CB Radio

reply to post by imitator


Are you one of these guys www.reactintl.org... who has about 30 antennae mounted to every available surface on your Ford Pinto? I grew up with my father's 15 meter tower in my backyard.

Radio propagation --- being able to hear/reach stations changes with changing atmospheric conditions. That said, a CB radio uses a small part of one band. What happens when that band isn't propagating? Even an illegally powered CB is only going to receive static. A decent multi-band HAM radio overcomes this limitation. A little online study and most anyone could pass the Tech test --- no more morse code requirement. And what you learn while studying will be invaluable when TSHTF.

Originally posted by Mapkar
reply to post by Basel77

 

There are a lot of factors to consider when talking range. I have a 5 watt handheld radio, and by itself it can reach about 7-10 miles depending on trees, hills, and buildings. With a better antenna on top I can easily talk 15-20 miles no problem. I would guess that a CB radio would have no problem doing at least that but the general limit is around 4 watts. People here in SC use CB a lot, and they can talk for a fair distance, but sometimes they struggle to get over 10 miles for some reason or another.

Height really affects distance, the higher you are the farther you can talk. So, from on top of a building you'll reach out further than you would on the ground with the same radio. Sometimes I'm surprised to find that I can talk nearly 25-30 miles when band conditions are going well, meaning theres something that's letting the radio waves go further. It's not common for my little radio to talk that far, but I have had conversations with people via a repeater that was up to right at 30 miles away.

Range is really hard to calculate though, at least for me, because there are a lot of variables. I wish I could help more there.

Well it depends on atmospheric conditions. Skip is what its called when the signal bounces off of charged ions in the ionosphere. Or skywave.

Working Skip

Originally posted by Wiz4769
Just so you know, a common CB that 98% of folks have and use, you will get 2-4miles tops out of it. An amp will help you get a signal farther, but you will not get anything back if the other end does not have an amp...Having an amp is highly illegal, sure in a SHTF world rules wont matter but who knows if that day will come in our lifetime...

So I will say a CB is better than nothing, but as a new guy or just a common user, a standard antenna and stock CB will get you 2 to 4 miles on average. Get a better rig and a better antenna higher up and you MIGHT get 10 miles. Now some will jump in here and claim they can talk 20 miles and receive the same. They are full of crap or happen to live in a place where there is nothing between them and the other end with illegal set ups. Plus you get something called skip once in a while that can actually cause a fluke and it can go a thousand miles....but its rare and out of your control when it happens.

If you want anything more than this, HAM is the only answer. They can get the 20miles usually or further again depending on your setup. Add in some repeaters that are out there and you can talk hundreds of miles. Will the repeaters be up assuming a EMP hits, I would not count on it. But you will not get better distance than HAM. Plus this is what is used currently for local storm chasers, and Emergency back up services, etc. You will need to get a license for HAM to transmit

What people have been using are these family band radios

You know they are portable and cheap and have a good range. You can use them as walkie talkies.

The only people who will be on CB will be people who did not prepare. They will have their old equipment out and be shouting for help into it.

If you spend 130 bucks on a CB radio for your car, you need an antenna, you need to have the radio installed, someone might break into the vehicle to steal it, and even after all that, if you are not where truckers are, you won't hear anything.

And if you are where truckers are, right now that is ALL you will here.

If you want to get into Ham radio, then thats different. The most popular ham radio for a car would probably be either a Yeasu or an Icom.

The Yeasu can hit almost any country in the world from high ground, its portable, runs on batteries, and even at 5 watts, with a portable antenna, if you take the radio out of the vehicle, and set up the antenna on high ground or at sea level by the water, you will be able to hear people talk in foreign languages.

The Yeasu FT-817ND is one of the most popular but people have their own favorites. The reviews on that radio for 600 bucks are almost all good.

What I decided to do was to get a scanner, that can listen in to everything including police fire whatever.

Then for a radio I went for one of the most popular handhelds. Popular because it is cheap, and it is good.

I will also get a couple small family band radios, and maybe a couple more Chinese made radios like the handheld, but for half the price.

So with this set up if TSHTF, I can listen in to most places for hundreds of miles, if I use a wire antenna and throw it over a tree.

But I will only be broadcasting within a reasonably short range, maybe 10 miles at most, so I won't be attracting people from too far away.

I would suggest that girls don't use the radio but if they do get a voice disguiser like this one...
voice changer

And when they talk say something like, I can't talk now, I am in the middle of cleaning my guns, oh ok what is it?

Or say "as soon as we bury these bodies and reset the traps we are going back on patrol, what is it?"

A cb radio would be fine to start with. Do take the time and buy a good one. I had countless cb radios back in the 70's, they where fun.
I would then take the time to study for the license for amateur radio. Now that you can take a "no code" test. With amateur radio, You will learn how to setup and maintain your equipment, something one should know when the SHTF. A tech could be hard to find if it all when to h@ll in a hand basket

Originally posted by jibeho
reply to post by imitator

 

Are you one of these guys www.reactintl.org... who has about 30 antennae mounted to every available surface on your Ford Pinto?

LOL NO! It would be nice to have a car like that!

I'm just interested in freeband, and the amateur two-way radio spectrum etc. SAROF, SATERN and REACT are great organizations. BUT when a zombie virus… earthquakes or nukes for example, actually happens... These radio groups "ARES, RACES, SAROF, SATERN, CERT and REACT" etc.. They will help establish concentration camps for FEMA, and all other volunteer emergency radio services will have to follow FEMA orders.

When the power grid goes down and other com services not available, the FCC will be counting on these volunteer services to help round up and detain civilians for FEMA in Superdome Katrina style!

This is why everyone should stay away from getting a Ham ticket, it will paint you as a target. When the military starts to amateur crossband with communications, they will use you "HAM's" to detain and round up your own family. They expect you to be their last ditch communication grid for nefarious reasons.

All this is right around the corner, be prepared for the worst at all times.

Originally posted by imitator

Originally posted by jibeho
reply to post by imitator

 

Are you one of these guys www.reactintl.org... who has about 30 antennae mounted to every available surface on your Ford Pinto?

LOL NO! It would be nice to have a car like that!

I'm just interested in freeband, and the amateur two-way radio spectrum etc. SAROF, SATERN and REACT are great organizations. BUT when a zombie virus… earthquakes or nukes for example, actually happens... These radio groups "ARES, RACES, SAROF, SATERN, CERT and REACT" etc.. They will help establish concentration camps for FEMA, and all other volunteer emergency radio services will have to follow FEMA orders.

When the power grid goes down and other com services not available, the FCC will be counting on these volunteer services to help round up and detain civilians for FEMA in Superdome Katrina style!

This is why everyone should stay away from getting a Ham ticket, it will paint you as a target. When the military starts to amateur crossband with communications, they will use you "HAM's" to detain and round up your own family. They expect you to be their last ditch communication grid for nefarious reasons.

All this is right around the corner, be prepared for the worst at all times.

edit on 29-10-2011 by imitator because: (no reason given)

You know I was thinking about this at work today. In my city, 300 thousand, people would spread out to outlying areas and begin to farm. On forest industry land. We have plenty of room and resources and it would not be much different than now since most people here are not aggressive and there is a big military presence, a base and all of that. Everything would be fine, until the boats started to arrive.

Pirates need fuel. Large boats need fuel, we have a fuel depot. We could blow the fuel depot, but then they would arrive and stay.

So even in our sleepy village like atmosphere, hordes of people fleeing would arrive thinking it is safer to head north.

Vancouver Island.

All it would take is for someone on a radio to say, hell yes, we have plenty of fuel at the marine fuel depot.

On his ham radio, hitting 300 countries or something. Then give directions.

He might as well add, and plenty of booze and women!

With a CB radio its the antenna and how high your antenna is.

Back in the old days (my call letters are KEQ 9064 so the old timer will know what i mean by old days.)

I ran a cobra and had it mounted in my truck with a home built fold up beam antenna that i could set up when parked.

By driving out to a mountain top in the desert i could talk to japan and Australia barefoot with my radio and the only thing that had been done to it was peaking and tuning plus a frequency slider.

With my 60 watt foot warmer i could talk to the UK and europe.

Now you can buy a old CB radio from a thrift shop for $5 and i have a few put away in a 20mm ammo box just in case of EMP type attack/

The ammo box is designed to protect the electric primers of a 20mm round from EMP and will protect most electronics

My roommate told me there was a tube shortwave radio on the classified site the other day for 80 bucks.

I have a Grundig portable so I didn't bother but it might be EMP proof, hard to say. I was told you just have to have a metal box or a plastic box lined in tin foil to protect from EMP.

I bought a portable CB 8 years ago and never heard on a word on it any time I listened to it. If the SHTF you would hear something.

I just think there are so many better ways of doing it now, and more reliable than hoping atmospheric conditions are good enough to work skip to get some distance. What will happen is there will be so much chatter you will not know who is talking to whom.
That happened in the 70's even when there was no SHTF.
For 65 bucks and 100 feet of antenna wire, you could hear things from all over the world. And select bands and not be restricted to 40 channels like a CB.

But you won't hear emergency channels unless you get a radio that is APCO 25 or TETRA for Europe. They are all digital now.
You could be listeing to your CB and not know what all the shooting and sirens are that are going on just down your street.

You see the reason they are digital now is for clear voice transmission. When you send an analog signal you get plenty of static. When you send a digital signal, it it sends just zeros and ones and reproduces the wave on arrival in your handset.

The reason they are APCO 25 and Tetra is so police and fire and coast guard and rescue can all talk to each other if need be. Without a standard, they can't talk to each other. That happened during Katrina, and they could not coordinate rescue.
And they can use encryption. But if they do, then again, they can't coordinate rescue.
So if you want to know what is going on down the street or up ahead on the highway, listen in to the police, fire, ambulance, rescue etc.

Now the reason some people like CB form out of country is it may pick up military broadcast. Just outside the CB band. But then they might be using digital and encryption too if TSHTF.

Don't rely on CB.

Get a scanner and a ham radio. With the Wouxun KG-UVD1P you can use it today without a license on the GMRS bands.
Its a dual band UHF/VHF radio with FM. 100 bucks.
Scanners that are APCO 25 are around 500 but do you want to know what is going on down the street or not?

Originally posted by Rocketman7
My roommate told me there was a tube shortwave radio on the classified site the other day for 80 bucks.

I have a Grundig portable so I didn't bother but it might be EMP proof, hard to say. I was told you just have to have a metal box or a plastic box lined in tin foil to protect from EMP.

An old tube radio might be EMP prooF, no worries burning transistors...

If you want to EMP proof your faraday enclosure, connect it to a ground. Tin foil or a metal box alone will not protect your equipment from high energy pulses. If you use your house ground, it creates a larger shield and most of the EMP energy will be dissipated into the earth. A grounded metal trash can would be great for keeping your shtf electronics.

I made a wooden box lined in copper from gutter and roofing material, it looks like the Ark of the Covenant. If only I can find two cherubim to put on top..... or better yet two trucker girls!

A decent CB, even if it's Cobra / Uniden / Midland or whatever is a decent tool to have. The nice thing about CB is it's unlicensed so nothing special to go through other then buy and install. The downside of CB is that its power output is regulated and that can limit performance somewhat. CB's are one of the areas where you will get what you pay for.

I would suggest not getting the bottom end of the CB barrel and avoid hand-helds if possible though those with external antenna connections can be coaxed to better antennas and become more like a true mobile radio. The Cobra 148 GTL is a decent unit and when paired with a good (and properly tuned) antenna is quite capable of communication over 10 miles with few issues. It offers upper and lower sideband transmission effectively increasing its 40 channel operation to 120 channels. and allows you some ability to tune the radio to the antenna thus minimizing damage to the radio caused by a poorly matched antenna, but it's generally better to tune the antenna to the radio so you can have the maximum effective radiated power.

One thing very true, and hit on in other replies, is height. Though it's theoretically feasible for a CB to talk around the world on 4 watts, it's difficult to do if the antenna is in a valley surrounded by hills and using amps (linear, footwarmer, whatever slang you choose to call it) is technically illegal and may or may not help much. Terrain (mountains, hills, buildings even) have a big influence on where and how far you can talk. But what's true is that if you can see it, you can talk to it, hence why height / elevation is important.

Another thing to consider when installing a CB in a vehicle is where the antenna will be mounted. At CB frequencies, the best place is in the center of the highest piece of metal, which on most vehicles is the center of the roof. Side / fender mounted antennas will tend to be directional, along the lines of the metal; so assume the antenna is on the side of the right rear fender, it will be more sensitive toward the right front, and least sensitive to the left rear.

I saw mention about the FRS/GMRS walkie-talkies you can buy at Radio Shack, WalMart, Target, REI, etc... they use spectrum (frequencies) that may require a license, and that is dependent upon which channel and output power, so take that in to consideration if you choose that... and realize that they offer certain options that allow a group to "isolate" themselves from others on the same channel and thus may not be able to hear you when you need it.

I got my Wouxun in the mail today. Took a week to get it.

This is what it looks like : contents

I bought the battery eliminator separately (left side of box ) and a battery case for double A's separately to use as a last resort.
The charger plugs into the wall or vehicle, and the eliminator removes the need to use the charger. The double A's you provide yourself, and its just a precaution against having no car battery and running through the bush or whatever. Usually you can scrounge up a few double A's.
I have a solar charger that will charge double A's so if all else failed I could keep it running for a while.

I will still pick up a few more accessories for it like a high gain antenna, and the programming cable.
Dollar for dollar, I would say its a great bang for the buck.

CB is 27 Mhz but this radio can't receive CB signals. (As far as I know)

The Scanner I bought and am waiting for delivery on, can receive CB. But it can't reply on CB. In fact the scanner can't reply at all.

The important thing to remember is that there may be no hydro, and well someone might steal your car battery, if they become like gold.

As many battery options as you can get will help to keep your radio working. For instance if the Lithium Ion battery goes dead. Lets say one day it just quits. Well then the battery eliminator will work. The charger will not. It needs that Lithium ion battery pack. The double A's will work as long as you can find double A's.

Not all radios have a battery case accessory for double A's. Its a good option to have.

With a CB in your car, will it have the same options? Or will it be dead when you need it most, when your battery is dead and you are stranded on the side of the road?