Why echo?

[Turbo T]

And you need to be a jerk too huh. I only asked the question because I wanted to know why people used echo. Apparently people took it as an attack on CBer's from the elitist ham, sorry if that was the impression given.

I think the real reason why its used is because for a trucker, the CB serves double duty as both a tool and a toy.

If you think about it, most often than not, a truckers CB is decked out with rebel flag face plates, chrome covers, blue lights, jewel knobs....you really don't need all this extra stuff for basic communication, but some like it....same with echo and roger beep....not needed for basic communication, but its like those toy mega phones you can buy for kids that not only amplify your voice, but they also change how it sounds.

Truckers spend long hours OTR so that radio can also serve as a cool toy. Might be childish but some adults still have a little bit of kid in them. Some argue that echo helps give them a clear crisp sound while others argue it only makes you more difficult to understand.

Anyways that's my 2 cents.

P.S. to whoever posted they won't return due to some snobby ham, just remember 1. They can't do jack to you and 2. Not all hams are this way....I'm both a ham and a CB operator....radio is radio in my book. Don't judge a radio by its operating frequency. ;-)

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

I like just a little echo. That's my preference. I use it on my CRE-8900 on AM.

 

[Yankee]

P.S. to whoever posted they won't return due to some snobby ham, just remember 1. They can't do jack to you and 2. Not all hams are this way....I'm both a ham and a CB operator....radio is radio in my book. Don't judge a radio by its operating frequency. ;-)

They can turn you in, they got evidence in pictures if you post them. I took all mine down and quit posting because I have heard about hams that do that. [do you watch news of what the present government is doing?] The same hams that use their big amps to talk on 11 meters when they think no one is looking.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Auctio...-being-listed-and-yet-Ebay-does/qaq-p/5186673

 

[w9cll]

Some hams are crusty old snots who hate everyone that does not run a full kw on 160. Then there are us who come from the ranks of 11 meters. We played the game, had amps, big antennas and talked skip. Some of us moved on because we felt cramped in 440kc of band space. I don't look down on CBer's, I was one, but I don't get the noise toys and this is why I asked. In this area, Chicagoland, most people on 11 meters are over modulated, splattering fools running noise toys to annoy anyone listening. SSB has died here except for 38lsb which is a waste land when the band is dead and un-usable when it's open.

You are right there are plenty of hams hanging out on 11 meters with the big amps idling ready to go. Many hams have a huge elitist attitude, it was more so when there was the code requirement. The old snots look down on the ham who got in the "easy" way. They don't even think that the elimination of code testing saved ham radio, it was dieing a slow death, hell the old snots were dieing off themselves. Radio is radio, be it 27mhz or 14mhz, its all a hobby.

To the truckers, have your noise toys! If it keeps you wake the better off the rest of us are!

 

[Turbo T]

Yes Yankee a ham can turn you in, etc.....just as much as I can locate their street address via their call sign and pull their tower down in the middle of the night or pin their coax. Even as a ham myself, I've encountered a few a holes. I blow them off. I figure they can get rude with me over the air all they want but I can spin the dial to get away from them. Or I'll invite them to speak their mind in person and watch them balk behind the mic. Same on the boards. Not all hams are this way. I enjoy radio be it ham CB or FRS.

And again I believe the echo, roger beeps, sound clips, rebel flag face plates and all that....were born for the truckers stuck in their cabs for hours on end and needed a "toy" and so the CB suddenly became more than the poor mans communication tool. It also became the truckers toy.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Yankee]

There were a couple years there when I lived in my truck, on the road for a month at a time, then when I took a couple days off, I stayed in cheap motels. Why rent an apartment and pay utilities if your never there? I stored my junk in my van and parked it on the company lot.

My radio was my line out to reality. In those days, no dish TV in the sleeper, no cell phones. There were two ways to escape, books or radio, in my case, both. While driving, it was my tool, bear reports, scale or road closings, seat covers worth looking at and chatting with the other guys in the convoy or even calling for help or checking in at the docks. While parked for down time, waiting to unload, or just boredom relief, it was good for skip or telling jokes around the truck stop.

When you've come up through that, the idea of why roger beeps or echo is just a non-question. :tongue:

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

There were a couple years there when I lived in my truck, on the road for a month at a time, then when I took a couple days off, I stayed in cheap motels. Why rent an apartment and pay utilities if your never there? I stored my junk in my van and parked it on the company lot.

My radio was my line out to reality. In those days, no dish TV in the sleeper, no cell phones. There were two ways to escape, books or radio, in my case, both. While driving, it was my tool, bear reports, scale or road closings, seat covers worth looking at and chatting with the other guys in the convoy or even calling for help or checking in at the docks. While parked for down time, waiting to unload, or just boredom relief, it was good for skip or telling jokes around the truck stop.

When you've come up through that, the idea of why roger beeps or echo is just a non-question. :tongue:

Thanks for the heads up on the lifestyle.
I'm looking for a trucking job in east tn.
I'd prefer something regional. I carry a class 'B' cdl(concrete truck). I know I might have to get a class 'A' cdl.

 

[Yankee]

I wasn't complaining. It's what I loved to do. And did I tell you about the rolls of hundred dollar bills too big to sit on? It was enough to buy a houseboat and take a couple years of retirement and run the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and live in nice marinas while I unwound.

 

[Turbo T]

Some hams are crusty old snots who hate everyone that does not run a full kw on 160.....Many hams have a huge elitist attitude...Radio is radio, be it 27mhz or 14mhz, its all a hobby.

Isn't that the truth...and not just on 160 either....there was an ass clown from Tennessee on 7.2000 MHz yesterday, call sign N9RSY...this idiot spent over 3 hrs. tying up the freq. to put down another ham (W1IT) who supposedly communicated a threat, so instead of being the bigger man and making a report, this inbred Tennessee hill jack proceeds to talking all kinds of smack, using profanity, making threats, bragging about running excess power to where no one else could come back to him, you name it. Then some little kid gets on and he proceeds to do a 180 and act all nice and innocent. LOL what a nut bag. Yeah sadly ham radio has fallen to the ranks of CB, but there's still some hope for now.

There were a couple years there when I lived in my truck, on the road for a month at a time, then when I took a couple days off, I stayed in cheap motels. Why rent an apartment and pay utilities if your never there? I stored my junk in my van and parked it on the company lot.

My radio was my line out to reality. In those days, no dish TV in the sleeper, no cell phones. There were two ways to escape, books or radio, in my case, both. While driving, it was my tool, bear reports, scale or road closings, seat covers worth looking at and chatting with the other guys in the convoy or even calling for help or checking in at the docks. While parked for down time, waiting to unload, or just boredom relief, it was good for skip or telling jokes around the truck stop.

When you've come up through that, the idea of why roger beeps or echo is just a non-question. :tongue:

I think the bottom line is, some people hate echo, others love it. Me, I don't mind a little bit of reverb, to where it sounds like you're talking in the center of an empty room. But I don't care for so much echo/reverb it sounds like you are talking from the bottom of a well, and I certainly don't like it when the echo makes it sound like you're stepping on your own transmission/repeating your own message like like like likethis this thisthis.

Double talker....no thanks. I have an Xtreme 2018 mic with that on it. I don't care for it. However I do like the sound of the Xtreme 2018 with the echo volume at 3.5 on the dial and the echo delay at 1.5 on the dial....it makes it sound like you're in the center of a big room....not too annoying and IMO intelligible. Although a few SSB folks gave me crap about it, the rest of them thought it sounded good.

Again my belief is echo exists as a "toy" for truckers, same reason why you can doll out your radio with bling bling knobs and blue meter lights, noise toys, Rebel flag face plates, roger beeps, and.....echo. Just a toy for truckers who spend long hrs. behind the wheel. In the old days, none of that existed for CB's.

Hell I have a few echo RF limited boards (and a few Workman roger beeps too) that I am trying to decide if I want to just sell outright,or install them in a radio and then sell the radio + board together. Maybe I'll install them in the two old Midlands I have, then hit up the nearest truck stop with them on and talking advertising them for sale....certainly some trucker will think I'm on some big radio....and he'll probably jump at the chance to buy them, especially since I probably wont ask much for them.

Now I'll tell you what I really like more than anything....the operator who has a radio that sounds like he's in a studio. Motormouth Maul, who sometimes gets on channel 6, has this...OMG sounds like a radio station on the air, and not some cheap CB....that's what I want.

 

[Slowmover]

Echo: it’s the sugar in your coffee, not ol’ Cletus running over his own words that bites

 

[Eldorado828]

I'm guilty..... I use a hint, just a touch.... I'm a trucking cb'r so maybe that's why... I'm in texas, you ought to hear all them bull haulers (cow trucks) and the big radio sound.... echooooo... echooo..echoo...echo...ech...ec..

 

[Slowmover]

I use it too. The majority of drivers using it WANT to sound better, but aren’t using effective tools to find out HOW they sound.

If you don’t like ECHO, blame TALKBACK.

Best results are that one must use a second radio to hear himself. And I’m gonna bet most don’t have a working second radio.

The animus against helping the other guy seems deep via the prevalence of non-answers (“yeah, it’s working”).

Across too-small, low-quality speakers, ECHO is a help. Which is most radios in use,I’d bet.

I try to always give distance air checks and that opens the gate other guys want to know how theirs sound.

Having them in range long enough is half the problem.

1). Turn off Talkback.
2). Turn Echo under one-quarter.
3). Test Mic Gain versus distance held from lips.

— Remind them Talkback isn’t accurate; only handy for feedback about enunciation (train self; then leave off).

— Diction becomes the end problem. Excitement can ruin spoken word.

Best comment about Echo (bad) is that ALL WORDS RUN TOGETHER so that NO ONE understands. That gets them to back it down (generally).

DSP is a durned handy way to distinguish EXACT problem encountered (to advise about their TX) as it’s usually all settings being “off” from ideal.

Windows wide open and Talkback in use (I’m guilty in old days; this speaker too sensitive) and NC mic held too far away coupled to Echo makes the TX turn to mush.

Echo just the icing on the cake.

 

[sunbulls]

There was a very popular ham on 20 meter AM back in the early to mid 60’s. I can’t recall his call sign, but he was somewhere in 7 land, possibly Arizona. Anyway, he used an Echoplex moving head tape machine. Moving the distance between 2 heads would change the delay time. It was thought that having echo helped compensate for the rapid fading in an out of transmissions. After listening to him, everybody wanted one, but found out the setup was too expensive for the average consumer.

 

[Justme]

I'm an old crusty ham, the EQPlus does have an effects processor adding a very little bit echo to the audio, in some cases with finetuned audio it will add just a little extra to your voice and it can help in difficult conditions.
Mind you that efffects processor will add just a very little bit single or multiple echo controled by the level and delay knobs.
Even on max settings you can just hear it.
SO, old, crusty, guilty, using the effects processor, yes only if needed.

 

[Rwb]

humm lemme think . something to occupy time setting echo when nothing else to do?
used to run with a person who shoulda been named P.I.M.A. bad echo. i told him 1 day hearing your voice 1 time is enough but you stutter via echo like your retarded.made him mad n he shut echo off around me.
as for snobby old hams i set back n think how they gripe about illegal cb radios but they have mars cap mods n arent even permitted for mars cap . but hey after all they are "THE ELETE " n that makes it ok? just sayin, just my opinion.
now i wonder how many illegal radios are on the air,on all bands?
but for me cut the echo off please.
how how long long long will will this this post post survive survive??
echo is as bad as some peoples cell phone ringtones that let em ring till the end thinkin everbody thinks they are cool too