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Cb channels empty for the most part.

There is nobody except truck drivers on any channel 19 near Swampscott MA.
I saw a Ham setup across the pond; but he never gets on 11 or 10 meters.
 
The skip up here in Upstate NY has been relentless and unforgiving. We have a pretty good number of locals here in the Mountains where county's can have a population of 45.000. We have broke off the channel we all were on over certain words and sale of equipment etc. went wrong but in my listening range their is about 50 of us or so but 10 are on a lot and I am one of them. When talking back & forth to the mobile or viceversa we have to go up 60 channels above 40 and still have to deal with others from other country's other wise forget it.
 
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Same around here. When I spin around the CB channels there isn't any activity unless the band is open. Even the drunks near Grand Rapids who used to talk to themselves and play strange music clips over and over just to rile up the occasional trucker have faded away, which is a good thing. I've heard more local chatter on 10m than on the CB. Like I said in another post; my 1000 drive to NC was pretty dead. Very few truckers ever talked and I didnlt see any 4 wheelers with an antenna the entire trip.
 
Plenty of chatter on 19 here in NWLA, some loud mouths have found ch. 20 and bleed over. Man that pisses me off.
 
I just hooked up a radio after over 10 years being 10-7. There are still a few pockets of people on the south side where I am now (near sw Chicago burbs). The ch 20 dudes are still hopping and I've waved a hand at a few of the old timers that actually remembered by number from back in the day. There is a small group of old timers on 30 right near me, so I'm looking to put out a stealth dipole on the condo building soon.

I used to run on ch2 which centered around Lombard, Ch3 around Naperville and Ch8 around north Wheaton. I was in South Wheaton with a big tube powered station on a vertical. I've hollered on all the stations with not a peep. Also quiet are 21 around Bolingbrook, and 15 around Aurora.

Any other Chicago folks care to chime in?

I do love what DX has become though. The stations and rigs now are way above and beyond what we used to do. I'm still trying to do it the hard way with a tiny 1 pill mobile and wikson 1000. But I haven't spent a dime. Just pulled the gear out of the garage abd installed it. Maybe I'll hook up the ssb radio and give that a shot but I always liked the challenge of AM skip. Shrug.
 
I just recently moved from MO to NC. Had the CB on the whole time. Aside from 2 maybe 3 truck drivers, I didn't hear much.

Word on the street is some of the newer truck drivers don't run a CB while the older ones are tired of the B.S. heard on the CB.

Don't hear much but skip in NC. Sure do see a lot of pick up trucks and Jeeps with CB antennas though.
 
May as well throw my 2 cents in.... Pretty quiet around here now, I have to call up on the phone to get the few old timers on the channels! Few truckers moving through with a couple of French-Canadians going across the U.P., truck drivers saving a few miles.
I remember my dad's CB in the late 60s, fairly busy then with Solar Cycle 20 doing well! I was not too interested then.... Next time I was the late 1970s, around the end of the decade the bands was building up to the peak of around 1984. As cycle 21 died out I earned my HAM ticket but never really gave up on CB. Bought my first and brand new HR-2510 in 1989! Wish I still had that one....
The peak of cycle 22 was around 1991 and most of the locals tried of that so off went the rigs and most never came back. Seems that when there was skip the locals would disappear. Good times on 10 through 20 meters, some VHF/UHF was not bad.
Next cycle was 23 and even though it was not the greatest, I made plenty of contacts but locals were a rare find, old timers died off and big guns had sold their towers.... pretty quiet and remains so today.
Sunday evenings there is a sideband net on 39 LSB, centered around Iron Mountain, Michigan. About 55 miles to my South, I hear check-ins from as far as Green Bay with beams headed North. http://northernmichiganradio.weebly.com/
Most recently there is no-one on but me.... well a few local kids with 4x4 mud hoppers that use CB out in the woods with no cell coverage. A few of these use bootleg 2 meters!

73 mechanic
 

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  • @ Crawdad:
    One of the few times my tiny station gets heard on 6m!:D
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    anyone out here familiar with the Icom IC-7300 mods
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    7300 very nice radio, what's to hack?
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