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Is CB Radio Dead In Your Area? Maybe Not. Try This!
- Thread starter Unit 194
- Start date
My way of checking for locals. Find a clear channel and listen for a minute or five. If no traffic, key up and play a song into the mic. At the end of the song, unkey and listen to the locals cuss me out.
Many years ago I had a local who would constantly play music on Channel 19 which would drive the truckers crazy. He's no longer on the air and neither are the truckers.
The only daily activity that I can find in my area is a small group on channel 17. They seem to have a private club because they don't seem to want to engage with new people on the channel. There is sporadic traffic on lower 38 but they also seem reluctant to let new people in the club. I tried that method suggested by the video, only hanging around a bit longer on each channel, without any success. It's sad because in the 70's and 80's there were people to talk to 24/7. Looks like I'm going to have to get my ham license if I want to chat with others! 
the phenomenon of the seemingly empty band is why i always remove the channel mute function in radios that make it possible.
having to chuff through the channels waiting for the receive to come back gets monotonous really quick, and can lead you to turn the radio off rather than going through it again.
when you remove the mute function (an FCC mandate so people couldn't talk in between channels) you can spin the dial much much faster and find out if any stations are out there on any channel.
or you could just buy an SDR receiver so you can see if anyone's out there.
LC
having to chuff through the channels waiting for the receive to come back gets monotonous really quick, and can lead you to turn the radio off rather than going through it again.
when you remove the mute function (an FCC mandate so people couldn't talk in between channels) you can spin the dial much much faster and find out if any stations are out there on any channel.
or you could just buy an SDR receiver so you can see if anyone's out there.
LC
Just did, should be here tomorrow. Bonus, I can use it as a cheap spectrum analyzer for the bench when I'm not scanning the band. At $27, it was an impulse buy.