Wotcher all, just got myself my first CB since I were a lad, very dead on the airwaves around here, just the occasional person with massive amps hogging channel 19 and talking about their massive amps, or sometimes farmers talking about where to spread cow crap.
Are there any common channels that are used by laners, or does everyone just choose a conveniently clear channel (i.e. most of them) for their particular group?
Always used to be ch30 for laning but now I reckon most just pick a channel for each outing.
As you say, there are so few other people on CB nowadays we mostly just pick a convenient channel.
We used to use ch10 a lot, the rationale being that it was only a flick away from ch9 the "rescue" channel, but again, there's so few people on air these days that a call out on 9 probably wouldn't get a response anyway. :)
I would probably go for a similarly low channel, mostly because with an 80-channel set the lower UK band channels are more likely to be in the middle of the SWR range for the aerial so should get more TX range, although there's not likely to be much in it.
It seems channel 9 is just another channel these days, and channel 19 is the only one anyone is allowed to talk on ;-)
How times have changed.
When I used CB it could get horribly busy as you got near the towns.
It'd be still worth agreeing an alternate channel, in advance.
Hijacking the thread slighty.. I was looking at a CB that I could move about as a backup traffic information system..
I read that there are old 40channel and new 40 channel frequencys.. Whats the most popular, is it possible Ian has one model and everyones on the other?
Tim
Whist we are on the topic, my one has never been much cop.
I could hear nige, paul and lee when they were in front of me, but nothing else further afield.
The nut that holds the aerial to the roof is rusted now - would this cause it to be s**te?
Hmm, not sure if it'll be worthwhile, perhaps it changes across the country but I live within half a mile of the A303 and had expected to hear passing truckers, but nothing, not a peep. I don't listen all the time though but when driving around in the pinz I rarely get any signal at all. I do get signal on occasion and that can be a two-way conversation with someone halfway across the county so I know the set's working.
There's two sets of channels, the old UK channels and the EU-wide channels. In the UK the old UK channels are most popular with hardly anyone using the EU-wide ones, so far I've never heard anyone on the EU frequencies, although bear in mind that I've only had the CB for 4 days ;-)
If there's no earth on the aerial to the chassis then you'll have no groundplane, also it's supposed to be quite hard to get an aerial working on a landy without using an added groundplane (e.g. foot-square plate of steel) due to the aluminium bodywork). Some people seem to have gotten it to work on an aluminium landy without any problems, I've never tried so don't know what's up.
Having said all the above, I'm not sure the groundplane issue is relevant for receiving....
First thing to do is to unscrew the co-ax off the back of the set, get a multimeter and connect it to the centre core and check that it has low resistance to the aerial whip, and open circuit to the chassis or co-ax outer. Then connect it to the co-ax outer and check for low resistance to chassis and the antenna connection threaded body, and open circuit to the whip.
Oh and to answer your question a little more directly, my set handles both the UK and the EU channels, most new sets do these days. I've spoken to people on the UK channels, but never heard anyone on the EU.
Looking around at rigs there are websites that mention that last year was a bumper year for new rig purchases.
Of course it could be marketing hype for a customer requirement that is disapearing.
BUT
If its true, there are they all going?
Or even
If its true, 'W'here are they all going?
There's certainly a fairly thriving CB industry with new rigs being made regularly, and a reasonable choice. Most of the sites that I saw only stock those rigs up to about the £130 mark, there are a fair few more fully featured, more expensive rigs around if you look so even the number that are popular on most sites aren't all that's around. There's quite a bit of rig modification going on at the higher level too, with some companies listing modifications they can make.
Maybe world-wide, most of the rigs available on the market right now can handle all bands in all countries, with you selecting your country from a list, I know the manual for mine was in about 10 different languages with the english translation being less than perfect.
I was even able to buy a spare CB aerial from Maplin, and when I checked their stock level they had 10 of them in stock in my local branch. You can buy a few different sets from them and all the bits you need to get it going so it's almost still mainstream. Can't get them in Currys though probably!
Aerial systems for vehicles not made of ferrous metals are a nightmare.
What you really need with a Land Rover is some sort of 'earth side' connection to the chassis because that's a nice big lump of steel.
What you don't need is a dodgy connection across several pieces of aluminium that are bolted/riveted rather than welded...
Guess which you have...
On or around Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:26:43 GMT, "Tim Guy" enlightened us thusly:
In the UK, naturally, when they eventually legalised CB radio, they did so using a different set of 40 FM channels to almost everyone else. This block is known as the UK40, at a power output of 4W maximum. The rest of the world had already got several blocks of channels on or around 27MHz, these are identified as high, mid, low, and indeed there are extra high blocks and low blocks, both on AM and FM and indeed on single-sideband and other more exotic things.
In the UK now, AIUI, it's legal to operate on the mid-block as well as on the UK40, but technically, it's illegal to have a rig which can do both. Which, of course, is bloody silly - especially as you could have 2 half-height units in one holder, and that would be legal... Everyone who regularly uses CB has been ignoring the regulations for ages anyway, including the power rules. In practice, if you go around broadcasting at
250W you'll probably annoy the neighbours by messing up the TV reception and setting off car alarms...On or around Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:52:59 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
The roof should make a good groundplane. The normal problems you get are mounting the twig in funny places like on the windscreen or the bumper.
Transmission-wise, you also need the SWR set quite carefully, or sod-all will happen.
On or around Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:34:19 -0000, "William Black" enlightened us thusly:
running an earth wire from the roof to the chassis would doubtless help.
I used to get reasonable results in a SII with the twig mount on a modified windscreen bolt.
"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
The Royal Signals like to mount the aerial on the rear of the vehicle on a support pole that runs the full height of the vehicle so they can get at the chassis and the roof.
Mind you, that's a touch excessive for a CB radio...
I mounted the aerial above one of the rear windows (S2a) with a short wire from the mounting earth to the rear door frame (steel) which is connected to the chassis. Worked fine, transmit and receive.
Generaly the direction with the largest ammount of ground it the direction that rx and tx will be the best eg, if the aerial is on the back it will work best in a forward direction.
My 90 has the aerial in the middle of the hard top, and as for aluminium being bad for ground I have no problems with mine.
The only reason I can see for needing a steel plate on the roof would be to stick a magmount to.
-- Jon
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