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New president lincoln 2

w9cll said:
There is no 11 meter market, that died in the the 80's. What you have left over is a attempt by small companies to market crap hastily designed radios for truckers. Think about the companies that were around years ago. Even the legit ones left, Cobra and Uniden, where are the SSB base radios? If the market still existed they would be there. Everything is marketed to the trucker, not a slam on truckers but that the market now.

Cobra and Uniden sell more cordless phones and consumer electronics then CB's anymore, actually I am surprised that Cobra is still around.

Its all smoke and mirrors now, fancy displays with lots of color and blinking light and you suck the uninformed in. Very few good 11 meter radios are being made these days. Give it a few more years and Uniden and Cobra will drop CBs from the product line. Ranger, Stryker, Galaxy and the rest are not big enough to keep it all afloat.
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It seems some disgruntled radio operators are targeting truckers as a excuse for the quality and type of radios in today's market.

While this may be true to some extent, but I can tell you first hand how the interest in CB radios in the big trucks has steadily diminished from what it was.

The company I drive for has about 150 trucks based at our Phoenix terminal and I would say that over 30 percent of the drivers don't own a radio, don't care to own one, and don't see the need. As long as they have a smart phone, GPS, Satellite radio,Qual-com dispatch, Electronic logs, and a laptop ( all going at the same time while driving down the road mind you, and don't think I'm kidding either) what would they need a CB radio for. Most of the rest of our drivers that do own a CB hardly turn it on on any way.


Shame...At one time I remember when the CB radio was the truck drivers best friend, now it seems like a fading memory.


Nationally it is similar regarding CB radios usage and truck drivers. A large percentage of drivers on the road today are foreign nationals and many can't hardly even converse in English much less talk on a CB or even bother to own one. These drivers are coming in droves from European countries like Serbia, Bosnia, Armenia, also the countries of India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and when NAFTA gets the the full green light, We will have thousands of Mexican trucks on our roadways.

I can see how Cb manufactures would be wasting their time really going all out marketing to the modern day truck drivers as I just mentioned...in the last 15 years or so, Cb sales have dwindled, Cb shops have become scarce, even truckstops offer more of other electronic devices than CB's.

So I don't think it's fair to blame truck drivers for the quality of radios today, It has more to do with how things are manufactured today. Everything is disposable!

Build it cheap and build it fast, add some neat gizmos, and make sure it doesn't last!
 
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I think there is still a market for radios just nothing like the 70's and 80's. There still are hobbyists out there. We might be left overs from the CB boom years but we are there. I'm a 99% SSB guy so the export radios get my attention. The Yeticom Optima that came out a year or so ago is a great stable radio. This year I took 2 vacations, one down south and one to the mid west and other than truckers there isn't much chatter unless the skip is rolling. Imagine sitting at the Soo Locks in Michigan and talking to your locals in NY and NJ. That was a blast
 
W9 I do not disagree with your post, but one point you are missing, the major cross section is not the US market. It is overseas and what you are seeing in the way of all the exports is users here that are using the service as a hobby.
There are still plenty of guys spending lots of $$ on radios, antennas,towers and so on just for the 11 meter band......don`t think so?
Look at this board, and the traffic generated in the CB section of the forum.
The hardcore Cb SSB user feels that Cobra and Uniden have missed the boat and are providing crap for radios.
True that both Cobra and Uniden are going to fold if they do not step up to the plate and provide any better radios...why?
Because Ranger and a handful of overseas manufactures are more than willing to step in and increase their sales to a willing group of consumers.
Yes, The Trucking industry is still using CB, but where a large chunk of the market is ( here) is Hobby related. The FCC has also missed the boat because they have FAILED the American Public in serving them by revising the rules to reflect this.....so most have simply given them the finger and gone on.
You have guys that are buying hi $$$ ham rigs to operate on 11 meters, happens all the time.
You have legit Hams that still use CB in addition to the other bands because they still have friends there.
There are many many Cb shops from coast to coast making a living selling/working on/repairing these radios.
Look at the Sales of Cb radios and related equipment happening on EBay and other online sale sites.
It is a booming business, so good in fact that many have totally disregarded the old out of date FCC regs and are making money hand over fist every day.
Trust me, if the market was not there, do you think all of these people would continue to operate?

73
Jeff
 
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Tucker442 said:
Imagine sitting at the Soo Locks in Michigan and talking to your locals in NY and NJ. That was a blast
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You got a taste of what HF ham is everyday. I was talking to a guy on my way home from work just last night who 35 miles outside of NY city, we chatted for several minutes then a gentlemen from FLA joined the conversation. By the time I was done we had NY, FL, OK, IL (me) and AZ in the round table. You are right it is fun.

I am really not picking on the truck drivers out there but M42 said it himself, most of the CB sales are at truck stops. There just are not that many CB shops left. Now to be fair there are many more places selling Cb's then there are amateur radio equipment.

I still find it very offensive that you spend $200+ on a cheaply made radio and then you need to spend more $$$ just to make it work like it should from the MFG. The “export” radios if they really were geared towards the ham market as they themselves try to make it sound then they would work reasonably well out of the box. They don't because as we all know why. So they make rigs that have mp3 players in them, small lcd screens to show pictures, noise toys and like. If I buy let say a Alinco SR8T(choose this one because it is one of the cheapest HF rig I could think of not including Chinese ones) HF rig. It will work right out of the box. I wont have to spend more money to make it “right” It's cost is not that much more then some of the so called exports rigs. I fully understand that the export mfg's are trying to skirt the rules, I get it. My point it make it work reasonably right then if the user want it modded for out of band use so be it.

Anyway I am off my soap box..... I am not a old disgruntle ham but a younger ex big time Cb'ier that went ham.

Oh by the way....
 
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Audio I agree with you. The FCC did miss the mark. CB should have been in the 460mhz band and FM. I also agree that the over seas market is driving the exports. As I posted above my complaint is not that the exports exist but that most are made so crappy.
 
You're right...they made a bunch of bad choices.
Even if they had simply canned the Idea of AM and used FM there would be a lot less interference complaints.
How in the hell they ever thought that the 155 mile rule could be enforced in the 27MHz area of HF is beyond me.

As for the quality of radios, that went out the window when American companies stopped building radios that were built to work well, not as cheap as possible...but that has happened to a lot of products.
Hell, today in Ham radios, how many new HF rigs today come to market, and we, the buyers are the " beta testers".
If these products are well built, I wonder why when a new rig comes out, there is suddenly a Yahoo user group that pops up for users to work out problems with :
overheating, fried PA transistors,bugs, fixes, crappy sounding audio, AGC pumping, factory mics that suffer from feedback...the list goes on.

Ok, Now I will get off the soapbox.

Night all.
73
Jeff
 
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AudioShockwav said:
As for the quality of radios, that went out the window when American companies stopped building radios that were built to work well, not as cheap as possible...but that has happened to a lot of products.
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Yes you are correct, give me a Tram, CPI or Stoner anyday. This is also why I run boat anchors for my rigs, All the bugs have been worked out, they are easy to work on and just plain work.
 
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That's like the 101EX I use, it always works, always works the same, I can use it to tune other radios, just an old good work horse and the audio everyone tells me is fantastic
 
I won a lot of DX contest`s with a old ancient FT-101B, one of the longest living radios I have ever used.
I have two tucked away in storage. ( a B model and a E )..I simply got lazy and now prefer radios that you you do not have to tune and load when changing bands LOL.


73
Jeff
 
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AudioShockwav said:
I won a lot of DX contest`s with a old ancient FT-101B, one of the longest living radios I have ever used.
I have two tucked away in storage. ( a B model and a E )..I simply got lazy and now prefer radios that you you do not have to tune and load when changing bands LOL.


73
Jeff
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i perfer those old radios just for dxing purposes.and use radios like ts5010,2510 ,ect
for local chatting.
 

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