CB Channel

[C9/89]

Maybe showing my age a bit here but it was traditional to call up on 19 and then move to a channel of choice there after to clear the Call channel. 19 was used for mobiles (trucks and the like) and 14 for those of us with homebases just wanting to chat to others in their houses or in stationary mobiles( if that makes sense?) Just about to sort my rig out and get on the air again after many years without. I know its changed alot (used to be my only link to a social life when I was a kid!) just looking forward to "gettin my ears on!"

[rambling angler]

Just to clarify, which block are you using? the original uk block is soon to be obsolete meaning you will only have the cept (european 40 aka midblock) although we may get the lower european block at some point, I have my cept (mid block) rig fitted in my smurf but if you're using the old uk 40 I need to change it.

[stormforce]

i think channel 14 was the call up channel and 19 used to be the truckers channel

[C9/89]

Thats the kiddie! See I said I was showing my age, senility is setting in, either that or the medication is wearing off!

How is the UK block going to be obsolete? Surely if there are two or more tranceivers out there the frequencies can be used?

[rambling angler]

It will be like the old AM sets, they'll work but it's illegal to use them plus once they legalised cb in the form of FM the AM went out the window, with people using the cept channels the UK 40 will fade out anyway, what I'd like to know is which block everyone will be on, if some are on UK & some on cept then it just wont work, we all need to be singing from the same sheet.

[sv1000spilot]

At the moment i'm running an old CB with UK only channels

Will upgrade at some point, but not sure when.

[steve s]

wot sort of range should you get from a cb then

[rambling angler]

depends on terrain & conditions, I've spoken to Australia on mine but that is very rare & conditions must be perfect, the signal is carried on the ionisphere (spelling not great but it must be close).

realistically 25-30 miles, the signal travels in a straight line so if hills are in the way then you're buggered in that direction, get on high ground & you'll be amazed how far you get, standard 40 ch CBs only put out 4w, you can get an amp to get further but unless the station replying is using more than 4w you probably wont hear them.

[rambling angler]

I should have mentioned that your radio & antenna must also be at their optimum, good radio, good antenna & a low SWR, it can be a pain in the rear to get it spot on but it's well worth all the effort, if you do need help there are plenty of people on here that know their stuff.

[Diezel Weazel]

As I recall after the AM disappeared (to my disapproval) the Government gave approval in Favour of 40 FM British channels.
Later on a lot of Rigs came as standard with 80 channels, How can 40 now be illegal ?
At the moment I run an old FM 40 channel rig but can also run me old 1600 channel Side bander ...

There's always a Payback .... Don't expect any warning tho !!!!

[rambling angler]

They did bring out the 934Mhz radios but they too got the chop, I don't know what happens about the 80 channel rigs, there's not much anyone can do about it.

The point of asking what frequency radio's everyone is using is that if some have the old UK radios & some have the cept (mid block) radios the idea of having a channel for members isn't going to work, if it's going to work we need to be using the same frequencies.

How many of you have the old UK 40 radios? How many of you have mid block radios?

It doesn't bother me as I have a selection of radios to choose from I just need to know which one to fit.

The Stalker I've advertised in swaps has the UK 40 on it, I don't know if it has the mid block although it does have AM, FM, USB & LSB plus hi-lo-norm, it's been such a long time since I've used it.

[Albannach]

i think channel 14 was the call up channel and 19 used to be the truckers channel

Nope, back in the day when I was bootlegging Summercamp Coffee Warmers and Cobra 180s, it was always "19 for a Charlie Oscar Papa Yankie, c'mon" Then move to a free channel.

The channel 14 mince only happened when the government made their futile attempt to regulate us.

My favourite channel was 7. I had a few handles, Phoenix was one, Pie Mix was another and my pi$$ taking one was 'The Swedish Chef'.

[rambling angler]

Now you've mentioned your handles it has reminded me of mine, where I used to live in the AM days a load of us used bird names & being a fan of monty python I chose Albatros, after a while it all changed & I then used major Tom & later on pinball wizard, the government in their wisdom decided to bring a UK version out which was on frequencies nobody else was using instead of giving us a common frequency range which meant a lot of us bought the multiband radios & enjoyed the international DX, sorry I'm drifting again, anyway once I moved down to devon I quit with the CBs until there were a lot of burglaries around my area, I set up 2 radios one in the house & one handheld radio & I started patrolling the area, I managed to catch a couple of toerags & put them off their evening activities with a little gentle persuading, once that was sorted I started using the radios again for fun & that's when I became GI Joe, the CB went very quiet about 5years ago for local chat but I was very much into DXing so the lack of locals on frequency wasn't a problem.


I better find something to do or I'll spout sh1te all day.