CB Purchasing Advice

[cbman]

I'm looking for a good CB radio & Antenna setup for a Jeep Wrangler. Trying to keep under the $150 range, but I need it to transmit/ receive pretty far away (about 6-10 Miles).

[mylt1]

6-10 miles isnt gonna happen with a cb. best bet is get your ham license and a good VHF radio and get the repeater feq's.

[JeepinInFl]

Originally Posted by mylt1

6-10 miles isnt gonna happen with a cb. best bet is get your ham license and a good VHF radio and get the repeater feq's.

????? I can easily do 12 miles with a unmodified cobra 29..

[mylt1]

dont take this the wrong way, but i doubt that. CB is usually good up to about 5 with perfect conditions. base radios with taller antennas can do 8 or so.

[ringguy]

Originally Posted by mylt1

dont take this the wrong way, but i doubt that. CB is usually good up to about 5 with perfect conditions. base radios with taller antennas can do 8 or so.

CB radios can EASILY go that far. EASILY. Sounds like you don't have your standing wave ratio correct or something. I really like the one where you say base stations can do about 8 miles, lol. I call this BMS which stands for Benign Misinformation syndrome.

The most important part of a CB radio is the antenna, placement of the antenna and the tuning of it.

That said, I like the Uniden radios with weather ch.

[JeepinInFl]

LOL Mylt1, I talk skip on my base station from SE Florida all over the US with a barefoot Uniden Grant XL. Like Ringguy stated your misinformed. Do some reading and learn.

[SirGCal]

Depending on atmosphere, location, etc. a properly setup mobile CB should be capable of ~ 10 miles in flat terrain. Setup for off-road configuration without any impeding antennas or any dangerous whips or what not, still a good 4-8 should be achievable. Add a lot of terrain and this will drop drastically. This is the big factor.

As for equipment, a good antenna is the key. CBs for most purposes are all going to be about the same due to FCC limits. A low priced Cobra, Uniden, Midland, or Galaxy are the most common that come to mind. A good Wilson or Firestick tunable antenna, good coax, and a proper SWR setup is the key to good communication.

[mylt1]

Originally Posted by JeepinInFl

LOL Mylt1, I talk skip on my base station from SE Florida all over the US with a barefoot Uniden Grant XL. Like Ringguy stated your misinformed. Do some reading and learn.

skip is not normal usage. so dont confuse that with range. as i stated before, 5 miles with a mobile. unless your in the desert and sitting on a plateau transmitting across a valley. any type of structure or even trees will degrade your signal.

[mylt1]

Hmmmm, direct from firestick.

CB operators can expect a fairly consistent operational range of three to five miles in an area of limited obstructions

of course it does go on about atmospheric conditions also effecting range but again they state that that is not reliable. so WHO is misinformed? me and firestick or you guys?

[mylt1]

from wilson

Generally speaking, you should expect a range of 3-5 miles

[SirGCal]

Enough guys.. keep this on topic. It doesn't matter how far we can go or what they say they can do, the atmosphere and topography have too much to play to say 'you can do X' everywhere. If you need long distance communication, you should go to the HAM type talkers. Otherwise, a CB can get you from anywhere between 3-12 miles but that's entirely dependent on the environment and setup. Even with the best setup, expecting 10+ miles everywhere, every time, is just unrealistic due to changing elements.

Now please, no more bickering over stupid distance 'my cb is bigger than yours' stuff. Keep this on topic.

To get the most out of CB, use a good antenna and set it up properly.

[Jerry Bransford]

I've never measured the mileage between myself and other Jeeps on the road when talking via CB but I know when I was in college and a buddy and I had stock unmodified CBs with rooftop antennas, we could easily talk the 12-14 miles between our houses without problem. I wouldn't be able to talk that far on the trail due to the terrain but....

[JeepinInFl]

Roger that SirG. I forgot to mention that I live in south Florida and it's pretty flat here. Cbman like others stated get your antenna grounded good, your swr as close to 1:1 as you can and get to talking.

[strawdog]

I actually prefer 2 meters so I can use repeaters and phone patches.

Not a lot of people actually use ham radios so CB is along also.

Lots of good info in this thread about half way down page two (many links)

making own cb antenna mount

Straw

[garthbrown]

Remember that there's no set distance possible with any signal - be it CB, any of the Ham frequencies, commercial rigs, etc.

There are so may variables involved that there are libraries of books on the topic.

For a basic CB, assuming your rig is setup properly and your antenna and feed line are set and tuned properly, you'll generally see your distance limiting factors as your radio line of sight.

A radio line of sight isn't quite the same as a human line of sight - there's impact from obstructions outside what we humans would consider our line of sight.

Things like hills, trees, buildings - they all attenuate (diminish) the signal. The more of them in the way of your radio line of sight, the more attenuation occurs and the nearer the other party must be to hear your signal.

Even with powerful radios - sometimes very short distances are impossible. In just the last month I've been unable to communicate with 60 watts on a well tuned VHF rig over a distance as short as a mile. It just happened to be a mile around the corner of what most people would call a mountain (small peak here in the NW).

On the other hand, with good radio line of sight, I'm able to do many miles at much lower power on VHF, CB, UHF - whatever.

Even things like rain, fog and snow can have an impact on propagation. At lower frequencies, so can the composition of the earth between you and the recipient.

At the end of the day, with a CB and a well tuned antenna - you'll probably be able to talk to someone if you can see them. If not, then it's into the "maybe" category. Anything more specific than that without a great deal of detail is pure supposition.