What is the point? One might safely ask. Well, intelligibility of sound is a controversy even among Hams when talking about a quality broadcast sound vs bandwidth issues. The CB band doesn't have these problem or issues.
Cb'ers have long been concerned about their audio quality,especially those who operate 11m ssb
The true nature of Amateur radio is to experiment and bring something new to the hobby. CB hasn't really involved itself with some of the more usable products from the Ham influence. CB doesn't use digital methods, such as SSTV or PSK31 - but it potentially could.
Since when was sstv or any other digital method stopped on cb? its been used on cb in europe for a number of years,as has rtty,morse,and other data modes.
Cb'ers have been experimenting with radios,antennas,audio since long before you ever became a ham.
What will CB radio look like in ten years from now? Or even 5 years from now?
Hopefully nothing like todays amateur bands.full of people lacking technical ability,ignorance towards other users (which includes hogging bandwidth with so called "hifi audio" ),5/9 cr@p instead of honest signal reports,
hopefully cb'ers will continue to welcome and help new users as they always have done and leave the egotism to hams with less than brilliant rf theory behind them, it would be a very sad day the day 11m becomes like amateur radio
Don't look now; but things have already changed. More CB radio operators are utilizing Ham radios on the CB frequencies. Good and bad. Bad - because it encroaches on present FCC regs that call it illegal. Good because these radios don't lend themselves to 'splatter' modulation that give off harmonics across other bands.
Sadly this is far from the truth,yeah amateur sets are cleaner but ONLY in the hands of competent operators,in many cases those using hf transceivers with lack of experience be they ham or cb'er are splattering all over the place from incorrect setting of alc,mike pre amps, processing etc.
Wasn't that long back i had to explain to a typical US all the gear/no idea station that if he ran his kenwood ts570 with his mc 60a with the pre amp switched on he was preamping the audio twice, which caused dreadful distortion, he told me he had had nothing but good audio reports in the states,but after he took my advice and switched the mic's preamp off he was amazed at the clarity off his own audio, its simple little mistakes like that caused by people using gear that is quite frankly out of their operating depth that causes most of the dirty signals on 11m. the most common one i come across is misadjusted alc.
But what can be done that is legal?
One can make a better audio chain in and out of the radio. Legal to do. But for now, I will concentrate on the audio input. It might cost a bit to come up with better audio, but with cheap and available technology it can be easily accomplished. It will involve some gear to acquire. A large capsule condenser mic, a preamp that can power such a mic, making one cable from the output of the preamp to the radio, a standard ~6 ft 'XLR' mic cable, and a remote foot or hand 'push to talk' switch.
Time is about to move on.
HIFI audio may well be legal,but it is very inconsiderate towards other users of a mode that was designed to reduce bandwidth and noise.
What does it achieve anyway ? why does audio need to be any better than clear ? out of all the people you talk to how many will have the receive audio bandwidth to even benefit from your wide audio ? outwith the less than 1% who can benefit of the rest their narrow filters will hack most of it away so in 99% of contacts you just wasted a heap of money installing "hifi audio".
) -----> "Also, be sure to start out with a high quality transceiver. It's pointless to put lipstick on a pig."
