CB Milage Limit

[leftcoast118]

More for equipment? Depends on what you GET for those dollars. Recently, you could buy an IC706 for around $699 brand new. Ten bands PlUS! General coverage receiver, aircraft receiver, public service receiver and scanner. If you divide that cost by EACH single band radio,, it comes to $69.00.
Cheaper than your $299 "export" (and illegal, BTW) Connex with all them " extra channels"--cheaper STILL if you add in the scanner, the aircraft receiver, and the police capability.




The point of my comment was not the cost of the radios. That was just a side note. But $700 is a lot of money just to talk on the radio and there are people who could care less about aircraft, public service, police receivers, and the like. A person can get a legal SSB radio for around $150. I for one just like to talk on the radio. (And I didn't say I had an export radio). I just gave a reason that I thought the FCC imposed the 155 mile rule.

Even if ALL the CBers were to quite talking over the 155 mile limit all the noise and static and such would still be there. Example: If I am talking to a guy 10 miles away from me here on the west coast and there are 2 guys on the east coast 10 miles apart talking to each other and the conditions are good we are still going to be transmitting and receiving well over the 155 mile limit and all 4 of us will hear each other. There is no law that says that if the conditions are good that all CBers must cease transmitting so we won't interfer with Ham or other communications. So I still feel this law is in place to make amatuer radio more appealling to radio enthusiasts.

 

[C W Morse]

AMPS

m-m-mMMMM! Now WHY did you have to ruin it? Watts, watts, watts, amps, amps, amps. Some habits are sure hard to break, aren't they? THAT's the whole POINT of being on VHF to start with--to get away with that BIG WATTS thing. Fifty watts on VHF FM is P L E N T Y to achieve FAR more than
27 MHZ ever could. Ya know, I have an Ameritron Al-811 that has set on the bench for nearly a year. NEVER has been turned on. Great condition, recently re-tubed. But I don't really NEED it! One hundred watts on HF does everything I need to, and people tell me my signals are just fine: if I can HEAR it, I can usually WORK it! Power, contrary to the CB culture, is NOT everything.

Reminds me of the time a trucker pulled into our dock complete with his big coil antenna-obviously huge into the CB thing. I had been to lunch and had my little Alinco 2M handheld on my belt He spied it and immediately began to make fun of it (HeeHee, why that thang can't git out nohow, I'd stomp that little piece of sh-- with my leenyar, etc, etc. yada, yada".) Real piece of work, that one! I calmly told him I would bet him
a Bill that my "little piece of sh--" would outtalk his Beeg Leenyar anyday of the week! AH HAW HAW HAW HEE HEE! YER ON, DUDE!! So I let him get in his truck and do the "HOW BOUTCHA, COME BACK SKIPLAND, BREAK GIT BACK"! All he got were other local truckers out on the nearby interstate. Then it was my turn. I went to one of the local repeaters and made a call. Clear as a bell, of course, the answer came from 100 miles away. The trucker, also familiar with the area, was stunned when he heard, "I'm just topping the hill at Fancy Gap, Virginia on I-77". He thought he would have to shell out $100, but the look on his face was worth every penny I didn't collect, and it lit up when I let him out of the bet. Yes, it wasn't fair. Yes, I omitted the repeater aspect, but he had it coming with his prior attitude. But he DID get a polite demostration of Amateur Radio and I showed him the route to achieve the same result.

The point then and now is, Power is not everything. And, yes, VHF could be quickly ruined with people's attitudes and their amps if "stomping mudducks" all they want from communications. How sad if THAT is all there is to radio

73

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Finally.Something from Jerry that I can say that I agree with 100% :?

 

[paws264]

YADA-YADA-YADA, some people like to see themselves talk.....

If you pose that question to Larry Brock. Field Engineer of FCC's Dallas Office, he would likely tell you the reason is one word. Interference. It is why the rule was initiated to start with--along with that bugaboo about CB as a hobby is against the law.

Snipped YADA-YADA-YADA.....

More YADA-YADA-YADA.

The portion of Part 94 that deals with how far one was leagally allowed to communicate has nothing to do with espionage or intersate commerce.

The 155 mile rules has to do with the inability of a 11 meter signal to travel farther than 151 miles (due to the curvature of the earth) withous atmospheric propagation; night time groundwave excluded.

Typically it would take sky-wave conditions to talk over 155 miles; the Citizens Band service was set aside for local (155 mile radius) usage only.

What harm does it do to try to talk over 155 miles? It breaks the law and the agreement that you are bound to when you use a FCC type accepted radio or any frequency in the US.

The ability to transmit a RF signal is a privilege not a right, just like concealed carry or driving a motor-cycle.

What attracts a lot of people to CB is the "anonymity" and lack of "accountability" that they perceive that they have behind the microphone. If you don't think the FCC can't do police actions, you could be fooled; they don't come to town specifically for CB complaints but if they are in town for anything, EVERYTHING gets monitored!

I think that when you pass a amatuer radio license exam and use the Ham bands (or any Band controlled by the FCC or ITU), then you are acknowledging the rules and agreeing to abide within them.


.

 

[CHARLEYMARBLES]

CW i'm gonna say it again you say that your 2 watt HT can outtalk any cb but i'd like to see you try it with out using the repeater to BOOST your signal when it retransmits :shock: You like to say power isn't everything but you still work the repeters and if memory serves THEY retransmit at or near a killowatt??? as you know i'm not a ham but I do know some and i seam to recall thats how the repeaters work correct me if i'm wrong :?:

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

A KILOWATT?? :shock: :shock: I have NEVER heard of a repeater running at a kilowatt.The highest powered repeater that I know of is 100 watts on 2m.A lot of the repeaters are made by hams from commercial two way radios that run anywhere from 40 to 100 watts with 50-70 being the norm.No sense in running more power output because then the repeater would be heard further away than someone could access it from.5 watts from a hilltop will get you a looooong way.If you ran a kilowatt you would be all mouth and ears.

 

[C W Morse]

CW i'm gonna say it again you say that your 2 watt HT can outtalk any cb but i'd like to see you try it with out using the repeater to BOOST your signal when it retransmits :shock: You like to say power isn't everything but you still work the repeters and if memory serves THEY retransmit at or near a killowatt??? as you know i'm not a ham but I do know some and i seam to recall thats how the repeaters work correct me if i'm wrong :?:

Sorry, but you're incorrect! VHF repeaters normally run from
10 watts ranging up to 50 watts with a few exceptions. Again, you are assuming that power is the do-all, be-all of radio. VHF is usually line of sight;if the earth was flat you could transmit Lord knows how far. But because it is round, the signal continues (basically) out into space. And there are hills and valleys--even buildings. When your signal runs into one of these obstacles, it gets "blocked" or deflected. But you can put a repeater on a tall tower or a mountain (Like Mount Mitchell, NC at 6600 feet), and your signal will "see" over those obstacles. You don't NEED big power to do this-10 watts on a 2000 foot tower will do wonders! And that's how a little 2 watt handheld will talk 100 miles--even HUNDREDS of miles. And there are hundreds of 2 Meter repeaters. The one on Mt. Mitchell (not one I often use) gets check-ins from all over NC, TN, Ga, Va--even Kentucky when conditions are particularly good. (And besides, I don't even spend time on VHF much, I like HF such as 15,17, 20, 40 and 75 Meters--100 watts is plenty of "BIG POWAH"! Think of a repeater as a "TALL tower"! LOL!


CWM

 

[Happy_Hamer]

YEAH POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IF you want to SHOW MORE POWER on a watt meter please cut at least 6 inches off of your antenna and watch your watt meter show an increase in power :roll:

 

[Moleculo]

435 repeater in L.A. was running around 400 watts at one point, at the top of a mountain ridge. But that repeater is only for the nut jobs among us.... :naughty


Anyway Paws, you're right part 94 has nothing to do with interstate commerce or espionage. I didn't say it did. Part 94 wasn't even written yet when the original mileage limits were initially set. My whole point was that way back before the current regulations, there were mileage limits in place, and some study is necessary to understand why. Do different reasons apply today? Probably. But lets not try come up with our own assumptions on why something exists until we understand where it originated.

Section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934 stated that, "No person shall use or operate any apparatus for the transmission of energy or communications or signals by radio" without a license from the FCC. However only a few years later (1938), the FCC was allowing unlicensed operation at low power. The thinking was that if low power transmissions did not cross state lines, then they had no interstate effect. If they had no interstate effect, then the licensing requirements of 301 did not apply because it required licensing only of interstate use of radio. The Federal government at that time only had limited jurisdiction over anything that did not have interstate implications. The FCC understood this and used it as justification to allow unlicensed radio operations.

Thus the origin of power limit levels and transmission limits on what we call CB today.

 

[Sonwatcher]

Paws wrote-
"
What harm does it do to try to talk over 155 miles? It breaks the law and the agreement that you are bound to when you use a FCC type accepted radio or any frequency in the US. "

Paws264,
You apparently didn't read what was meant by "harm" I was not asking a legal question when talking of "harm" I was speaking technically. I was not asking what was the harm to go ahead and talk but wondering what technically would be the harm to keep the law from being changed. What harm would a legal setup be.

 

[yama junk owna]

Lets go back to moving the whole thing out of the hf spectrum a minute, wasn't this talked about before with the 220 mhz area being the place where cb would end up because at the time it was used very little? Seems like I have read about this and at the time the arrl screamed bloody murder and the idea was droped, by the way UPS ended up with the bandwidth. But the whole rub is this a lot of hams would like cb out of hf just because of the competition and would like to have 11 meters given back to them ( Read Eham and some of the other ham forums and you will see what I am talking about.) and stick cb on the frs freq with .5 watt radios. In my opinion the biggest mistake that anyone ever made was when the fcc said you don't have to have a license for cb and turned their back and walked away. Even though alot of the same things were going on since day one I will agree that it wasn't as wild as it is now. How about this CW give the cber's 2 meters and the hams 11 would that trade work?

 

[Moleculo]

give the cber's 2 meters...

MURS is just above 2 meters in the 151 & 154 mhz range. It's only 5 frequencies right now, but I bet if it caught on, it could get expanded as most of the surrounding area is only allocated to business band.

The radios are a little hard to find, but they're out there. Ranger makes the RCI-1000 for $99, I believe. Also, Justin may have a line on some Motorollas or something similar since he deals in business band radios.

The nice thing about murs, is you can use gain antennas, unlike FRS. That means you can design, build, or buy verticals, yagis, quads, etc. for increased effectiveness.

If you have a few buddies in your area on CB, you ought to get together and find some inexpensive handhelds. You'll probably be pretty impressed with how well that band works with an external antenna.

Anybody remember Dealer when he was around the forum? I got him turned on to MURS with a couple local friends. I gave him some specs on how to make a broadbanded vertical dipole out of coffee cans. That frequency range just works great....

 

[Happy_Hamer]

The radios are a little hard to find, but they're out there. Ranger makes the RCI-1000 for $99, I believe. Also, Justin may have a line on some Motorollas or something similar since he deals in business band radios.

Just modify a 2 meter ham radio,,,,,,its all good

 

[cyclops1970]

VHF repeaters normally run from
10 watts ranging up to 50 watts with a few exceptions.

Ummm...yeah. That's at the end of the hose. You're forgetting the 6 dB or more that's added by the honker of the antenna at the other end.

Does anyone run just a 50 watt ERP repeater setup anymore?

I usually run mine at about 50 watts out of the transmitter, about 30 or so out of the duplexer (I can't remember the exact loss...I think about 1.9 dB) and 120 ERP.

 

[Rick330man]

Looks like the OP is about to get his way 12 years later. The proposed revisions to the CB rules eliminate the mileage cap.