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Crash Course in CB Radios

Socalmisfit
S

Socalmisfit

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Joined
Feb 10, 2020
Messages
84
Location
California
Oh man, you can use your radio from your vehicle as a base with a power supply. If you want to reach out and talk on the 11 meter band your antenna needs to be high, it needs to be in tune with the band and you need power. Same with the vehicle.

Do you want to talk side Band and different bands? If so you would have to go with a 10 meter radio with band selection. I used a magnum s9 in my truck and in the garage, a lot of swing and great audio. I also used a galaxy 95 t2 which has a built in amplifier, swings from 40-200 watts. Great radio for the truck, and you can put it into a big amp in the house so you can push something big.

In my house I was running a cobra 2000, tuned with mosfetts so it swung from 10-50 watts, into a Texas Star 350 hd which turned 10-50 into 100-350, into a 2 tube bugga bear. So I was dead keying 1200 and swinging up to 4700 watts. All that was hooked up to an i10k antenna on 65 ‘ tubular tower. The big amp heated my 1200 sq ft garage after about 2 hrs of talking .

So the 2000 was plugged in the wall, the TS 350 was on a 40 watt power supply, and the bear was plugged into 220 . In the truck I just ran the galaxy 95t2 that was enough power to put a lot of them back QUIET . In the truck I ran a Wilson 1000 roof mount antenna, really don’t need any bigger unless you are gonna run over 1000 watts.

So the antenna has to handle the power you are gonna put through it, it has to be tuned to length for the band you are gonna talk on for receive and so it doesn’t fry your radio, if the swr is high it is reflecting the waves back into the radio. Like if your water spigot isn’t open enough there is resistance there. It’s affects everything. Tuning the antenna is key to the system .

If you are gonna run an amp the radio is suppose to be tuned to it also. But as long as you know what the radio is doing and what the amp can handle u should be ok. A big amp needs a lot of power to get to its full potential. If it is under powered like a cobra 29 running into a straight 8 pill box it is not gonna put out it’s top power, but won’t affect anything like modulation. But if you run something with 3 pills into an 8 pill it might overdrive it and .

U can have shops tune your radio, there are a lot of good shops out there do research and go to the right one. Don’t let any yahoo in any truck stop touch your radio. Your radio is like your women, only gets the finest treatment when needed, or your hound dog, depends where life has put u . There are cool things like nitro knobs, different colored displays it’s nuts. My s9 had the blue nitro knobs and display it was ridiculous. I had.a cobra 29 that was all red, knobs, face cover, wrap, the face cover and wrap were red diamond plate.

Get yourself something like a galaxy 959, have it tuned, run it into a 2x8 Dave made, with a Wilson 5000 mounted on the roof of the truck. You will be stepping on necks and putting them back quiet. Get yourself a power supply and run that same system into a mako 5000 or an i10k antenna about 60-80’ in the air and they will hear you for 100 miles.

If you need any more info hit me up, Misfit right around SoCal in the dirty dirt pile of the hi desert I call home, and I’m gone now.
 
TNTreeHugger
TNTreeHugger

TNTreeHugger

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Socalmisfit said:
Oh man, you can use your radio from your vehicle as a base with a power supply. If you want to reach out and talk on the 11 meter band your antenna needs to be high, it needs to be in tune with the band and you need power. Same with the vehicle.

Do you want to talk side Band and different bands? If so you would have to go with a 10 meter radio with band selection. I used a magnum s9 in my truck and in the garage, a lot of swing and great audio. I also used a galaxy 95 t2 which has a built in amplifier, swings from 40-200 watts. Great radio for the truck, and you can put it into a big amp in the house so you can push something big.

In my house I was running a cobra 2000, tuned with mosfetts so it swung from 10-50 watts, into a Texas Star 350 hd which turned 10-50 into 100-350, into a 2 tube bugga bear. So I was dead keying 1200 and swinging up to 4700 watts. All that was hooked up to an i10k antenna on 65 ‘ tubular tower. The big amp heated my 1200 sq ft garage after about 2 hrs of talking .

So the 2000 was plugged in the wall, the TS 350 was on a 40 watt power supply, and the bear was plugged into 220 . In the truck I just ran the galaxy 95t2 that was enough power to put a lot of them back QUIET . In the truck I ran a Wilson 1000 roof mount antenna, really don’t need any bigger unless you are gonna run over 1000 watts.

So the antenna has to handle the power you are gonna put through it, it has to be tuned to length for the band you are gonna talk on for receive and so it doesn’t fry your radio, if the swr is high it is reflecting the waves back into the radio. Like if your water spigot isn’t open enough there is resistance there. It’s affects everything. Tuning the antenna is key to the system .

If you are gonna run an amp the radio is suppose to be tuned to it also. But as long as you know what the radio is doing and what the amp can handle u should be ok. A big amp needs a lot of power to get to its full potential. If it is under powered like a cobra 29 running into a straight 8 pill box it is not gonna put out it’s top power, but won’t affect anything like modulation. But if you run something with 3 pills into an 8 pill it might overdrive it and .

U can have shops tune your radio, there are a lot of good shops out there do research and go to the right one. Don’t let any yahoo in any truck stop touch your radio. Your radio is like your women, only gets the finest treatment when needed, or your hound dog, depends where life has put u . There are cool things like nitro knobs, different colored displays it’s nuts. My s9 had the blue nitro knobs and display it was ridiculous. I had.a cobra 29 that was all red, knobs, face cover, wrap, the face cover and wrap were red diamond plate.

Get yourself something like a galaxy 959, have it tuned, run it into a 2x8 Dave made, with a Wilson 5000 mounted on the roof of the truck. You will be stepping on necks and putting them back quiet. Get yourself a power supply and run that same system into a mako 5000 or an i10k antenna about 60-80’ in the air and they will hear you for 100 miles.

If you need any more info hit me up, Misfit right around SoCal in the dirty dirt pile of the hi desert I call home, and I’m gone now.
Click to expand...
Holy $hit!
I have no idea what you said, but I'm impressed.

:laughing:

I don't have any women. I live in a mobile home, and drive a Saturn wagon.
While i am interested in learning more about all this, right now I just want something I can use in the house, or in the car, to communicate with the outside world should the internet and/or power go down. That's my immediate goal.
Long term, who knows? The sky's the limit, right? :drinkingcoffee:
 
AFMoulton
A

AFMoulton

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If you want something to use in your house and car, study, get your Technician Amateur radio license, and buy a Hand Held Dual band.

Best part is that 5 watts of power only needs to talk to a repeater which is like a distribution point for radio waves. Takes your radio waves and then amplifies them and sends them hundreds of miles.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
SimonHS
S

SimonHS

Amateur Chainsaw Fixer and Wood Scrounger
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Yorkshire, England
Stephen Meister said:
How far can the planet you’re living on be to hear that Japan has just surrendered, as it just happened in real time?
Click to expand...
Japan surrendered 75 years ago, so the radio waves announcing it are 75 light years away. But they are very weak now, almost background noise. Radio waves do lose intensity over distance in line with the inverse-square law.
 
AFMoulton
A

AFMoulton

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SimonHS said:
Japan surrendered 75 years ago, so the radio waves announcing it are 75 light years away. But they are very weak now, almost background noise. Radio waves do lose intensity over distance in line with the inverse-square law.
Click to expand...

The vacuum of space doesn’t apply to the law.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Socalmisfit
S

Socalmisfit

ArboristSite Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2020
Messages
84
Location
California
TNTreeHugger said:
Holy $hit!
I have no idea what you said, but I'm impressed.

:laughing:

I don't have any women. I live in a mobile home, and drive a Saturn wagon.
While i am interested in learning more about all this, right now I just want something I can use in the house, or in the car, to communicate with the outside world should the internet and/or power go down. That's my immediate goal.
Long term, who knows? The sky's the limit, right? :drinkingcoffee:
Click to expand...
A magnum s9 is a really bitchin radio. They do the same as any base station, it has side band, and will go down into the 10 meter band and also up above 11 meter, but u have to plug it into a power supply when running in the house. For the car u can just run a power wire right off the battery to the radio, and run a magnet mount antenna and run the wire however u can get it back into the car without drilling any holes. I would get the Wilson 1000 for barefoot radio. If you want to drill a hole on the top of the car and run it above the headliner and down the pillar to the floorboard get a roof mount. U can tune the antenna with the swr meter on the radio it’s just hard to judge if it has to go longer or shorter. You do this by cutting the whip ( the metal antenna) that plugs into the base of the antenna. If you have a radio shop near you u can take it in and have them tune it after the install.

For the house you would have to get a power supply nothing big something from 30-40 amps and u will be safe. That plugs in the wall, the power cord for the radio connects to the back of that and you can plug in your radio. For the antenna you can get an imax or astron, both fiberglass and rated to 1000 watts I believe, if you wanted to go aluminum get a mako it is 5/8 wave and has ground planes. It weighs more but is a little better. You can also get the ground plane kits for the imax or astron, this is suppose to help with receive I believe.

For mounting the antenna to the house, you can get a push up pole, it is a telescopic pole that pushes up to 40’ or something, or you can use some 20’ top rail from a fence off the house just make sure u run guide wires so it don’t fold. Mount the antenna and guide wires to the pole and put it up, I secured the push up to the eve of the house and the guide wires go off the ring that is on the pole. Guide wires come off 4 ways and at a 45 degree angle. Run the coax through the wall or under the mobile if you want to get under there and pop it up into the radio room. Same thing with this antenna you are gonna have to tune it. So if the radio shop will come do that for you or use an swr meter. There are antenna tuners u can buy but a good one is expensive, if you can find someone that has one it is a plus.

For the base coax u are gonna have to solder the pl259 ends on, or figure out the length and have it made for you. Rg-8 is better than rg-58, handles more power. In the car the coax is already on the magnet mount or roof mount. Unless u go with a 102” whip then that is a whole other deal.

If you don’t want side band or to split channels there is nothing wrong with a good ol cobra 29, channels 1-40 and I believe u can install the splitter to get the i between channels. I know u can split 19, and some others. If it is tuned (peaked and tweeked) with bigger finals they will swing 40-50 watts. This is PEP (peak envelope power) not RMS (root mean square). On a stock bird meter it reads RMS you can get slugs for PEP. Most meters you buy will read pep like a dosy meter, you will also want this meter in line in the house to keep an eye on your swr, u can check it on the radio but the meters are more accurate. Also they have a mod they put on the radios that will make it put out up to 100 watts pep. I believe it is by RF limited, it is a mini amplifier you connect to the back of the radio, and wire it in to the final section. After you install it you have hook it up to an oscilliscope and and make the waves read right.

Anyways there is a lot more where that came from, those are the basics, and will get u up and running. Start with the car and then the house, and on Friday night when all the truckers are coming through town or sitting at the local truck stop, give em hell lmao. Truckers don’t like the base guys, and ham operators don’t like the 27 MHz hooligans either.
 
Stephen Meister
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Stephen Meister

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Point being, they’ll always be there continuing on at the speed of light if they reach the vacuum of space vs being on the earth where they can be stopped.

You got the technology to listen to them, you can hear them in real time no matter how far you are.
 
SimonHS
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SimonHS

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Stephen Meister
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Stephen Meister

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SimonHS said:
Weak compared to when they were first transmitted. The more distance travelled away from the transmitter the weaker the signal gets in line with the inverse-square law.

solarsystem.nasa.gov

Basics of Space Flight - Solar System Exploration: NASA Science

NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and hardworking robots are exploring the wild frontiers of our solar system.
solarsystem.nasa.gov solarsystem.nasa.gov
Click to expand...
To me, the definion of “weaker” means eventually it’ll be non existent, or useless, I believe that to be false. They will always be there, it’s just whether or not you have the technology to hear it. But to keep on topic, I’ll concede to what you’re saying.
 
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