Do people still use CB Radios?

[AvocadosGuac]

Just curious if people actually still use them

 

[Guest]

The CB radio hobbyist community is HUGE. A dude near me has his own tower in his backyard.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Legendarypoet said:

The CB radio hobbyist community is HUGE

that's relative 

[DrMacintosh]

Yes but not in large numbers. You need a license and there really is no point other than for the novelty as the FCC regulates the life out of it.  

[Blebekblebek]

This is like asking are people still listening to radio.

 

Well, both answer is yes, maybe not so much anymore but some people still do, it's technically off grid, so it's not affected when internet is down.

 

Security use it, police use it, fire department use it.

[intender]

9 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Yes but not in large numbers. You need a license and there really is no point other than for the novelty as the FCC regulates the life out of it.  

no license is required for the use of a CB (citizens band), anyone anywhere can use it as long as you follow a really basic set of guidelines......that pretty much no one actually follows because unlike other bands there is no easy way other than triangulation to figure out where the signal is coming from and that only works for stationary broadcasts.  you do need one if you want to operate on the ham or any of the other bands out there.  There are a lot of people out there still using cb's.  I have one in my xterra since its pretty much just used for off road driving and driving around in the snow in the winter at this point.  In the off road community they are the preferred method of communication for pretty much everybody and on more than one occasion I have gone out and helped people on the trails that were broken down, because I heard them on my cb. 

 

 

All that said I have driven around for hours before and not heard a thing scanning through the channels other than some idiots broadcasting music for hours, which is against the law, on high watt towers which are also against the law.  I will occasionally pick up the random truck drivers having a conversation, or people trying to meet up to sell drugs or some other illegal stuff.  Most people with big towers in their yards are running on ham or vhf, not cb.  But thats not to say that there arent some people running giant towers on cb, but since legally they are limited to something like 4 watts a giant tower doesnt accomplish much without some electronics wizardry involved. 

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

that's relative 

Ok.

[Not_Sean]

Yes we use them a lot for airsoft  

[You_are_a_cunt]

Community is quite large but most potential members are put off by the requirement for a license

[AvocadosGuac]

12 hours ago, revsilverspine said:

Community is quite large but most potential members are put off by the requirement for a license

 

15 hours ago, Legendarypoet said:

The CB radio hobbyist community is HUGE. A dude near me has his own tower in his backyard.

 I mean more of like

 

15 hours ago, intender said:

In the off road community they are the preferred method of communication for pretty much everybody and on more than one occasion I have gone out and helped people on the trails that were broken down, because I heard them on my cb. 

 

 

I might buy a cheap one just to see if theirs anything cool being broadcasted in my area

 

 

Thanks guys!

[intender]

19 minutes ago, Jrock said:

I might buy a cheap one just to see if theirs anything cool being broadcasted in my area

 

 

Thanks guys!

the coolest thing about having a cb just for a hobby is when you manage to get signals from crazy distances.  Usually if you are following the law and not using an amplifier you can maybe get 20 miles out of a signal, but when conditions are right its possible to pick up transmissions from the other side of the country.  usually those are guys with crazy tall towers and amps running thousands of watts so you wont be able to talk back, but when the ionosphere is charged its not impossible to carry on a conversation with people a few hundred miles away if your antennae is tuned properly.  if its not tuned right you usually cant even talk with people 50 feet away.  you can pick them up but they wont hear anything on their end except static. 

 

handhelds are a good cheap option to play around with, and most of them you can hook up to an antannae to if you want. 

[Redneckengineer]

I grew up in the middle of nowhere Texas, and this was the way to communicate before cell phones. Today I still have a truck mount station and a mobile hand held, but other than a few old timer truckers in our area. Just my son and I use them to talk when we are out in the woods. HAM radio is an altogether different beast. 

[Beowulff83]

I am NOT and expert but the lines here seem to be blurred with what some people consider CB and what is HAM.  That is ok to someone not knowing anything it is all pretty much the same thing.  Telling someone into HAM that and you will probably listen to an hours worth of info you don't care to hear.  It would be like making the assumption that because one can build a PC<cb>  He is a Master Programmer <ham> .

 

CB is civilian band radio.  Although it can go 20+ miles with a good stationary unit and antenna set up it is usually limited to a few miles.  This was popularized by truckers running in convoys and being able to communicate with other trucks in the area.  Talking about traffic, the area, also boredom from driving across country and having someone to talk to is nice.  Not to mention if someone spots a speed trap they can relay info to the trucks behind to slow down. . . Smokey and the Bandit.  As Civilian Band radio your government "USA" gave us?.. . the ability to utilize the 27mhz or 11m band to communicate without a license.

 

20 hours ago, Legendarypoet said:

The CB radio hobbyist community is HUGE. A dude near me has his own tower in his backyard

This is HAM.  Not to say that he probably doesn't have the capability to monitor cb.  HAM requires a license to operate. ie broadcast or talk but not to listen.  Ham runs on multiple different frequency's  most popular of which are VHF 2m 144mhz to 148mhz and UHF 70cm 420-450mhz.  Although Hams can talk to each other using their own equipment they also utilize a repeater tower which can extend their range pretty far.  I was able to listen to Hams talking about 40 miles away because a repeater station I was able to tune into is somewhere in between us.  My broadcast may not be able to reach them but my receive was very strong due to to the repeater.  

 

If interested this unit https://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-136-174-400-480-Dual-Band-Transceiver/dp/B009MAKWC0/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1504135424&sr=1-10&keywords=baofeng

@25$ gives you an inexpensive way to check it out.  Although I would suggest an antenna upgrade.  Its all about the Antenna with radios not how many watts you can output.

 

With that radio I am able to listen to all the Ham traffic with in 50 miles. . . talking on repeater station.  I can also use it to pick up local police and fire as most community's still use these frequencies to communicate.  Not to mention Noaa weather radio. Also ""hypothetically"" talk to my buddy a few miles away. . . this would be illegal because  I do not have a HAM license.  Not like the FCC would show up, but a local Ham may be able to triangulate where you live and show up and tell you to knock it off.  They pretty much police themselves and the traffic on HAM radio bands.

 

In a way Hams were the first breed of the modern Techies and they are slowly going away.  Most of the ones I have heard talking sound kind of long in the tooth.  The radio listed above is a cheap way to check out some old school tech.  If you are interested I would highly recommend you check it out.

[ianspy1]

yes i thinks its good for emergencys

[leham]

CB or UHF CB?

I only have experience with the latter

[Top_Hat_Tomato]

I was getting into general radio stuff then read that I can't try internet over radio because of the legalities of transmitting encrypted information.

[edutechie]

CB is still popular to this day, I've got a few CB radios kicking around, and me and a pal occasionally speak on it rather than using Skype or TeamSpeak... sometimes you can pick up passing trucks as some (especially night truckers) still keep a CB radio for a bit of company.

 

 

[NinJake]

They are fairly common within a certain demographic here in Wisconsin. Can't say I use them though