CB radio question

[Oldgringo]

I learned that Elvis had died that day over my CB. Funny how something like this post will trigger a memory.

Breaker Breaker - Now that is a strange flashback.

Breaker, breaker 19...."there's a smokey at mile marker xxx..."

[Pawpaw]

Only chumps follow rules like power and antenna limits. Put up whatever you want, no need to put yourself out to get a ham license and do it right. The American way!

30+ years ago, back when I was young and foolish, I lived in a San Diego suburb where I had a 2KW amateur station with a huge antenna array, and talked all over the world. Across a busy street was a young punk who operated his CB quite illegally. Sometimes his over powered gear interfered with me operating legally on the adjacent ham band, so one night I tuned up on his CB channel, pointed my antenna right at him, flipped on my amplifier, ran the speech processor to full tilt, and when he stopped his tirade, I clicked my microphone and said, "Hey, shut up!" He ran from his house with his clothes on fire, and I never heard him again!

Back during the CB craze, I was stationed in Altus, OK. The obnoxious stuff made CB so bad that sometimes you couldn't talk across the street with a legal radio.

Some of our radio techs tuned up their 60kw independent sideband system to channel 19 and put a 1000 hz tone on all 4 sidebands for about a minute. Apparently, they blew out the receive section on a bunch of radios.

[WildBill]

Only chumps follow rules like power and antenna limits. Put up whatever you want, no need to put yourself out to get a ham license and do it right. The American way!

30+ years ago, back when I was young and foolish, I lived in a San Diego suburb where I had a 2KW amateur station with a huge antenna array, and talked all over the world. Across a busy street was a young punk who operated his CB quite illegally. Sometimes his over powered gear interfered with me operating legally on the adjacent ham band, so one night I tuned up on his CB channel, pointed my antenna right at him, flipped on my amplifier, ran the speech processor to full tilt, and when he stopped his tirade, I clicked my microphone and said, "Hey, shut up!" He ran from his house with his clothes on fire, and I never heard him again!

Back during the CB craze, I was stationed in Altus, OK. The obnoxious stuff made CB so bad that sometimes you couldn't talk across the street with a legal radio.

Some of our radio techs tuned up their 60kw independent sideband system to channel 19 and put a 1000 hz tone on all 4 sidebands for about a minute. Apparently, they blew out the receive section on a bunch of radios.

I don't remember SSB being legal for CBers back then. Maybe legal, but not very common. The legal hams were more savvy about those technical matters.

[Pawpaw]

Only chumps follow rules like power and antenna limits. Put up whatever you want, no need to put yourself out to get a ham license and do it right. The American way!

30+ years ago, back when I was young and foolish, I lived in a San Diego suburb where I had a 2KW amateur station with a huge antenna array, and talked all over the world. Across a busy street was a young punk who operated his CB quite illegally. Sometimes his over powered gear interfered with me operating legally on the adjacent ham band, so one night I tuned up on his CB channel, pointed my antenna right at him, flipped on my amplifier, ran the speech processor to full tilt, and when he stopped his tirade, I clicked my microphone and said, "Hey, shut up!" He ran from his house with his clothes on fire, and I never heard him again!

Back during the CB craze, I was stationed in Altus, OK. The obnoxious stuff made CB so bad that sometimes you couldn't talk across the street with a legal radio.

Some of our radio techs tuned up their 60kw independent sideband system to channel 19 and put a 1000 hz tone on all 4 sidebands for about a minute. Apparently, they blew out the receive section on a bunch of radios.

I don't remember SSB being legal for CBers back then. Maybe legal, but not very common.

When you're putting out that much power (I was wrong, it was 10kw from an AN/TSC60 V3), even AM radios will overload.

As for CBs, the normal CB is an AM radio which transmits a carrier wave and two sidebands. A single sideband CB does not transmit a carrier and only uses one (selectable) sideband. An AM radio will pick up a SSB transmission, but it's intelligible.

Yes, SSB was legal back then. They were just more expensive.

[jimlongley]

Only chumps follow rules like power and antenna limits. Put up whatever you want, no need to put yourself out to get a ham license and do it right. The American way!

30+ years ago, back when I was young and foolish, I lived in a San Diego suburb where I had a 2KW amateur station with a huge antenna array, and talked all over the world. Across a busy street was a young punk who operated his CB quite illegally. Sometimes his over powered gear interfered with me operating legally on the adjacent ham band, so one night I tuned up on his CB channel, pointed my antenna right at him, flipped on my amplifier, ran the speech processor to full tilt, and when he stopped his tirade, I clicked my microphone and said, "Hey, shut up!" He ran from his house with his clothes on fire, and I never heard him again!

Back during the CB craze, I was stationed in Altus, OK. The obnoxious stuff made CB so bad that sometimes you couldn't talk across the street with a legal radio.

Some of our radio techs tuned up their 60kw independent sideband system to channel 19 and put a 1000 hz tone on all 4 sidebands for about a minute. Apparently, they blew out the receive section on a bunch of radios.

I don't remember SSB being legal for CBers back then. Maybe legal, but not very common.

When you're putting out that much power (I was wrong, it was 10kw from an AN/TSC60 V3), even AM radios will overload.

As for CBs, the normal CB is an AM radio which transmits a carrier wave and two sidebands. A single sideband CB does not transmit a carrier and only uses one (selectable) sideband. An AM radio will pick up a SSB transmission, but it's intelligible.

Yes, SSB was legal back then. They were just more expensive.

Whew, thanks I was wondering where you got 4 sidebands from.

Actually during the CB craze I established myself as an RFI "expert" at the phone company, which did me well for many years. Not only was I able to track down the sources of noise complaints quickly (and sometimes they actually were the phone company's fault) but I had the ear of a friendly FCC enforcement engineer at Varick St. and he saw to it that we got a little priority whenever the enforcement van was in our area, I even got to ride a long a couple of times and get in on the end of a situation I reported to begin with.

[rwg3]

Thanks folks. I knew there were some radio gurus here and the answers that were simple enough for me to understand make perfect sense. We use CB's in the jeep club on long trail rides. The line gets strung out and when someone gets stuck it is real handy to be able to halt the ride and get the wench brothers to the rescue. I don't use it on the highway, although I have been tempted. The regular channels seems to have become an audition site for wanna-be entertainers and I cant be bothered with that. The cell phone covers the call for help needs and the lack of squawk is nice.

[G.A. Heath]

Thanks folks. I knew there were some radio gurus here and the answers that were simple enough for me to understand make perfect sense. We use CB's in the jeep club on long trail rides. The line gets strung out and when someone gets stuck it is real handy to be able to halt the ride and get the wench brothers to the rescue. I don't use it on the highway, although I have been tempted. The regular channels seems to have become an audition site for wanna-be entertainers and I cant be bothered with that. The cell phone covers the call for help needs and the lack of squawk is nice.

I put a CB in my 91 Suburban (V1500 4x4) when we used it for hog hunting to coordinate with other hunters in the area. I am thinking of putting a sideband capable unit in my 06 LJ Rubicon due to the fact I have been running around with a 4x4 Club as well. rwg3: What part of Texas do you Jeep in?

[rwg3]

I put a CB in my 91 Suburban (V1500 4x4) when we used it for hog hunting to coordinate with other hunters in the area. I am thinking of putting a sideband capable unit in my 06 LJ Rubicon due to the fact I have been running around with a 4x4 Club as well. rwg3: What part of Texas do you Jeep in?[/quote]

We keep the jeep at our deer camp, in far northern Texas, in fact it so far north some call it Northern Michigan, but when I am there it is a little bit of Texas. Can't find any Tex-Mex worth a hoot but then again Lake Michigan makes up for a lack of spice in the food.