Who here was on CB?

Hellrazer

Ah the memories.

Most of the 80s for me were spent looking for beavers on the air.Actually most of the time I was chatted up as a "beaver" since the voice hadnt broken yet.
Then there was the sense of camarderie(sp)
If you had equipment problems there was always loads of peeps willing to help out.i remember putting up a beam aerial with a 23 ft something or other aerial on top in 70 mph winds on a flat in Ranelagh with only a piece of old rope tied around my waist--lunacy.
Then the "convoys" up to the mountains!!!!!!!Too young to drive though.
And a couple of friend met their partners through CB.

Any one remember any of the clubs they were in??
I think it was the Irish Tangos that I was in or it could have been the Irish Whiskeys--have all the cards in the attic,must dig them out and have a look.The furthest I think I got out was Argentina on the ssb`s in a really good summer with good "skip"

Would love to see a comeback but cant really see it happeneing.

Our man in Havana

I was on CB in the 80's in south Wicklow. Loads of people on it back then. I used to operate on a 80ch AM box with a car aeriel. Could get some good DX sometimes, picked up english truck drivers in Austria one day.

CrowdedHouse

trackerman wrote: »

Later I got my full class A some years later and moved into HF bands on FT757
But even that's been put on the shelf since the kids arrived. I've not paid my yearly fee to Hawkins House in years. I hope I'm still eligable.

Does the department still charge a yearly fee now???

:eek:Must be a long time.....the 'Department' hasn't issued licences in a long long time...I'd say at least 10 years...it's Comreg now...I hope you have some way of proving you were licensed if you want to re-activate it

Our man in Havana

Apparrently if you let the licence lapse, you have to resit the exams again. :eek:

PauloMN

Bond-007 wrote: »

Apparrently if you let the licence lapse, you have to resit the exams again. :eek:

I believe that's the case.

There's also some online license manager on the Comreg site, will try to dig it out. If you enter your callsign in, you should be able to get the license status. It may require a password though. I'm pretty sure I renewed my license online through the website.

watty

They are supposed to be bringing in a lifetime licence.

The Muppet

trackerman wrote: »

also had some fancy mic, can't remember what it was called but it was small and black and sounded great.
Still have it in the loft somewhere.

The K40 I assume, it was a great mic also popualr on the mic front was the lollipop. There was another popular base station mic it was square with sliders on the base the name escapes me at the moment. I was a member of numerous cd clubs including The Shamrock International Radio Club . CQ CQ CQ DX this is 29 Shamrock intenational *** standing by.

CB was very very popular in the early 80s , so much so that Prime Times predecessor Today Tonigh did a feature on it.

Is that a power mic you're using good buddy.

Sam Radford

Anyone remember Tonks Communications in Walsall? Used to sell conversion boards and stuff. Well Stevie Tonks has "retired" and started up the CB business again!
http://www.cbstation.co.uk
Also seen him auctioning stuff on eBay Uk.

god's toy

The Muppet wrote: »

There was another popular base station mic it was square with sliders on the base the name escapes me at the moment.

Hmmm maybe the Sadelta Echo Master Plus ?

Antenna

The Muppet wrote: »

CB was very very popular in the early 80s , so much so that Prime Times predecessor Today Tonigh did a feature on it.

Anyone have that on video tape?

if so how about uploading segments of it to Youtube

The Muppet

Antenna wrote: »

Anyone have that on video tape?

if so how about uploading segments of it to Youtube

Video recorders were few and far between in early 80's Ireland.

It would be nice to see it again.

dathi1

I was on CB Radio 81-83 i think..Dublin Southside

President City talker and a home base? system.

I was rockerfeller (sick)

I remember handles like:
Blue Flame
Jinty
Ivanhoe
Sgt pepper
Sky patrol
Louise in Crumlin
Alice in Wonderland

I remember hittin the graveyards and goin super high, Goin on an "eyeball" and checkin out beavers

Radio Nova was all the rage and four star pizza just started up..

We thought we were made hahaha.:D

Run_to_da_hills

I was the "Doodlebug" between 1978 and 1980 and was using a modified Cobra 148GTL. I was on the committe of a club that would meet and have socials in the Dalkey Island Hotel on sunday mornings. The Northside equivilant club had regular socials in the Stardust.




Handles that came to my mind:

Steam Whistle
Bushwhacker
Majortom
Billericky (A well known trucker that got killed in a head on in the midlands in 1979)
Sinbad
Rockcrusher
CBSponger
TheConan
Kingbee ( A guy who used to operate out of a P&T Renault 4L! )


I haven't touched a CB radio since 1980 and don't intend to since I am now with Vodafone .

steifanc

CB19Kevo wrote: »

anyone know if the danita 40ch.cb's are any good.bought one while back as a spare nd wit so many wanting cb's at the moment,its not working for people who want to borrow it,only picking up stuff on fm,as apposed to my midland which is going perfect.

27.555 used to be very busy as others will agree. Some fella called jack from dundalk or drogheda was a REGULAR and a few others...haven't listened in, in ages.

dont think jack was from dundalk more ashbourne.. i know he passed away ,
i was working the 27.555 on a cobra base rig, still have it been threating to set it up for ages i was pappa zulu 02

ChapOfDRyans

i seen a bit young for when ye were on cb's but what is the point of gettin one,i could see why you would have one if you could pick up the garda,can you on a cb?

do you have to tune in freq on cb's or is it just channels and you scan them?

watty

Scanners only listen, but to a very wide range of signals (read other threads). CB is a licence free legal method of talking via radio, with better range than the PMR446 licence free walkie talkies. CBs come in mobile (vehicle), handheld and base (home) versions.

pixbyjohn

The Muppet wrote: »

Convoy got me started in 1978 with a president andrew J and mag mount purchased from a radio shop in malahide . Had numerous number of rigs and antenna over the years ending up with a Cobra 2000 wit all the modidfications and a Moonraker 4,( until it got windy ). I still have qsl cards from all over the world. Does anyone remember the CB rally to clonmacnoise?

Great Fun, oh I met my other half through CB as well.

Hey, I was at Clonmacnoise, do you remember the hot air balloon and TR Dallas singing there. We were with the Elite Breakers Club from Greystones/Wicklow area. I have some photos from that day out somewhere in the house, I must dig them out. My best memories of CB in the 1979 and later years was the great contacts into Wales and the west coast of England at night from the Sugarloaf and also from the waters edge at Greystones. Also contact into the Isle of Man with Tony and another older guy. Do you or anyone else remember how secretive we were about our "20" and the nicknames we used to remain anonymous cos we thought the authorities were going to be chasing us, haha how innocent we were. I used a Superstar 360 and a Zetagi Mobile linear with 400 watts and a K40 antenna.
During the day it was great to work into Europe and the states also to Australia if you were lucky. I even had my own Post Office box for receiving QSLs. What about the news broadcasts from different CB clubs, The Charlie Bravos in Wales the IDDs in Bray and the Tallaght Club that had a news broadcast every sunday night also. And the quiz nights were great too. Those were the days alright, never to be repeated, so much enjoyment. I remember listening in to many a qso on 40 channels am with guys chatting up girls on a "secret channel" oh the whole of Greystones was listening to them, haha.
I am now a licenced experimenter since 1983, my callsign is EI2FN, but I really have to admit my days and nights on CB radio were some of the most enjoyable times on radio.
Thanks for the memories.

ChapOfDRyans

is there much point in investing in a cb now-a-days or would it be busy with people talking on them

watty

Up to yourself really. If a lot of people get them it will be more popular. The sunspot passed the minimum in February, so DX will improve, esp. next year.

For a car you should fit a VOX adaptor (€20) and PC stalk mic (€3) to be handsfree.

ChapOfDRyans

there is no tuning in involved its just channels and do taxis work off cbs like this in the car

experimenter

ChapOfDRyans wrote: »

is there much point in investing in a cb now-a-days or would it be busy with people talking on them

Probably a waste of time really, from time to time I monitor 27Mhz for propagation reasons, and i hear little or nothing on the CB allocation and I am using a 3 element yagi. All I hear is Mass broadcast from Churchs all over the country.

I think boy racers use them for the car rallies, but the range is only a few miles from the car, if you have a proper setup.

If anything maybe you could invest in a HF or short wave receiver, maybe have a listen to ham radio, or in Ireland they're called Experimenters.

More info from www.irts.ie

experimenter

ChapOfDRyans wrote: »

there is no tuning in involved its just channels and do taxis work off cbs like this in the car

No Taxi's have a commerical frequency allocation.

Only users of CB are Truckers, Boy Racers, maybe Silage Contractors and local Churchs who broadcast Mass.

Our man in Havana

Only users of CB are Truckers, Boy Racers, maybe Silage Contractors and local Churchs who broadcast Mass.

Which is a shame.

watty

We could always organise a Boards CB picnic on the Air...
Pick your local mountain top and also 1 or 3 main areas. The Mountain toppers may even be able to relay messages between two areas.

I've used a CB base aerial (21ft) for HF amateur bands bolted to the car towing hook while stationary Tuned up well on 20m

PauloMN

watty wrote: »

I've used a CB base aerial (21ft) for HF amateur bands bolted to the car towing hook while stationary Tuned up well on 20m

Let me guess... a Hembro 5/8 wave? Did it work well on 20m?

I had a 5/8 wave up on the side of the house, but took it down to put the 6/2/70 vertical up instead. Might put it back up elsewhere if it would work well on 20m.

watty

It was from Rocket radio.
( http://stores.ebay.ie/Rocket-Radio-Letchworth )
I removed the matching coil inside the base and didn't fit the 3 stubby rods.

Possibly it was similar to this?
http://cgi.ebay.ie/HYGAIN-1-2-SILVER-ROD-BASE-CB-RADIO-ANTENNA-AERIAL_W0QQitemZ370036453313QQihZ024QQcategoryZ40055QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

Claims to be a 1/2 wave, which indeed needs a transformer. 5/8ths is easier to match. Mine does seem to be 21ft approx, so they may not have it in stock anymore. .


Loads of telescopic aluminium sections with hose clamps. Is it what some CBers call a Silver Stick?

With the Military Racal Syncal30 / Grinel TR48 man pack (designed for 8ft Mil whip, about 30W SSB) it tuned up OK from 160m to 15m But not 10m!
With the Elecraft T1 auto tuner on the FT817 it tuned perfect from 80m to 10m and usuable SWR on 160m & 6m (poorer SWR caused 50% reduction in TX power to 2.5W).

With a dual band 6m/10m Comet Whip, the Mil box tunes 160m to 10m and the Auto ATU tunes 40m to 15m, not needed 10m or 6m and poor SWR (1/2 power) on 80m and no match on 160m.

I find with lower power and/or mobile whip, if 17m band is open at all during day, it's the best.

80m a lot of people have too much local noise and can't hear you unless you have a big aerial and 80W to 200W. 40m too many people shouting on high power for QRP.

You need a lot of patience for QRP on lower bands. The Mil box in living room (Limerick) with 8ft whip bent at cieling has RX a guy in Orkneys a few times on 160m Q5. He can't hear me

Using CB 5/8ths
If your coax feed is less than 1/4 wave and you have aerial at ground level, then a suitable ATU will tune it down to 160m. You MUST remove the matching coil though.

If it is on the roof, then remote ATU in attic. Match Tuning over longer feed won't work. Also you need about 6 radial wires draped from earth of base across the roof.

Or mount on a pole equal to 1/4 wave of desired band. Feed coax INSIDE pole and insulate at lower clamped end. Make sure upper end DOES connect to outer of coax socket on aerial base. With this counterpoise system you don't need ANY radials.

I have a HyGain trapped vertical for 10m to 80m (no WARC) and I have tubes cut for a trapped counterpoise pole. At each "trap" the pipe is inside a pipe with laminator plastic as dielectric. Overlap sets capacitor of trap. if tight fit and enough overlap, it's mechanical. Screw strong plastic box with pipe clamp to top and lower pipe to stop it sliding and coil of copper from solid mains wiring (2.5mm minimum), turns to suit capacitance of pipe overlap and frequency of trap, adjust with GDO/Wave meter. Use nylon guy ropes. No counterpoise radial wires needed. Each section of pole mirrors the distance between traps of the vertical. (10, 15, 20, 40 are trap frequencies.) Adjust thickness of insulation to ground mount of bottom pole (80m) to tune 80m by capacitance
only

I have the broken bits of this:
http://cgi.ebay.ie/ORIGINAL-SOLARCON-ANTRON-A99-HIGH-GAIN-BASE-CB-ANTENNA_W0QQitemZ370037149357QQihZ024QQcategoryZ48692QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262
that someone gave me. The drain hole clogged and insides corroded.

The top part makes a nice alternative fibreglass whip and screws into my magmount or Mil Racal Radio.

ChapOfDRyans

i have a cb radio and was wondering can i get the cb to scan the channels on it to pick up any activity or just have to get lucky to find any activity

Fries-With-That

Interesting reading this thread, I was on cb back in the 80's. I used to earwigg because I was afraid of complaints from neighbours.

I often listened to people from cork on upper side bands.

Does anyone know anyone that repairs CBs ( there was a guy in Portlaoise years ago). I have a Stalker 9 and a Stalker 20 homebase both need repairing.

I would love to get them up and running again as I have now got a mountain top location for a radio shack.

Pm me if you know anyone that does repairs.

watty

It can be cheaper to buy new than repair, unless it is very simple.

CB19Kevo

Interesting to hear the views on CB radio on this board, from what i have seen CB radio is getting more popular. I only started in 2001 and at that time there was very little activity but in the last two years the airways have become far more active, and NOT with boy racers but with people who have base and mobile setups who use proper voice procedure, Yes there is a lot of use by car enthuasiasts at rally's but the more people who join the airways the more enjoyable it becomes and free from the hassle of amateur radio - not saying that amateur radio isnt a good option.
73's