Funny thing...this is exactly the kind of thing that basically got me banished as a heretic from the QRZ forums when I said I had absolutely zero interest in HF work, lol. I see the radios as tools, not entertainment. I get that some people derive great entertainment from "working the airwaves", or making contacts with people on the other side of the world (a couple of my ham radio buddies think the greatest thing they could possibly be doing on the weekend is seeing how many QSOs they can collect from distant lands), but it just doesn't do it for me. I'm not out to stop other people from doing it, it just doesn't attract me.
As I told them, it's a communication tool for me. Nothing more, nothing less. For most of us, if we could communicate via cell phone in these areas, we likely would all ditch the CBs, and go that way. Part of the reason I got my ham ticket was so that I would have better ability to get communications with "the outside world" so to speak in some of these remote areas in case of emergency, vehicle breakdown, etc where the terrain does a dandy job of stopping CB signal. In these cases, a VHF/UHF mobile setup has all the power we need to hit one of several repeaters or relay information back and forth between someone well off the trail and within cell phone coverage.
Yes, there are, and I know of several groups that use FRS/GMRS radios in these situations, and one group of about half a dozen guys that use UHF business band stuff. However, it kind of comes down to a "when in Rome" situation, in that the vast majority of guys have a CB radio in their truck on these trail runs. Very few of them have any other radios, nor do they have any interest in getting anything different. While there are many good reasons for getting away from CB altogether, when it's the accepted standard, it comes down to it being just not worth the fight to get people to change and just conform,lol.
That said, my whole thinking of converting a 10m ham rig was just to get into higher quality radios at a certain price point, not for higher power or DXing stuff. There seems to be an assumption that even if I'm not into it now, I will be once I have access to the equipment. I've had access to the equipment in the past, and it always just sat dormant in the garage after playing with it for five or ten minutes and quickly getting bored with it. As it is, the CBs I do have now have all been tuned for best performance on channel 4 (the unofficial trail channel for 4x4ing), and the only time I ever tune to 19 is upon initial installation just for a quick check that the radio is working if I don't have someone nearby with a radio. Otherwise it just gets annoying to listen to for more 20 seconds or so (I could probably be grouped into the "up-tight" ham operators group, lol)
If there's no performance/clarity gain to be had with a 10m rig retuned to CB freqs and turned down to 5 watts, then I'll just keep using standard CB gear.
