Just curious. Do we have any licensed ham radio operators on here? I got my Tech a few weeks ago and have been loving it. Its amazing to go from cb (4-6 miles range) to 2meter (150+ mile range) and each base unit is the same size.

Here is my setup in my daily driver. Cobra 19 in the right and a Kenwood 281 on the left.

Nobody?

naw

Booooooo!

I have a Cobra 29 CB in my truck. Got one in my son's truck too.

I have a Cobra 29 CB in my truck. Got one in my son's truck too.

 

 

That's just a CB (citizen band). I'm talking about Amateur bands. Cb's are only good up to 4-5 miles, 6-7 if youre lucky. I've been able to talk up to 120 miles with my 2 meter ham radio, and lots of people talk around the world on 10 meter.

I did some work on an old mans house a while back that had some crazy stuff going on in his garage. Tons and tons of that type of equipment. He explained but I don't really remember. He acted as if not many people are able to legally do the things he can. Sounded like he was talking real far. He even built some of these big systems he had. Everything looked super old. Lots of tubes everywhere. He even had his own...not sure what it was. Was like a 3 or 4 letter kind of thing. Represented his location or something? He had stickers made of it. I'm babbling maybe you can make sense of some of that lol. I thought it was cool as hell and he blew me away with how much he knew. Probably an 85+ yr old man who has done that type of thing his entire life.

It will be useful in the zombie apocalypse.

I have a Cobra 29 CB in my truck. Got one in my son's truck too.

That's just a CB (citizen band). I'm talking about Amateur bands. Cb's are only good up to 4-5 miles, 6-7 if youre lucky. I've been able to talk up to 120 miles with my 2 meter ham radio, and lots of people talk around the world on 10 meter.

Yea, umm, I have a CB base station on a 10k linear and a 150 foot antenna and I can reach Alaska. Have one in my dually on a 700 watt linear with a master blaster and it reaches over 75 miles. Don't know where you get 6 to 7 miles from.

Thats my point Quinten. You're pushing 700 watts go to 75 miles on a cb. I can talk up to 100-120 miles on 25 watts and a 19" antenna. Im friends with a guy in Tulsa, OK who has made contacts in Europe and Australia on 100 watts with a base station at his house. The 5-7 miles was referring to a standard 4 watt cb. My point is, dump tons of money into powering a cb to reach the same distance as a ham that cost $80... also i find it hard to hold an intelligent conversation on channel 19 around this area, or any area for that matter.

Smashed, what you are probably referring to is his call sign, which legally lets him talk on a ham radio.

Moral of the story, cb's are decent, but require way too.much power to reach out any good distance, and all emergency bands/weather bands are on ham frequencies, so all around, if shit does hit the fan, ham radio is going to be a valuable life line.