[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to get started with CB radio?
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Ask HN: How to get started with CB radio?
I am looking to equip our house (in Bay area) with a CB radio
device for disaster communication scenario as well as to expand
social network. What is the minimum required equipment/permissions
needed to start?
Author : freediver
Score : 40 points
Date : 2021-07-04 08:38 UTC (3 days ago)
| frettchen wrote:
| To throw on what others have said, if you've got a vehicle and
| drive at all frequently, it is fairly easy and inexpensive to
| install a CB radio in your vehicle.
|
| I've got one in my Subaru Legacy I stuck up by the driver's seat,
| down to the left of the steering wheel. The radio itself is a
| Uniden PRO520XL (around $50) with a TRAM 703-HC antenna (about
| $20) that's on my trunk via a magnetic base. The antenna cord
| goes into the drunk (under the rain seal - no modification
| needed) and runs along the inside of the car tucked under the
| flooring. No tools needed, just tuck it all in until it's out of
| the way.
|
| The radio itself is just screwed into a blank spot my knees don't
| hit with the included screws (just needed to pre-drill the
| holes). Ground wire is wrenched down under a bolt to the vehicles
| frame, and the power comes from the in-cabin fuse box (for mine
| that was closest, right next to the steering wheel) using a fuse
| tap (which lets you go under an existing fuse, so no permanent
| wiring or soldering needed), which I got a pack of 4 of for
| around $8.
|
| All in all, about $80 to get it all together and other than two
| small screw holes, it can all come out like it was never there if
| needed.
|
| I would reccomend getting an SWR meter (around $50 for the
| Workman brand one I got), which you can use to calibrate your
| antenna so you get better reception - it makes a major
| difference.
|
| On the road, it's great in heavy traffic and rush-hour, as you
| can often pick up (and join in, though some are more open to this
| than others) trucker chatter, either to pass the time or as a
| pre-Waze-style method of knowing where the jams, cops, accidents,
| and so forth are so you can avoid them as needed. As LinuxBender
| said, channels 17 and 19 seem to be the usual trucker channels -
| some places will use both, some cities will focus on one (the
| Cincinnati area, for example, generally seems to be all on 19).
|
| I've never run into the "people playing with voice modification
| and trash talking" busterarm mentioned in his comment, but the
| truckers are often VERY colourful in their language and topics -
| I would reccomend picking up some of the more common slang they
| use (I used to do tech support for trucking dealerships and
| garages, and years ago my dad drove a box truck, so I knew a
| reasonable amount already when I started) as it lets you get a
| lot more out of CB, since they're really still the primary people
| on it, at least in the US.
|
| My radio also came with and output port for hooking a PA to it
| (i.e. in the hood like some police cars have), and while I've
| tested it with a cheap Pyle trumpet style speaker, I don't
| currently have that hooked up because I can't quite work out a
| good way to run the wire for it from the cabin to the engine
| compartment (though there are plenty of spots inside the hood I
| can zip-tie in the speaker, which I've seen people have pretty
| solid success with) - not exactly related to CB itself, but a fun
| thing if you want to add function to the radio, I suppose.
| sliken wrote:
| When I hear disaster communications, I think ham and family/FRS
| radio.
|
| I'd consider getting a ham radio license, the tech license is
| really easy. Just 35 multiple choice, and you just have to get 26
| questions right. The tests aren't tricky, pretty straight
| forward, and often common sense will get you fair number of
| questions right.
|
| Disaster communications and preparations are pretty common among
| the ham radio community. In central California there's a regular
| net that include fire, hospitals, police, universities, etc. It's
| relatively common for ham radio repeaters to have solar+battery
| power to survive most disaster scenarios, you can always fall
| back to direct connecting if need be.
|
| To really be prepared you have to practice, so that means
| participating in nets, setting up your radio, and efficiently
| communicating. The bay area has several nets each week, with
| different topics/goals. Additionally hams often help with races,
| large events, especially if the event is outside of cell range.
| In fact BLM allowed races to take place on BLM land, only if hams
| were involved to help coordinate with emergency services. I
| helped with the a double century bike race and my club also
| helped out with some horse races. Working with emergency
| services, often more than one, is good practice for a disaster.
|
| SOTA (summits on the air) is also great practice for going into a
| disaster zone and helping with communications. You carry your
| radio, power, and antenna and get points for effectively
| communicating.
|
| Sure a CB can be part of disaster communications, but it would be
| my first choice. Might want to pick up a couple 4 packs of the
| family radios and distribute them to any friends/family in your
| neighborhood. That way as a ham you can communicate/coordinate
| over longer distances and then coordinate with the neighbors,
| even if the power is out. If there's a disaster, your fellow hams
| can be quite a resource, well they are a great resource even
| without disasters.
|
| In central California with a 5/8th wave 2M antenna on my roof
| could reach repeaters just outside the bay area, all the way up
| to near Shasta, and nearly to LA. Granted California central
| valley is quite flat, and the repeaters typically have pretty
| good elevation around the rim.
|
| If you want to speak to people further away without repeaters,
| I'd consider upgrading to the general license, it's only somewhat
| more technical and allows you to use quite a bit more of the HF
| frequencies that can get you across the country, or even across
| the world depending on your radio, antenna, and protocols.
|
| So the more radios the better, but I'd at least look at
| FRS/Family and Ham if you are interested in disaster
| communications.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Don't bother with CB radio. You can generally modify ham
| equipment to disable the logic that prevents transmitting on the
| CB frequencies -- it's right around 10M, so the 3MHz-30MHz (known
| as HF) equipment is perfectly capable of transmitting there, and
| in the case of an emergency, you'll have a lot of practice and
| familiarity with your tools that you wouldn't otherwise have. Not
| to mention that ham equipment is simply technically superior:
| vastly better receivers, and 100W of output means both hearing
| someone far away and also being able to make sure they hear you.
| CB equipment is stuck in the 70s and legally limited to something
| like 4W.
|
| This is technically not legal, but when SHTF you're not going to
| find anyone coming after you for it.
|
| Join a local ham radio club, get licensed, it's the last hobby
| you'll ever have. There are so many things to do in ham radio.
| sliken wrote:
| Can't say I agree with modifying a ham radio for CB. It's
| illegal, and the high power of ham radios can basically act as
| a denial of service to a large area of CB users. Ham radio
| folks try to police themselves, and if you are regularly
| abusing the regulation they might well decide to track you down
| and report you to the FCC. Yes, this is a relatively common
| activity for hams, triangulation of a moving target can be
| challenging.... and fun.
|
| Emergency prep is all about practice, so get your equipment,
| learn the equipment, learn how to use it well, and meet friends
| and communicate with them often. Sure various hacks will let
| various radios use frequencies they weren't intended for (FRS,
| GMRS, marine, CB, emergency frequencies, etc), and anything
| goes in a real emergency. However you should stay legal when
| there's not an emergency. Don't be the ass bragging about their
| 1000 watt CB setup and blasting across large areas to a bunch
| of people who can't even reply back to you at their legal power
| levels.
|
| The RF frequencies are a valuable and limited resource and the
| rules exist for the benefit of the community.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| > ... anything goes in a real emergency. However you should
| stay legal when there's not an emergency.
|
| I'm in full agreement, and I failed to emphasize/make that
| point. I figured it went without saying.
| saul_goodman wrote:
| I'm in agreement to get a ham license in addition to doing CB.
| However, I don't recommend modding your HF rig to do CB. Ham
| radios often have weak modulation so your CB-mars-modded HF ham
| radio will probably not sound as good on the CB band as a real
| CB. Also, if you want to join in on all the CB fun you may want
| to add some fun things to your rig and a full size CB will have
| a lot more room inside inside for extra boards than a ham
| radio.
| don-code wrote:
| Sad to say, there seems to be little going on with CB these days.
| Even living inside a major metro area, I got one (and exactly
| one) call on a radio left tuned to channel 9 for close to six
| months: sadly, the man was elderly and senile, and did not
| actually have an emergency. I'd be willing to bet that's par for
| the course.
|
| The last I heard any substantive CB chatter was around 2014,
| while driving to Kentucky. Two things I recall from that trip:
|
| 1. I was able to get on the radio and ask what the source of
| bumper-to-bumper traffic was - it was "a chopper in the road". I
| figured it was CB slang for a motorcycle, but, no, this actually
| was a medflight helicopter in the middle of the road. So, be
| prepared to learn not just a language, but also context - or just
| use Waze, Google Maps, or your other live traffic tool of choice.
|
| 2. There is spam on the trucker channels, 17 and 19 - actual,
| legit spam for 10% off your next meal at Burger King at the truck
| stop. This accounted for a solid 20% of what I did hear, which is
| probably on par with the signal-to-noise ratio of e-mail.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Permission:
|
| If you are setting up a base station, your landlord or HOA may
| have restrictions on the antenna size. There are no permissions
| or license required in the U.S. from the FCC assuming you are
| using unmodified CB radios. Keep the antenna and coax cable away
| from other equipment if you can, to avoid interference that
| results in neighbors complaining about you.
|
| Technical:
|
| Look for ARRL sites that describe how to properly install and
| ground your antenna as well as different antenna types. The same
| knowledge for ham operators using the HF bands will apply to CB
| radio (26-27Mhz). HN is not a sufficient platform to give you all
| the steps you would need. You will need an antenna, SWR meter
| (standing wave ratio) to tune your antenna, coax cable, antenna
| mast, grounding connection (new or existing building ground). An
| all-around decent omni-directional antenna would be a 5/8's wave
| ground plane. 1/2 wave are more plentiful but less effective for
| what you are doing. The ARRL sites will give you information on
| how to do all of these things. You could also find a local ham
| radio club that will have people knowledgeable in this area. They
| may try to get you into HAM radio and that does require a
| license.
|
| There are CB radio base station transmitters. The selection is
| smaller today than in the 70s/80s. You can find equipment on
| Amazon, just don't trust the positive reviews in my opinion. Try
| to find something that has both AM and SSB (LSB USB) should you
| some day want to talk to other countries using skip conditions.
|
| You will find truckers and maybe some locals on channels 17 and
| 19. Channel 9 if for emergencies but may not have anyone
| responding. Happy to add more later, but I have to step away for
| a bit.
| freediver wrote:
| Thank you for taking time to write this.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| As a kid we lived next door to a guy that was a CB or maybe HAM
| nut. He had a big antenna on his roof. We were constantly
| getting interference on TV, radio, even the telephone. He gave
| zero shits when we talked to him about it, said it couldn't be
| him, etc. but it only happened when he was home and when he
| moved a few years later it never happened again.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| One quick thing: antennas made for car rooftops don't work so
| well on your house- they need a ground plane. Look for CB radio
| base station antennas. They will either be something like
| center fed 1/2 wave dipoles (18 ft. long), or shorter 1/4 wave
| (9 ft.) but with ground plane radials sticking out around the
| bottom.
|
| https://www.rightchannelradios.com/collections/base-station-...
| undfg wrote:
| Lots of hard disk space, knowledge of veracrypt, and access to
| Tor.
| sfblah wrote:
| Couldn't a satellite phone be more valuable in an emergency?
| [deleted]
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| If you want to listen to CB/Ham radio right now, you can find a
| websdr station in your location of interest.
|
| http://www.websdr.org/
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| CB is pretty straight forward. Buy a radio and an antenna, no
| license or training required. Pick a handle. Consider using ten-
| codes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-code.
| giantrobot wrote:
| You might also consider a GMRS (the blister pack radios you see
| everywhere) radio instead of or in addition to CB. The license is
| inexpensive and radios are plentiful. The range isn't nearly that
| of CB but you'll probably find a lot more local users.
|
| Also look into the sibling comments about Ham radio. The lowest
| class license is really easy to get and gives you pretty wide
| permissions on various bands.
| chris-metcalf wrote:
| The combination of both a ham and a GMRS license is actually
| pretty nice.
|
| I got my General class license for ham a couple of years ago,
| and it's a fun hobby that does lend itself to disaster
| preparedness. My sub-$1000, battery-powered HF setup easily
| allows me to reach out and make contact across most of North
| America, and I frequently make contacts in Japan, South Korea,
| and eastern Russia. And with my cheap Baofeng and AnyTone
| radios I can tap into the awesome regional repeater network we
| have here in the Puget Sound.
|
| However, with those radios I can only talk with other hams. In
| contrast, my $75 for 10 years GRMS license allows my entire
| family (the rest of which are not licensed hams) to talk on
| GRMS channels at up to 50 watts, instead of the 2 watt max you
| have with FRS. And here in Seattle we get access to some
| awesome GMRS repeaters, so we can basically communicate with
| each other anywhere across the city.
| Phithagoras wrote:
| Cool!
|
| I would suggest not limiting yourself to just CB. Look around for
| your local amateur radio club. The basic exam is not tough and it
| will put you in instant contact with loads of other radio nerds
| keen to chat. With a HAM license you'll have many many more
| channels to play/work with. Taking the advanced exam will require
| more study (unless you are a MSc electrical eng) but the reward
| is definitely proportionally greater
| unoti wrote:
| Definitely don't stop at CB. Get a CB, yes, but go get your
| technician level amateur radio license. While studying for that
| license, you'll learn that output power on CB's is limited by
| the FCC to 4 watts[1], but with a technician license you can go
| to far more watts than you actually need (1500W)[2]. I have a
| CB and a HAM radio in my both of my Jeeps, and the HAM radios
| blow the doors off what the CB can do. Even the handheld HAM
| radios run circles around the CB's-- both in terms of
| communication distance, but also in the wealth and variety of
| people you can talk to both locally and around the world. For
| emergency communications you have a lot of better options once
| you have your ham radio license. Best of all, in the process
| for preparing for the exam, you'll learn all about what those
| options are.
|
| The exam itself is not hard; my wife crammed for it starting on
| a Thursday evening and passed it on Saturday. If you're
| actually interested in learning about the options and the
| technology though, taking your time to read and learn is a
| better idea. There's a wealth of information online and in
| widely available exam guides about preparing for the test and
| getting your license.[3]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_radio_in_the_United_States#...
|
| [2] http://www.arrl.org/frequency-allocations
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/ARRL-Radio-License-Manual-
| Spiral/dp/1...
| busterarm wrote:
| In most large cities, the CB bands are filled with people playing
| with voice modification and trash talking. All day long, all
| channels. It's almost useless and has been that way since the
| 80s. If you aren't very close to a highway, expect not to hear
| anything.
|
| Serious users are all HAMs, but then it's all "serious business".
| 01100011 wrote:
| Depends on the area, but IIRC the VHF/UHF HAM bands in some
| cities are almost as bad as CB radio at times. I remember a
| couple of decades ago LA had a big problem with jerks and
| unlicensed idiots spamming the airwaves.
| kmbfjr wrote:
| Just ham, not HAM, not H.A.M.
| jacko0 wrote:
| I would recommend getting your ham radio licence. When covid hit
| last year and then lockdown, I found out in the UK you could take
| the exam online. It's a few multiple guess questions. The first
| level (foundation) is really quite easy, I think its similar in
| the USA.
| brudgers wrote:
| Basics: Ten Four Good Buddy
|
| Intermediate: Breaker One Nine You got
| your ears on
|
| Advanced: That's a big Ten Four Good Buddy.
| Double Nickels All The Way
|
| I might be dating myself.
| saul_goodman wrote:
| Don't be bullied away from CB by the hams. I agree it's a good
| idea to get a ham license, but CB is still fun if you understand
| it's a different community. If CBer's and Hams could get in the
| same room without insulting each other it would be a beautiful
| thing. Hams tend to focus on reducing losses and squeezing
| signals out of the noise floor, CBers tend to focus on air chain
| (audio/modulation) and maor power.
|
| I would highly recommend a CB that supports sideband, you will
| get much better range with sideband than just AM (most common
| CB's are AM only). However that range will only matter if those
| you need to communicate with also have a sideband CB. Export CB's
| cover different CB bands for different countries, just make sure
| you're using the correct band for the US. You don't want to draw
| the FCC or an angry ham to you by stomping on a non-CB band.
|
| A 1/2 wave whip and a side-band CB can get you maby 6-12 miles or
| so. You can probably do better with a directional antenna but
| that gets a hair more complicated. You'll want to get SWR meter
| as well for HF. Even if the CB has one built-in, don't trust it
| for your initial setup, it's just for spot checking for coax
| degradation after your rig is setup.
|
| And a word about power... hams like to flex that they will track
| you down if you run a linear amp/kicker on your CB. However what
| they don't mention is that as long as you stay in your lane they
| won't notice because they're too busy talking about their medical
| problems and radio gear on 2 meters. If you do run a kicker stay
| a few channels away from channels 1 and 40 so that you don't
| bleed over into the adjacent bands. It's also worth verifying you
| don't have any harmonics kicking up noise further up the band.
| Multiply your frequency by 2 for the first harmonic, multiply by
| 3 for the 3rd, on up to the 5th or 6th harmonic. Use a scanner or
| receiver if possible to listen on the harmonic frequencies when
| you key down. If you hear noise within 10 feet of your rig do
| more work to eliminate it or ditch the kicker.
|
| After you get all your other bases covered... Modulation actually
| counts for a lot, especially on AM. It's possible to do wonders
| for your CB by adding a compressor/modulator combo. In a pinch
| you can just hook up a power mic though, but they tend to be very
| cheaply made. While this will not get your more range
| technically, it will make your voice much more legible out in the
| outer fringe of your range so it still helps. This is all part of
| your airchain/front end and so often gets ignored by hams who
| think it's only possible to increase modulation at the expense of
| sound quality. As long as you are monitoring your audio while
| adjusting your modulation and compression you can dial it in to
| be louder without being crap-tastic.
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(page generated 2021-07-07 23:00 UTC)