I’m sure most folks who get into ham radio have had some sort of interaction with a CB radio at some point. If you’re like me, they were probably always around. Whether it spent most of the time sitting in a box in the basement, or if it was actually mounted in your car, you probably had one that you tinkered with from time to time. As a teen (after the beeper became popular, but before everyone had cell phones) a few buddies and I put them in our vehicles. We didn’t really do much with them, other than see how far apart we could get before we couldn’t hear each other anymore. We weren’t mechanics, so we blew a lot of fuses by cramming the wires into the fuse block! I can only imagine what kind of damage would be done to a modern car now if we wired things in the way we did then.
After I graduated high school, I bought a 4×4 K5 Blazer. My post high school buddies and I were going off road and trail riding a lot. I ended up getting a brand new Cobra 19 from a truck stop, and pairing it with a 102″ whip that a friend gave me. It did come in handy on the trail, and I looked super cool with that whip flying around behind me.
I no longer have the Blazer, or that obnoxiously long whip, but I still have that CB. Over the years I would occasionally put it in my truck, with a mag mount antenna, just to see what was happening. Not surprisingly, not much was happening. But I would occasionally hear reports of speed traps, plus it gave me something to fiddle with on those long road trips. Usually, I had to keep it turned down because I had kids with me, and the CB bands aren’t exactly “family friendly”.
Several years ago we took a road trip to Texas. I had the CB with me, and kept picking up some guy who kept talking about being “careful on the highways and byways”. All I could hear was his side of the conversation, and he sounded like a goon. He was pegging the meter on my radio, and I figured he was local, and I would eventually get away from him. After listening to him for 5 or 600 miles, and his signal not getting weaker, I did a little internet sleuthing and found out he was in New Mexico! Folks reported being able to hear him all the way up the eastern seaboard, and as far north as Canada. So many complaints online, and he had been basically locking down channel 19 for hours at a time for months, or even years. I’m not sure what this guys motivation was, but honestly, I found it to be downright dangerous. Whether you like truckers or not, I’m pretty sure they still use CB’s to let each other know about safety issues between their political rants and “smoky” updates. I kept the radio in my truck for a little while afterwards, occasionally checking to see if he was still doing his thing, and I heard him off and on for months after that road trip. I finally just lost interest, and lost faith in the FCC that they would do anything.
After doing a little more digging when I started writing this, it appears he might have stopped. I don’t know if the FCC finally got involved or not.
I bought a pull behind camper a few years ago, and usually throw it in the truck when I’m on the road with it. That Cobra is huge. I don’t want to mount it, and it is hard to find a spot in my truck where its not sliding around, or just in the way. I also felt like it wasn’t working 100%, and started reading about how the Chinese Cobra’s (which mine is) would have capacitors go bad after a long time, and other problems. I bought mine around 1995, so I started shopping for a new one. I found a President Thomas AM/FM that caught my eye, so I bought it.
Its a much more reasonably sized unit, about half the size of the old Cobra 19. It sounds good, and basic functions are pretty easy to navigate without a user manual. But, there’s a few options that requires hitting some weird sequence of buttons to change, so hang onto that user manual. The screen is huge compared to the little red LED channel indicator on the old Cobra. But, to me, that’s not a good thing. The screen is BIG for a CB. All I need is to know what channel I’m on. The screen on the Thomas is probably 10x the size of the tiny LED number readout on my old Cobra.
If it weren’t for the fact that the whole screen lights up, and there is no brightness control, it would be pretty cool. There’s multiple colors to chose from, which seems like a pretty cool option, and it is, until you realize that there’s not a single color that’s good for night time driving. Last fall, I took it on a trip to Miami, and we drove all night to get home. I can’t over exaggerate how bright this thing is. I had to keep the radio off, because it was so distracting to use at night. It is downright blinding. The best night time color is probably the dark blue, but it illuminates the inside of the truck so much that you’d think there was a live Moody Blues concert inside the truck. There really should be a dimmer switch on this thing.
I know I paid a little extra for FM, which was probably a waste. In the few outings I’ve had with it, I haven’t heard a single soul on FM. Because FM on CB is still very new,I knew I probably wouldn’t hear much when I purchased the radio, but I figured if FM ever gained in popularity, I would be set. I just like to have options.
While I don’t think I’ll ever use it in my truck again, I think it will probably be a good shack radio. I live pretty far from the interstate, and I doubt I’ll pick up much with it, but I’ll put it up anyways and see what I can get with it. Years ago, I had a tiny little Uniden CB radio. This thing would almost fit in your pocket. Its still in production, and I think I’ll probably end up picking up another one just for road trips. Now that I’m likely to have some sort of ham mobile with me, I won’t have much room for a big CB radio!