Radio Discussion Community

I guess there will never be a better time to search out those old cb radios that are languishing in cupboards and garages up an’ down the country. Get on with it! Get back to using channel 14, and shout for a copy.

Totally agree Needle Bender, stay home, stay safe, stay on the CB!

Couldn't agree more. Although for the last week there seems to be constant interference on every channel in bursts blocking out all but the closest copies................ very strange????????

Re cb interference. I don’t know where you are cactus jack, but there are no problems in my neck of the woods. That being Falmouth, Cornwall. Our little net is on mids a.m mode. Anybody giving a shout on the 14 will generally get a response from someone....most of our group are oldies from the pre UK f.m days, who in between eyeballing the girls we met on the radio, spent our time outrunning the police and busby! But there are youngsters among us also, so all in all cb radio is holding out down here in Apache country.

Oh yes there are loads of people popping up here in Essex, old timers and new!

I have pulled out all my old radios i.e harrier cb, harrier cbx (well worn), york jcb, Harrier homebase and I have also bought a new midland 78 which I havn't set up yet. Bought a new silver rod for the house and dug out my old antenna for the car! Next on the list is a thunderpole orbiter . I have noticed there are a lot of breakers out there since the lockdown. (South Wales). :

High cactus jack, I have on occasion managed to contact Welsh breakers in South Wales from my old DX spot which is an Iron Age hill fort at Carn Brea near Redruth, here in Cornwall, likewise the south of Ireland also. And that being barefoot as they used to say...You should consider getting yourself a multimode radio also! Having said that skip conditions are not brilliant at the moment but will hopefully improve as the summer comes along....anyway hope you make some new cb buddies. Try to encourage others to pick up the microphone once again.

Its totally dead in London, apart from you might hear a couple of people talking but that's about it , not even the normal idiots that congregate on uk19 are on which I do find strange, TBH it was dead anyway even before all this lockdown and Corona virus stuff but I would have thought it would been busier now with people off but it's not it was busier before this started ,plus I agree with the poster that said about interference, I've noticed it getting bad especially in the last couple of weeks or so , I can hardly hear anyone that I normally can hear when someone is on ,normally I can hear my mate who live about 6 mile from me as clear as if he was in the shack next to me now now I can just about hear him, even SSB is just as bad theres a little net that happens every day a 4pm which is about the only time you hear any life now they all range from me say 5 to 15 mile as a group same thing cant hear them at all normally I can hear most of them and copy them ,the noise I keep getting is a like a very loud frying food sound but there is no signal like you normally get with any interference.

Yes, thats the same as the "static" that i'm getting! Like bacon frying......

Sorry to hear you guys are affected by the frying....I can only put it down to everyone being at home and using technology affecting the HF band. Radio hams have been up in arms over this for many years now, but the problem is not being fixed..As I’ve always done my cb’ing mobile, I don’t really encounter problems...But even when I have worked the airways from home things are fine.. I guess I am just lucky in my neck of the woods..But having said that, the eleven metre band is definitely noisier than it was a decade or two back..

Same here around Southport, nothing to be heard AM/FM Hi Mid Lo USB and LSB. Thought it was the rigs, they talk to each other so I guess no-one's there.

You would think CB would have a bit of a bigger revival concerning the situation ATM with the lockdown especially from old time CBers ,but no it's not ,and
what makes me laugh is that if you say that CB is dead which it is IMHO now,on other forums (ie: Charlie Tango) you get a load of abuse from some of them calling you a " anti CBer " trying to put a downer on the hobby how's that look to new breakers coming in to the hobby , most of those who come out with those comments are either what I call forum cb operators who sit on the forum all day telling people how great CB is but are not using there radios or there the ones who organize networks through phoning there friends to meet on a frequency every day only to talk to the same people all the time and this is what they call CB is still very very active LOL, (seem to get lot of those on said forum I mentioned)
I think people should be told the truth and let them make there own minds up what to do.
I've been through it all from 1975 AM illegal days when I first said 14 for a copy to doing all the protest to get it legalised shame how its ended up really
Oh by the way it's not a dig at CT cos I myself have been a member on there since 2009/10 there is some good operators on there ,its just the style of people I was describing just seem to be on that forum .

I was also agitating for a.m/ssb in the early days. In my experience a.m is a much better mode of operation for cb radio, especially in regards to range..But I did enjoy the covert nature of pirate status at the time. What is needed is a drive to get people calling on the 14, and use channel 19 for mobile operations only!! The closed shop tossers that f and blind on 19 are a pain in the ass!! .......I do not like to say cb radio is dead. That is defeatist, but the glory days of cb are truly over...Having said that there are still many good buddies to be found out there, but unfortunately are spread far and wide....Try getting that antenna up a little higher! And instead of flicking through the channels and thinking it’s dead...Get into the habit of calling out. You never know what you might miss. ......PS, it would be fantastic to have a repeater system as they do on 2 metres, But that is pipe dream.....Maybe 446 is the way forward? But I can’t see the restrictions on power and antennas being relaxed anytime soon. But as they say, where there is a will, there’s a way .......You’ll find the jolly Rodger still flying in my neck of the woods

I miss the days of being a true pirate of the airwaves good old AM days ,I'm not a defeatist but more dissaluded with CB TBH mate the way it has become in my area in London it seems as you say the Fking idiots on 19 insulting all or the complete opposite end the ones who are so far up there own backsides who think there frustrated Amateurs who actually organize there little networks on the old breaking channels of old what we knew as in the old days pre legalised, the said forum I mentioned they have a network on the 14 AM mids , then there is alot who go on 27:305 (CH30 mids) usb with a net now that channel use to be a calling DX channel for Germany on FM ,and there is another lot on 27:385 lsb with a net now that was a calling channel for stateside, I even heard some ars*holes trying to start a network on 27: 555 but on FM ,trouble is there is so many out there who dont know anything about old stuff and when anyone trys to educate them I got told to Fk off and stop talking about old cb or I get sarcastic remarks at me on certain forums ,to me its lost its community spirit what we had in old days of having laugh and good ratchet wiv ya mates it's gone too serious or just silly.

Yeah, I know where you are coming from...we are lucky in this part of the world in regards to idiots. We have none as of now! Our little net operates on mids, a.m mode, so there is nobody to bother us generally. As for UK FM, I never bother with it, but on the odd occasions I have listened in, I have heard one or two chatting away....I have also had remarkable success using 446....There are some nice mobile UHF radios to be had these days and a good selection of antennas also. I have had some remarkable contacts of a hundred miles or more, even crossing over the water to Brittany and France! But 27 MHz is still the place to be in my opinion....Don’t give up on CB mate, keep trying!