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Handheld CB
- Thread starter kbbgood
- Start date
CB is not a viable option for reliable coms at the moment, and for the next few years to come. CB radio, on the 11 meter band, 27mhz, is affected by atmospheric conditions. The atmosphere in turn is affected by sunspots, which come and go in cycles. EVERY 11 YEARS.
RIGHT NOW WE ARE AT THE TOP OF THE 11 YEAR CYCLE.
Meaning signals bounce of the F layer of the atmosphere and return to earth thousands of miles away. Great if your a ham operator or qusi ham on CB talking to random contacts thousands of miles away. Bad if your are trying to call base camp from your 4 wheeler.
Remember it is not just communications being bounced off the upper layers of the atmosphere, it is noise as well. Every fluorescent light, traffic signal, OTH radars, transformers, crappy electronics, etc. Everything that jams a radio..................................
Expect less than a mile of reliable range out of a full power handheld CB radio, and that using a 4' telescopic antenna and not the short rubber duck.
Save yourself lots of money and buy a pair of these
BAOFENG Dual Band Model UV 5RC VHF UHF Radio 2 Way Transceiver Walkie UV 5R 628586667976 | eBay
dual band, VHF/UHF
can talk to hams, vhf marine radios, murs radios, business radios, GMRS/FRS radios, etc.
Out the box in woods you might get 5 mile range mobile to mobile. Set one up as a base with the antenna up high, if terrain is in your favor 10 miles.....is a joke.
I run these BAOFENG UV 5R Dual Band UHF VHF Radio w Upgrade Version 3800mAh Battery 2 123 | eBay
and these
Taxi Narrow Band Maxon SM 2450 UHF Radio w Mic Bracket 440 470 MHz 25W 4CH | eBay
when I need reliable coms in the wilderness
these services will work:
VHF marine radios would also do, unfortunately they will draw alot of attention to you, as using VHF marine radios on land is not only technically illegal, its actually enforced.
MURS will do, but only 4 channels, 2 watts legal limit, like your not going to run 5 or 50.lol Donside, you share the channels with walmart
Itenerant Business frequencies: blue dot, red dot, k-dot, etc
You can get away with talking on these while in the middle of nowhere
GMRS/FRS: The cheap (relatively) walkie talkies you get at Target, Walmart and Radio Shack. Typically good for less than a mile, maybe 2 with the higher power units. Technically there is a licensed service on these frequencies, it allows the use of high power commercial gear, not just handhelds but base stations, repeaters and mobiles. Very seldom do you hear licensed users. FCC sold them out when they allowed the cheap hybrid junk to take over.........but if a licensed user hears you, he will be pissed, because he got took for $90 by the FCC and you didnt.
RIGHT NOW WE ARE AT THE TOP OF THE 11 YEAR CYCLE.
Meaning signals bounce of the F layer of the atmosphere and return to earth thousands of miles away. Great if your a ham operator or qusi ham on CB talking to random contacts thousands of miles away. Bad if your are trying to call base camp from your 4 wheeler.
Remember it is not just communications being bounced off the upper layers of the atmosphere, it is noise as well. Every fluorescent light, traffic signal, OTH radars, transformers, crappy electronics, etc. Everything that jams a radio..................................
Expect less than a mile of reliable range out of a full power handheld CB radio, and that using a 4' telescopic antenna and not the short rubber duck.
Save yourself lots of money and buy a pair of these
BAOFENG Dual Band Model UV 5RC VHF UHF Radio 2 Way Transceiver Walkie UV 5R 628586667976 | eBay
dual band, VHF/UHF
can talk to hams, vhf marine radios, murs radios, business radios, GMRS/FRS radios, etc.
Out the box in woods you might get 5 mile range mobile to mobile. Set one up as a base with the antenna up high, if terrain is in your favor 10 miles.....is a joke.
I run these BAOFENG UV 5R Dual Band UHF VHF Radio w Upgrade Version 3800mAh Battery 2 123 | eBay
and these
Taxi Narrow Band Maxon SM 2450 UHF Radio w Mic Bracket 440 470 MHz 25W 4CH | eBay
when I need reliable coms in the wilderness
these services will work:
VHF marine radios would also do, unfortunately they will draw alot of attention to you, as using VHF marine radios on land is not only technically illegal, its actually enforced.
MURS will do, but only 4 channels, 2 watts legal limit, like your not going to run 5 or 50.lol Donside, you share the channels with walmart
Itenerant Business frequencies: blue dot, red dot, k-dot, etc
You can get away with talking on these while in the middle of nowhere
GMRS/FRS: The cheap (relatively) walkie talkies you get at Target, Walmart and Radio Shack. Typically good for less than a mile, maybe 2 with the higher power units. Technically there is a licensed service on these frequencies, it allows the use of high power commercial gear, not just handhelds but base stations, repeaters and mobiles. Very seldom do you hear licensed users. FCC sold them out when they allowed the cheap hybrid junk to take over.........but if a licensed user hears you, he will be pissed, because he got took for $90 by the FCC and you didnt.
Radio is like that. Unless it's encrypted (and therefore illegal in most private communications), whatever you transmit is subject to being received by people other than the one/ones you intend it for. Doesn't matter whether repeaters are involved or not.
I understand that...
By using alternative methods, he would have less of a critical audience. If he were to use 2 meter repeaters, every old fart is gonna bend their ears listening to his mundane family chat.
Yes, he'll still likely have monitors while using other frequencies, but surely, not as much as a 2 meter repeater.
I avoid repeaters like the plague. They might be better in other areas, but the ones around here have some downright ignorant fools on them.
I guess no coded talk on 2 meters either then. I used it on 11 meters way back then but it only got some more curious. Should've changed the codes on a regular basis
I'm still a newb to the whole HAM scene but I don't see how this is plausible, so your telling me there are FCC dudes running around with RFDF systems or at minimum scanners and yagi's tracking down users on unauthorized freqs? How does this work? I would counter this by saying if you keep your power down to the minimum, use a directional antenna when you need increased range, keep transmission bursts short, and use basic military comm plan (callsigns that are completely anonymous IE tigerblood, adonis, dutchess, etc etc), there would be no good way for them to prove who's using it no?
Once again, sorry for being a newb, but this part confuses me, if the F Layers are good for long range comm's (which if your able to bounce the signal thousands of miles, they MUST be good for comm's), they are good for short range comm's no? The only difference in RF propagation that I know of is take of angle, if you want long range you use an angle more horizontal(sloping V, long wire on an angle towards the ground) if you want short range, you use a more vertical, preferable NVIS, or a long wire(di-pole or w/e) parallel to the ground. Once again, I'm a noob so feel free to correct me.
Well yes, illegal is illegal, but there are varying degrees, is it a crime? No, its a violation, so its really not breaking a LAW. I really don't have a great understanding of the FCC codes and rules so I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure your maximum penalty is a stiff fine, yea if you keep at it and always causing problems they can get the local police to get you on SOMETHING. Bottom line is licensed or not, keep power to the minimum you need to do your thing, use smart not dumb, (dumb is bad, if you have dumb you might want to consider a career as a military officer), and for gods sakes more power doesn't guarantee more range, more elevation will do you far better with far less equipment. Then again, if you can't use propagation to get your HF comm's up over a few clicks, sure use a power amp, throw out close to a Kw of power on a whip on top of a mast and see if that works.....<can not stand it> Dumb<Smart every time people....
To the OP, yes a handheld CB pushing 4w SHOULD work if with a bit of knowledge, bring an ant with a mast or pole or something, or hell just a rock and some 550 cord, tie the cord to some coax attached to your ant, and tree top your whip....I've used metal slinky's to get comm's with far more success than I expected...its rf THEORY, meaning nothing is fact, science or law, just because its works in Scenario A on Day X doesn't mean its going to work everytime, sometimes groundwaves go way further than you expected, and sometimes skywaves don't seem to go anywhere, with a little practice you can make something work in any scenario.
Okay so I had to do some quick double checking to confirm and once again I could still be wrong, I don't have a HAM license nor do I have a degree in RF Propagation. Citizen band operates in HIGH HF range, so trying to use the F layer to bounce your wave really isn't in its ideal scope of use, sure it COULD be done, but most likely its going to punch straight through and disappear into space. Now if you are talking about Tropospheric ducting, that's plausible but I don't really see that working well even in the high HF range, usually that's done best with Mid-VHF, or UHF but once again I've never tried, just read.
I will try to put it in laymans terms.
With a handheld CB your comms are going to suck. Go ahead and try it, then tell us about it.
Dont blame me, blame the sun because every 11 years there is a peak in solar activity, sunspots, solar flares,etc that causes a layer way up in the sky to reflect upper HF signals back to earth, and its much higher up than the normal layer you are used to so crap goes alot further.
Sounds cool right, ....wrong.
F2 layer propagation is completely unreliable, conditions can change by the minute, and more noise gets bounced back to earth, thats right, now you have to talk OVER the noise.
Truck drivers from every country in latin america, OTH radar, quasi ham DX, noise from electrical crap, etc all coming in at once.
You hook that handheld up to a good antenna when the crap is coming in, there probably won't be enough squelch range to shut the noise up.
Good luck being heard over 20dB+ of noise.
Did I mention the antenna on the thing really sucks. Any antenna that is physically shorter than the electrical length of the signal is a compromise. The electrical length of 27mhz is a little over 8 foot, and I am not even going to go into counterpose or ground plane. At 8' you will have ZERO db of gain, that rubber duck antenna is going to have a loss, anything shorter than 8' is going to have NEGATIVE gain, or loss.
Go with VHF or UHF, the electrical length of the antenna is much shorter. like for GMRS/FRS, its like 6 inches. There are ways they can make an antenna LONGER than its electrical length, and end up with dB's of GAIN, like two or three times more power radiated out. gain is good.
With a handheld CB your comms are going to suck. Go ahead and try it, then tell us about it.
Dont blame me, blame the sun because every 11 years there is a peak in solar activity, sunspots, solar flares,etc that causes a layer way up in the sky to reflect upper HF signals back to earth, and its much higher up than the normal layer you are used to so crap goes alot further.
Sounds cool right, ....wrong.
F2 layer propagation is completely unreliable, conditions can change by the minute, and more noise gets bounced back to earth, thats right, now you have to talk OVER the noise.
Truck drivers from every country in latin america, OTH radar, quasi ham DX, noise from electrical crap, etc all coming in at once.
You hook that handheld up to a good antenna when the crap is coming in, there probably won't be enough squelch range to shut the noise up.
Good luck being heard over 20dB+ of noise.
Did I mention the antenna on the thing really sucks. Any antenna that is physically shorter than the electrical length of the signal is a compromise. The electrical length of 27mhz is a little over 8 foot, and I am not even going to go into counterpose or ground plane. At 8' you will have ZERO db of gain, that rubber duck antenna is going to have a loss, anything shorter than 8' is going to have NEGATIVE gain, or loss.
Go with VHF or UHF, the electrical length of the antenna is much shorter. like for GMRS/FRS, its like 6 inches. There are ways they can make an antenna LONGER than its electrical length, and end up with dB's of GAIN, like two or three times more power radiated out. gain is good.
and yes, the FCC has in the past ran around with RDF during hunting season popping people for running VHF marine radios. The coast guard too to a lesser extent. Wildlife officers love to monitor it too. Your odds of getting popped using marine radios, even casually without a care in the world, are about the same as winning a lottery jackpot. The real problem with VHF marine radios, is that there will be people intently monitoring you, people who do not like you.
Is much cheaper to get and set up ham or commercial gear to run on public or de-facto public frequencies that noone gives a damn about.
Is much cheaper to get and set up ham or commercial gear to run on public or de-facto public frequencies that noone gives a damn about.
Okay, but why are you even trying to use the Ionosphere for transmission, CB is above the critical frequency and power is limited to 4w so whats the point.
Also, so your saying that there will be excessive noise from other emitters coming down from the Ionosphere in the area, this makes sense, but once again from what I know, 11 meter is too high for Ionospheric propagation, so I don't understand how any of that is going to give you interference.
Also, so your saying that there will be excessive noise from other emitters coming down from the Ionosphere in the area, this makes sense, but once again from what I know, 11 meter is too high for Ionospheric propagation, so I don't understand how any of that is going to give you interference.
4 watts on cb can and does talk around the world, combine that with all the higher power radio's trying to talk skip and it can make close local talk very difficult sometimes
Just did some more reading, the F region can be used to reflect high HF low VHF freqs at the solar maximums and during the day. Which means yes, if someone in South America has their ant at the right take off angle, they could in theory get several thousand km out of their CB. High HF and VHF operate principle on LOS and Direct wave propagation, which tells me that unless you have your ant horizontally polarized and using NVIS to communicate, you really shouldn't have a problem with interference from other skywaves. A Vertically polarized ant with a very low take off angle should be fine for LOS comms. Also thermal ducting is possible with high HF and low VHF, I stand corrected.
Not debating this part, I'm just trying to understand how a low take off ant would result in the unintentional receive of this. I feel like these waves are going to all sorts cross polarized when you finally pick them up, reducing audio quality to almost crap, plus the 4w emitter that you are trying to receive is going to be far closer and should be easier to receive.
If there's a 11 meter pushing out much more than 4w and trying F region reflection, won't it punch right through the Ionosphere?
...runna pile-up on 6m SSB