Question About Cb's

[yar1]

i just bought a hand held cb from radioshack, im in a house right now and its not picking anything up, is this normal? this is a very populated area btw.

[Pezzy]

Is it hooked up to an antenna?

You wont get much w/o one.

[GrimGreg]

What would there be to pick up near you? I live about 2 blocks from he highway, but just barely pickup the truckers with my CB if I am in the room closest to the highway, and nothing aywhere else. That is with the little 8" whip antenna it came with. Outside the house I can pick them up about 2 miles north or south of me.

[yar1]

it has the small whip antenna.

[Alkorahil]

i just bought a hand held cb from radioshack, im in a house right now and its not picking anything up, is this normal? this is a very populated area btw.

 

 

First off, what channel are you on? Channel 19 is the most popular used channel.

 

Secondly, many truckers turn off their radios or at least turn the squelch way up when they are in urban cities because the cris-crossing highways make things confusing (for example here in Dallas, I-45, I-20, I-30 and I-35 all cross near each other within 2-5 miles of each other.) Multiple drivers going east-west or north-south within earshot of each other makes things very, very confusing, not to metion all the talking at once makes the radio traffic turn into unitelligable mish-mash babble.

 

On the other hand wait for a major accident to shut the highway down and you will get lots of radio traffic from pissed off truckers trying to find out what the deal is.

 

Also, in large ubran areas, esp where there are high buildings the radio signals tend to bounce off the buildings creating distortion and reverbiration, another reason truckers tend to turn them off.

 

Thirdly, are you near a major highway? They dont use them much off the highways since they figure no one is around.

 

And as pointed out, your small antenna has a limited range compared to a fullisize anntenna.

 

 

Lastly, weather conditions, rain and lighting daylight (better at night) and to some degree sunspot activity will effect the radio.

 

When ytour radio (or anothers) is moving you also have the doppler effect with the transmiiting and recieving range.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Alkorahil

[projekz]

what's the range of a cb radio? In the woods for example?

[GrimGreg]

what's the range of a cb radio? In the woods for example?

 

Thick trees and brush type, maybe 1/8-1/2 mile if it is flat or a semi level plane between sender and reciever.

 

I used my handheld on my last trip and I was the trail leader. I could rarely hear our tailgunner. I was pretty much in a place where line of sight was about the extent of my range to recieve. With my full radio and 4' whip on the roof, I have a lot of range. I can pickup miles away as long as there is no earth in the way (ridge lines etc).

[bigfisch1191]

i dont know, are cobra hand held cbs were working up to around 2 miles at browns camp OR and 4-5 miles on the highway. but that was when they were brand new. now we just use the cbs in the rigs.

Edited August 6, 2007 by bigfisch1191

[vengeful]

Jeez....either you guys have really bad radio setups, or you wheel with people who do.

 

I've got a pretty decent radio setup in my truck. RadioShack TRC521 Radio with Weather. It's not peaked or tuned, or tweaked in any way. Completely stock radio. I've also got a Wilson 5000 thru-Roof mount antenna, that is tuned to 1.1:1 SWR across all 40 channels, with about as close to ideal 1.04:1 on 18-22. On the highway, I routinely get 10-15 miles of range. On the trails, I get 2-8 miles of range, depending on the terrain and the density of the foliage.

 

SWR (standing wave ratio) is very important to proper CB functionality. If the SWR is too high, the radio could potentially become damaged, and range/reception will be greatly diminished. Acceptable SWR range is under 2:1. Anything greater than 2.5:1 will likely cause electrical damage to the radio and render it essentially useless, providing only a fraction of a mile of range.

 

With the right conditions, I have picked up direct transmissions, and talked right back, at distances as far as 55 miles.

 

With Skip Conditions present, I have talked with people in Minnesota while I was in Arizona, and Arkansas while in Pennsylvania. In order to achieve skip, your antenna must be tuned to damn near a perfect 1:1 ratio, and the electromagnetic and atmospheric conditions must be just so. Skip occurs when the CB transmissions skip accross the earths Ionosphere and travel great distances. With excellent skip conditions, you can have a full conversation over CB with someone as far as 2500 miles away. With marginal skip conditions, they might be able to hear you but you won't hear them, or vice versa.

 

With a 2M amateur radio, and the use of repeaters, you can talk around the world, regardless of ionospheric conditions. HAM/Amateur radios have a much higher legal power allowance, but require an FCC license to operate. A 2M radio can transmit for well over 100 miles fresh out of the box, once the antenna is properly tuned.