CB radio ??

[dezldog1]

Hi Everyone,
My DH an I are thinking about installing a CB radio in our TV. Was wondering how many of you may have one. What brand you have and if you think it is worth having ??
Appreciate any info on this

Thnx

Jo

[kenandterry]

With cellphones all the rage, CB's are kinda old school according to some people. However, it costs too much to chat a lot for the info a CB offers.

We still like to have one. We travel by motorcycle, car and motorhome, all with CB's, and getting REAL information is still better with a CB. Truckers still use them for various reasons, and if you keep the chatter to a minimum, they still give up to date traffic, weather and radar info you can't get any other way. Aside from truck centres that may sell them (sometimes $$) I just buy the plain and simple one at Radio Shack. The M/C is factory equipped and works great. The one for the 4 wheelers I just use a magnetic mount antennae, and it does what we need.

[rthrbelsewhere]

I have one, yes I think it's worth having one, but that's just because many of the places we go off roading, there is no cell signal. So we have another way to stay in touch with friends or if there's an emergency, we can call back into town. We haven't had to use it in an emergency, but it's been helpful in other ways too. Going down the highway, truckers will call out and inform of traffic issues, accidents, closed roads, road conditions, you name it. One year, coming back from Nashville, we were heading North and about to the boarder when someone called out "Heads up, there's a gator in the hammer lane at mile marker <mm>". I wasn't sure what that meant until I got there and saw a retread from a big rig that came apart and left a huge piece in the middle of the fast lane. This thing took up the entire lane and I had no choice other than to dive into the slow lane between two truckers. I then jumped on 19 and apologized to the trucker behind me for "slamming the front door shut" on him. He replied back that it was understandable and that he knew how much damage that tread would have made to my truck and PUP that we were pulling at the time.

I have a old Midland 77-285 model with a hustler top load antenna.

Joe

[dezldog1]

Thnx guys,
What research I have done in Canada the supplier says FM is the way to go here but in the U.S.A if stopped by the troopers they will rip it out of my truck...yikes.
bottom line was...... in U.S.A. regular 40 channel and in Canada FM...
Very confused ???

[scubieman]

Side note. Truckers station is 19. Tune to that.

[rthrbelsewhere]

Another side note. The emergency station is 9, although I don't know if anybody monitors it anymore. I heard once upon a time that Cheyenne train depot still tunes in, but I haven't had the need to test that.

[dezldog1]

Thank you all so very much.
Such a bunch of great people here. :-)

So much wonderful information. Awesome !!!

[DageonYar]

We picked up a couple of those handheld cobra units for talking back/forth while backing up, and keeping in touch when hiking and stuff. Do these qualify as CB's?

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brows....jsp?locale=en

[cmhbob]

Ohio Highway Patrol still monitors channel 9.

[jimh]

one important part of the CB instillation is the antenna. get one that is DC grounded (ie the driven element goes to ground thru a coil in the base). This passes a lot of the random (atmospheric) noise to ground. the noise will be quieter and the audio clearer.