Who here was on CB?

experimenter

Hi,

In relation to

"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."


I would be interested in know what you mean by hassle of Amateur Radio!

watty

You have to learn stuff
(What makes it fun for me).

More regulated by Comreg and the IRTS wants to be the sole voice / negotiator with Comreg and in control of repeaters.

But more options too. 15W and CB home base whip (loading coil removed) on balcony web night on 20m, contact with Bulgaria and Crete.

TV over 10.35GHz experimental TX received on standard LNB last month.

Chatting to friends via repeaters (no repeaters allowed for CB in Ireland).

CB19Kevo

Hassle is not the best term to describe what i mean but, overall i still believe CB is open to anyone to use which has both negative and positive ramafacations, However Amateur radio due to the regulations and cost is not always the best option.You can probably break down my point in relation to this but my concern is the fact that radio users who all have a big interest in communications are branched off in sub sections, by choice - yes, but not ideal in my opinion.
We all share the same interest deont we ?

KELTICKNIGHTT

me and friends use cbs in motor sports and also in 4x4 offroading ,its a easy way to keep in contact specially when some one get into trouble or stuck in our sport,we dont see much hassle on cb,maybe because of channels we use,
p.s ,because we take part in these motor sports
peace

skodacbradio

Very true what CB19Kevo said about CB it getting busier, I started on the airwaves when I 17 and had got my first car 3 years ago and now in my new 08,and nobody I mean nobody was on it in Waterford City,but recently it's all changed, there is now about 4-8 of us on it most nights, all have one in the car, and two or three have the home basestations. Hopefully it continues its growth, maybe not to the huge heights that it had in the 80's, and as we can tell there is many people intersted in the CB subject as it has over 4000 view's, so c'mon people get your old gear out of the attic or where ever it is and get back on it.Yes as with everything there is the occasional eejit on it, but the majority know not to muck around.
This is the Bandit,I'll catch ya on the flipside we gone.

snowman707

Hellrazer wrote: »

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.

Just stumbed on this thread by accident & just reg on this site

I started on cb in the late 70's worked the world on ssb , was a member of many clubs & groups wordwide, the Irish ones I remember . Shannon Valley , Irish Rover , Leprachaun, Whisky Foxtrot, and some more.

lost interest in mid 80's & re appeared in the mid 90's . I now hold an experimenter's license & ei call if but cb came back in the morning I would be first to transmit on the band

Nothing in ham radio would ever come near the enjoyment, pleasure & friendship that was on 11 mtr

B@ndit

snowman707 wrote: »

Just stumbed on this thread by accident & just reg on this site

I started on cb in the late 70's worked the world on ssb , was a member of many clubs & groups wordwide, the Irish ones I remember . Shannon Valley , Irish Rover , Leprachaun, Whisky Foxtrot, and some more.

lost interest in mid 80's & re appeared in the mid 90's . I now hold an experimenter's license & ei call if but cb came back in the morning I would be first to transmit on the band

Nothing in ham radio would ever come near the enjoyment, pleasure & friendship that was on 11 mtr

Hi Snowman, If CB came back you would be the forst to transmit???
CB never went away,(as im sure you're well aware)


To anybody contemplating getting into CB: its not as busy as it was back in the late 70's and early 80's but it's still alive and kicking... obviously anybody wanting to get into the hobby will need a CB with sidebands Upper (USB) and lower (lsb) as well as AM/FM and able to tx above the standard 40 channels... check out 27.515 any evening...

I too hold an EI callsign but still am active from time to time on 11 metres.

Steven.

snowman707

B@ndit wrote: »

Hi Snowman, If CB came back you would be the forst to transmit???
CB never went away,(as im sure you're well aware)


. check out 27.515 any evening...

.

Steven.

Hi Steven

Well it is dead around here

will listen on 515 during the week

CathalF

Hi all, Nice to see that CB is not dead.
I know the last post on this thread was a few months ago but I thought I'd resurrect it ecause I can't help myself!

WHen I was a kid myself and my brother (in late 70's) had a 40 channel President and a 1/2 wave antenna that our cousin made for us out of a BBC TV aerial. Actually worked quite well. We didn't know anything about SWR and continued to merrily transmit even though the SWR was through the roof. Eventually people reported they couldnt hear us and that was that.

Then I got the notion to buy some gear and set myself up and I went on the air for a while in the nineties. Had a decent enough set up - started with a Superstar and then changed that for a president jackson with a big load of channels. Had a 200W amp and a sirio 827 antenna about 50 foot up in the air. Worked it from East Mayo - anyone else on the air around that time?
It worked pretty well.

I remember that fella JAck in Drogheda, and May in Cavan and the Midland Breakers Group, in fact I spoke to them several times. He was a really friendly bloke was Jack, he used to come in a bit low but very very clear....I remember he told me he was using a really expensive piece of HAM kit, can't remember the model but it was a Yesu I think. I remember hearing he died which was sad.

There were a fair few Irish people on the CB scene at the time ...though it did vary a bit...very little activity during the day. Mostly a friendly bunch, though like a previous poster said there was a certain arsehole type that always seems to be attracted to CB, and there were always a few of them about. Usually though you could tell within a minute of a copy with them that they had a bad attitude....

This was around 1996-1997 and I did a lot of dx-ing. Believe it or not I got all over the world on the humble 11 metres, even managed to catch a faint signal from australia and spoke to the guy for about 1 minute before the signal faded away. I remember you could get Spain every day if you wanted to, but they were a bit annoying because there were so many spanish on you could not hear other countries for all the noise. There was an Irish fella in Botswana I spoke to a number of times, that was a buzz. South america used to come in quite a bit, but funnily enough the UK was a bit hit and miss though occasionally you could get them on FM if the conditions were right.
The far away contacts were mostly SSB on 27.555 MHz if i recall rightly. But there was a lower band in 26MHz that you could get some interesting stuff now and again.

I often thought of selling all the gear but I couldn't do it! I actually took it out of the box the other day just to have a look at it but had a rush of blood and hpped in the car and got a magnetic mount aeiral from Maplins. I tried sticking this to a biscuit tin but could pick absolutely nothing up and the swr was very high.

By the way, has anyone succeeded in getting a magnetic mount antenna to work when not mounted it on a car? WHat type of thing could you mount it to that would work properly and not blow the rig? Looked this up on the web but could find nothing useful so am hoping someone out there who has done this successfully might save me from reinventing the wheel?

Would love to get this working for old times sake but not sure how to go about getting the proper groundplane set up so I can use the antenna as home base...

Anyone..?

KELTICKNIGHTT

about 8 of us down in limerick-tipp direction use our cb's for offroading and keeping in touch,plus abit of crack,few of us use for work ,,about 5 of us have this antenna which we got from states which we found better,there a ajust screw built in to unit
heres a link,cost about 42 euros delivered from states,theres a few different seller on ebay
heres the link
http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=280261146302

CathalF

Thanks Kelticknight but the link didn't work.

I'd prefer to get that mag mount working in the house though

watty

Link working for me.

But you can get a better (more signal) CB whip cheaper in Rocket Radio. The Glass Mount is not very good compared with a gutter mount or mag mount full size CB whip

http://www.rocketradio.co.uk/mobile-antennas-38-c.asp

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29620

(bases or guttermounts sold separate).

A magmount or a guttermount relies on the metal work of the car/truck as "ground plane". Thus in the house or on a roof, you need to add either a 5m sq sheet or larger or else 4 to 6 radial wires at least 2.5m long connected to the metal of the magmount directly or to a biscuit tin lid or other suitable object that the magmount is mounted to.

The side of vertical part of the aerial wants to be at least 5m to 10m away from any objects such as a wall, especially metal poles etc or it will detune (bad SWR).

Any CB aerial mounted on a metal railing or fence (even a balcony) needs no ground radials.

http://www.rocketradio.co.uk/high-gain-58-silver-rod-type-cb-antenna-112-p.asp
On this you can forget about the radials, they are two small. If it's on a pole, make it a 2.5m pole insulated at chimney clamp end but "earthed" to socket at aerial whip clamp, and put coax down the center to act as a single tuned radial (counter poise converting it into a vertical dipole!), or else mount on railing or direct at chimney height and drape 6 x 3m wires across the roof as "spokes" / radials.

(ordinary metal core washing line, or cheap speaker cable will do for radials).

KELTICKNIGHTT

hi know what your say watty and your right,just as me and other guys use our jeeps for work,mag mount is in way and the area we cover,we can pick up eqch other,may look into a antenna off spare wheel,have a ARB bumper on jeep which all metal and could mount antenna on it also

watty

look for gutter mount / truck mirror bar mounts. (on eBay) They are robust and could mount in a variety of locations.

KELTICKNIGHTT

saw a few on ebay,com .yank side,good prices too even with postage,donts see much from uk doe,think thers a seller there in uk thats sells them,,

thethedev

Just got a CB and aerial today for offroading myself.
All the bloody instructions are in french!:D
If I stick it in the jeep in the morning is there much chance that I'll actually pick-up anyone?
Im probably in fantasy land but is it possible to have a chat with truckers while driving down the road?

B@ndit

Hi,

what make and model CB did you get and where abouts are you located.
is your antenna pre-tuned? what type of antenna is it?
You may need to get a (or a loan of) an SWR meter to tune the antenna to the radio as if its not tuned and you have a high SWR you will risk burning out your power transistor and also you wont get out too far with a radio thats not matched to the antenna.

Steven

Felim_Doyle

Are there any more threads on the boards discussing Amateur Radio, Citizens Band (CB), PMR446 etc.?

Félim M3HIM
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Sandymount, Dublin 4, Ireland

snowman707

Felim_Doyle wrote: »

Are there any more threads on the boards discussing Amateur Radio, Citizens Band (CB), PMR446 etc.?

Félim M3HIM
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Sandymount, Dublin 4, Ireland

not boards, but often some good and maybe not so good:D topics here


http://www.frequencydb.com/forum/index.php

KELTICKNIGHTT

Good forum,im a memeber there,the guys are helpful

Felim_Doyle

Thanks guys, I'll take a look.

Félim M3HIM
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Sandymount, Dublin 4, Ireland

Felim_Doyle

I used to be on in Dublin in the early eighties and had some good DX contacts on AM and SSB as well as a lot of local contacts on AM and was involved in a few clubs both local and DX. I somehow dropped out of radio altogether, both CB and amateur, when I started working in the IT industry. I live in the UK now and in recent years have begun getting back into amateur and CB radio (local FM only so far) but I really need to sort out some antennas.

Félim M3HIM
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Sandymount, Dublin 4, Ireland

chamac

Was the Iron Horse ex. Molloy and Sherry Transport, based in Laois. Friends of the Red Dragon, Sid Snot, Laggin Jacket, Red Ned Arricula, Smoke Stack Ursa Major and many others. First rig was a President Andrew J. brought in from Holland in 1978.
Best QSL was into Queensland one night from the top of the Sliabh Bloom mountains with one of the first SSB sets through a big "Heater" and a two element beam clamped to the towbar of a Hillman Avenger 1500.:D:D:D
At the time, there was only a handful of rigs in the country.
We could copy Roman Lover in Tullamore, Newsboy (RIP) from Athlone, another breaker near Mitchelstown. A few of the Northern boys had them. You could wait all night for a "copy" at the time.