 37 second point, there is a fellow in a white Tee-Shirt (with yellow insignia) standing between the the two Suburbans; that's "Half Pint".

665154_103088986522925_1320414960_o.jpg

I was really wondering about RF power but you bring up a good point actually...

3CX5000, 3CX10,000 and 3CX20,000

While I agree it's incredibly stupid to run that much power especially that close to ones self and others..

Yup

But you kind of wonder, this person has to have some smarts to be able to set up such a system and not kill themselves even on accident... So I sometimes wonder about their level of intelligence when I see stuff like that.. I wouldn't even want to be where the camera person is or within probably a mile of that place if I knew what was going on hahaha

Engineering Smarts

I wonder does this person possess the ability to build such a system capable of such power? If so then how do they not know what is really going on with those levels of RF power..

Experience

Do they just simply have lots of money to buy stuff pre built and just got lucky not killing themselves with it installing it?

Most have the money, there are no "Pre-Built" appliances, they are custom order or you build it yourself.

Or do they just have so much money that they paid someone else a pile of money to buy, build, and install everything for that person and it's just a matter of time before they take the cover off of one of those amplifiers and an effect similar to a squirrel touching more than one lead across a transformer happens when they touch the wrong part?

Three weeks back, a CB'er (Unit 502, Middletown, Ohio) Stuck his hand in the wrong place, killed him dead; the wife was severely injured at the breaker box from the unapproved 220v circuit run.

The things that make ya go hmmmmm

The things that make ya go "unh-unh!" :shock:
.