CB Radio


elkhartjim

Senior Member
How many of you have and/or use a cb radio when on the road?Of course I have a cell phone but sometimes think a cb would be beneficial such as the time my friend had a flat on an inside dually and a trucker behind him told him via cb about it.

If so, what brand do you have... el cheapo or go for "higher" quality?
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DL Rupper

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

I used a Cobra mobile CB ($60) that I plugged into my cigarette lighter receptacle until it finally went South. A CB can be helpful in emergencies or when you get in a traffic slow down. The truckers will tell each other which lanes are stopped or open and you can listen in. Also you can listen to the truckers bad mouth the slow stupid Rv'ers. They use great language. I had to decide if I wanted to listen to the truckers or Rush Limbaugh so said wifey. Not both at the same time. I really need to replace the CB for slow downs on the freeway. ;)
 

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

Jim I just got me a Cobra CB from Walmart for 40.00 something. I haven't been able to use it because my MH is in the shop and we haven't been out on the road. I guess we will try it out when we head up to the Blue Ridge Mountain this fall.
 

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

no Jim the shop has 7-9 MH ahead on mine. I spoke with one of the shop guys last wdnesday and they was suppose to put in this past Friday. I thought I would go over there this Wednesday when I will be in the area.
 

utmtman

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

I had a cb in my truck I just traded in. Was going to use it on motor home but since motor home is all fiberglass I did not want to be drilling holes and mounting an antenna on the side wall so decided to go without a cb.
 

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

Lee you could have gotten a antenna that lays in the window and one like the sat radio has that also lays in the window. So now go get yourself another one so we can chat when we are close by.
 

C Nash

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

Hollis if you see us going down the road roll down you window and holler for me to turn mine on :laugh:
 

utmtman

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

I talk to one of them truck stop cb shops last year who looked at my rig and he told me that the window mount antenas were not worth crap and that a lot of people who tried them did not like them and I had a magnetic antenna in my window on the day for awhile and I could only transmit and recieve line of site on another rig or trucker. He told me that a window mount was the same way. Could only go line of site and that was about it. So once you pass someone going the other way or even going same way and they are behind you there is no signal with them.
 

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

LEE get a second opinion on that, I see alot of them here in GA and they seem to work fine.
 

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

sometime listen to all that crap is better than listening to my side kick, and beside it a lot funnier at time. I also have to agree the language is so bad on a CB. I feel if we can get a channel of our own that would clean up the bad mouths out there
 

DL Rupper

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

Hey Hollis, when I started RVing channel 13 was the RV'ers channel, but nobody was ever on it so it kinda went by the wayside. I guess ma and pa had more fun listening to the bad mouth truckers. I did. :laugh:
 

C Nash

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

I have never caught another rver on 13. 19 does get kind of rough around the big cities. Seems as though there is a lot of selling going on around the truck stops. Hmmm wonder what is being sold :laugh: :eek:
 

hertig

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

From what I hear, there seems to be a lot of trade in cats. Must be purebred at the prices being quoted...

The transition between the attachment on the inside of the glass and the antenna on the outside is very inefficient. It's not that window antennas are 'bad', its just that they have a big loss built into them. On a fiberglass RV, you have no 'ground plane', so no antenna will work really well unless there is a ground plane built into the antenna. Usually rods sticking out around the base.

Fortunately, my rig came from the factory with a CB antenna. I use a Cobra unit with the radio built into the microphone. Not really top notch, but good enough for that antenna. Plus it has a scanner (to find channels in use) and the weather channels. I've got a really good CB from when I was driving my pickup cross country (also had a bearcat scanner, a Radio Shack scanner and a ham rig), but considering how little on the air in the CB band is worthwhile, it has not been worth my while to find it, much less install it.
 

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: CB Radio

Well Hertig , Lee and Nash, my MH came with it pre wired for a CB and the antenna is in the radio antenna mounted on top of the MH. So at least it is installed and if I want to use it I can ,or if I need some entertainment I can just listen in on 19.
 

raskal

New Member
Re: CB Radio

Not so long ago as to be "Back in the day", I and many of the officers I worked with drove un-marked modified "civilian" cars as undercover vehicles. The radio folks in the agency mounted the high band FM and sometimes CB radios in the vehicle with modifications to the connections in order to use the existing pole antenna from the civilian car FM as transmit/receive source.

Didn't look like a hard fix to do, though a ton of multi-channel radio equipment in the trunk or under seat. Worked great and looked like a "normal" car though.
 
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