Bored drive to work this morning made me wonder if CB's were still useful. Wouldn't mind adding one to the Crosstrek. Especially if I could add a PA to use for parades.
I had one in the mid 80s for my first car, gift from the parents. Especially driving to new Navy bases. Cobra? Midland? I forget. What's good out there now?
I've got an old Cobra 148 GTL mounted in the Jeep. It's a great unit, but I rarely use it at this point. Not a lot of useful chatter, especially away from major highways. And there's a lot of just annoying or unpleasant BS at times.
Only if you get a massive antenna for it and have it folded over like on a Humvee.
I had whatever the compact CB, Radio Shack carried in the early oughts (Uniden I think) in my Jeep, and a truck stop Firestik.
It was super handy when I'd drive home from college and back on weekends, as it was a 170 mile trip one way, most of which was on I-40 and it was one lane and/or counter flow due to construction for 2+ years. I rarely talked on it, but kept it on channel 19, and the trucks kept me informed on accidents and highway patrol location.
I did occasionally offer trucks a spot in front of me, if they would block the shinny happy people passing on the right in construction, despite the giant Merge Now sign we all saw a mile back.
The built-in speaker was about useless on the little thing in a soft top Jeep on the highway, so I "borrowed" my dad's external speaker from his big Cobra, and zip tied it under my driver's seat.
It was occasionally handy on trail rides off roading, but there are enough folks with poor CB etiquette, cross talk, and when you get in the hills/dense woods I didn't have much range, so use was pretty limited. Everyone I know, including myself, uses 2-way radios now, GMRS, UHF, VHF, or some combo if wheeling with a group.
The antenna mount I cobbled together from scrap eventually fatigued and broke, I drug the Firestik behind me on the pavement for a couple blocks before I could pull over. Dragging it on the pavement ground away the end of the antenna, ruining it. I removed it, and that was the end of my CB days.
I bought a Cobra 29 a year or so ago, $130 on Amazon. Used it a few times on trips, there's not much happening on it now days. Truck drivers don't seem to use it as before. I guess it's good to have for those places where there's no cell service if you need help. I imagine the highway patrol still monitor channel 9.
If you get one buy a good antenna like a Little Wilson. Get the swr adjusted on it, my CB has an swr adjustment knob.
CB radio = redneck internet
I've had a CB in every truck I've owned since the '80s until my current one. In the last 10 years or so users have become less useful and ruder. Think of a group of people reading uncensored YouTube comments (if there were such a thing) and you've got the general idea.
Maybe I'm just old but I decided that I don't really want to listen to people talk to each other that way and I certainly don't want to participate in the conversation.
I put a Uniden PRO510XL in my Wrangler. I wanted a small unit so I could mount it in the tiny center console to keep it out of sight. I used a 36" Firestik antenna mounted to the spare tire carrier. It worked pretty well but I had to remove the antenna because it hit nearly every low clearance overhang. I eventually just took the CB out as I hardly ever used it.
Nowadays, they're really only useful for trail comms for 4x4s. Even then, many have converted over to HAM bands, or FRS/GMRS. Truckers all seem to be on cell phones these days.
I had to replace a 20 year old Cobra that stopped working a while back, and it appears that Cobra/Uniden are the same radio these days with slightly different faceplates/features. After I tuned the SWR, I couldn't even get a response from anyone for a radio check...
APEowner said:. Think of a group of people reading uncensored YouTube comments (if there were such a thing) and you've got the general idea.
Yeah, it sounds like I'll save my $.
I keep thinking about adding one to my truck for group coms, but I've got A UHF/VHF/GMRS setup already. Most of the groups I've been around end up using GMRS/FRS because it's so easy to hand out handhelds to anyone that needs it.
I have one on the jeep and very few seem to use it anymore, only on trail rides and most groups are moving to GMRS.
Have driven with it on across Texas without hearing anyone in the whole trip. A couple times.
20 years ago, yes. These days, not as much.
The trucking industry has gone way more fleet and less owner/operator, so the days of outfitting your own rig with a big CB are slowly going away. Still used, just not quite as much. With the advent of "no handheld devices" laws, they have also gone mostly bluetooth and I think some drivers don't want the hassle/expense since it's not as widely used anymore.
I have a Uniden PC66XL that I had modded to push a really clean 26wrms, 40w peak. It talks really big, but I haven't installed it in my last few pickups because it's not quite as fun as it use to be. Now if I need road information I just ask google. If I want to know where speed traps are, I just look at my GPS. If I need road assistance, I just call on my cell phone.
I'm giving my Uniden to my buddy who is a pretty hard core offroader and would actually use it.
If you want to get into the hobby, get a full-size case radio. Don't get the compact one. Think of it like a desktop vs. a laptop. With the desktop, you can upgrade components like the sound card, processor, etc easily. Not so easy with a laptop since its all proprietary stuff built into the MB. If you want to tweak a CB for more power, its pretty easily done if you have a big case. You'll likely want to tweak for more power since 90% of the people you'll be talking to also have big power. Their radios are all set (volume/squelch) to hear other big talkers and you might not even be heard if you don't. You would be what is called a "welfare check" in CB lingo. About a third of your TX quality comes from the antenna, a third comes from the electronics and quality of the wattage, and a third comes from the mic. Out-of-the-box mics are terrible. Road King is great, and Astatic has a model that is good but I forget the name of it. Get the right antenna for your application as well. You'll notice they can be end, center, or base load. It's important. Placement and tuning is also important.
Cobra and Uniden are the same brand, and pretty universally considered the industry standard. The Uniden PC66XL I have is basically a Cobra 25 with a different name on the front.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Astatic has a model that is good but I forget the name of it. Get the right antenna for your application as well. You'll notice they can be end, center, or base load. It's important. Placement and tuning is also important.
You're probably thinking of the 636L. I've got one paired with the Cobra 148GTL in the Jeep and a center load Wilson 2000 antenna on the front fender with good coax. Not quite the most optimized setup possible, but it's a good one. And in offroading groups I've had to play comms relay a few times as my setup has a few times the range of a lot of the typical "cheap CB and a poorly tuned Firestik with crap coax" setups most offroaders run. I've never tweaked the power or anything on the Cobra though, it puts out whatever it did when it left the factory many years ago.
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