• CB

    From Avon@21:1/101 to All on Sat Jul 29 16:09:12 2023
    We'll I bought a couple of old 1990s style CB radios on TradeMe (New Zealand eBay) this week, just starting to see what I have stored up in the roof of my place in the way of old CB gear/antennas etc.

    I think I'm going to need to find a mag-mount for my car as trying to install a permanent aerial base is not really what I want to do and a quick look at the car leads me to think it may be an uphill battle to find the right kind of base and also how to get the aerial through from the cabin to the engine bay.

    I bought a Uniden Pro640e and a Uniden PC-122

    Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going' avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz

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  • From candycane@21:4/141 to Avon on Sat Jul 29 01:28:00 2023
    Re: CB
    By: Avon to All on Sat Jul 29 2023 04:09 pm

    We'll I bought a couple of old 1990s style CB radios on TradeMe (New Zealand eBay) this week, just starting to see what I have stored up in the roof of my place in the way of old CB gear/antennas etc.

    I think I'm going to need to find a mag-mount for my car as trying to install a permanent aerial base is not really what I want to do and a quick look at the car leads me to think it may be an uphill battle to find the right kind of base and also how to get the aerial through from the cabin to the engine bay.

    I bought a Uniden Pro640e and a Uniden PC-122

    Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going' avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

    oh cool, good luck! sounds like a fun way to get more radio variety on the road ^^

    candycane

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Avon on Sat Jul 29 07:55:00 2023
    Avon wrote to All <=-

    We'll I bought a couple of old 1990s style CB radios on TradeMe (New Zealand eBay) this week, just starting to see what I have stored up in
    the roof of my place in the way of old CB gear/antennas etc.

    I almost bought a small Uniden 40 channel car CB for $20 a few weeks
    ago. I have no practical use for it, but I do drives on I-80 in
    California, and it used to be interesting to listen to truckers. They'd
    use channels 17 and 19.

    Australians seem to be avid mobile CBers, I'm assuming you've got big
    areas without cell coverage.

    On a recent trip, I didn't see very many trucks with CB antennas,
    wonder how they're handling the broadcast aspects of CB.

    I grew up in the late '70s when CB radio was huge. People had them in
    cars and used them for emergencies, as a kid I had a little 1/2 watt 3
    channel model and friends of mine and I would use them constantly.

    My cheap model only used 9v batteries, their 5 watt handhelds took 12
    AA batteries!




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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Jul 30 09:59:00 2023
    Australians seem to be avid mobile CBers, I'm assuming you've got big areas without cell coverage.

    Probably a few different things going on there.... Yup we have large areas
    with minimal coverage. Although if you stay on the beaten track you'll have some level of coverage almost anywhere you go.

    We do have large "stations" read ranch/farm out in the middle of nowhere
    which tend to use radios for communications. We have also had a lot of "Grey Nomads" retirees who snarf a caravan or camper and hit the road, they tend to chat amongst themselves on the road. Still got the truckers of course...
    they too chat amongst themselves, and swear at ratbag drivers. Some years
    back up to the early 90s somewhere we had plenty of "kids" with CB's too,
    some of them are probably still kicking around. But these days you don't
    need a license and the airwaves are full of ratbags anyway. Then of course yoou've also got the 4WD crowd, they tend to carry them also, in case of problem, or group communication. I don't think to many of these groups
    inhabit the same channels or talk to each other much.

    Spec


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  • From Avon@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Jul 30 13:34:46 2023
    On 29 Jul 2023 at 07:55a, poindexter FORTRAN pondered and said...

    I almost bought a small Uniden 40 channel car CB for $20 a few weeks
    ago. I have no practical use for it, but I do drives on I-80 in
    California, and it used to be interesting to listen to truckers. They'd
    use channels 17 and 19.

    cool, what model did you get?

    Australians seem to be avid mobile CBers, I'm assuming you've got big
    areas without cell coverage.

    cell coverage is pretty good across the country but in light of some recent weather related events in the North Island when cell went down and people we perplexed about how to chat with each other in a non online world (ha!) I started to think about how it would be good to get some radio comms setup between our house and one of our cars...

    On a recent trip, I didn't see very many trucks with CB antennas,
    wonder how they're handling the broadcast aspects of CB.

    I think there's still 'life' in USA CB (I think) only in that in the limited research I've done so far I can see there's a reasonable range of models out there. I'm not sure all of them would work here though. I'd need to check the band plans.

    I grew up in the late '70s when CB radio was huge. People had them in
    cars and used them for emergencies, as a kid I had a little 1/2 watt 3
    channel model and friends of mine and I would use them constantly.

    I was the same in the early 80's they were widespread, I had a base station at home and would chat with other locals around the city I lived in, used a handheld while out tramping etc... the latter helped me when I got in trouble once while on a 3 day tramp and needed to call in search/rescue to carry me off a mountain after I developed hypothermia... this was well before cell phones... I still highly rate radio as a communications solution... some may view it as old school but I see it as resilient.

    Kerr Avon [Blake's 7] 'I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid and I'm not going' avon[at]bbs.nz | bbs.nz | fsxnet.nz

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