CB Communicatons

thanks was leaning towards UHF. What is the differences in strength have been told the higher the watts the stronger the signal? Nashy

almost every built in unit is 5W which is the max you can have. Hand helds range from 0.5 W to 5W
Just get 5W

Hey Doug,

Remember the song about the Nash Rambler and the Caddy?

"Beep Beep, Beep Beep, his car went Beep Beep Beep.

Cheers,

Jim.

Jim
I see you picked the hint there, yes I sure do....by "The Playmates"
Showing ya age eh
.

Thanks Doug,

I never knew who sang it or what it was called, but just found it on Limewire and downloaded.

Cheers,

Jim.

kiwi kia

we only suggest these brands as we can only comment on the performance as we use them.

no use recommending brands we dont use is there?

Hi Mark, In case you haven't noticed :-)) there are some people who do more then just recomend, they will tell you not to buy anything else !

Is there any reason why power is limited to 5W ?

Cheers.....Lionel.

Its because the lawmakers dont use them, like all the useless unfounded decisions they make.

Lionel

I hope someone who knows the answer comes along

One of the reasons for relatively low power is that they are available to the general public to play with and therefore things rf radiation and rf burns become an issue.

The main reason Richard is to deliberately reduce the range and interference between units.

This originally allowed for more repeaters to be used and provide better local service due to the limited number of channels.

Many are made as 25w units and are supposed to be set for only 5watt e.g. better quality Icom's , but many like some of the Vertex ones can be brought of ebay etc , mostly but not entirely from overseas without being knobbled.

Having 25watt isn't a lot of help in general use , because while you may have a stronger signal , the person your talking to won't be able to get back to you if he still has 5 watts.

Also might be to do with the fact that UHF is only really usefull for line of sight communication, so even if you had more watts there would still be limitations to how far it would work.
If everyone had more power it would also make it more likely for you to be listening to everyone elses chit chat as they motored along.
Even an old AM cb can usually outdo a UHF for range, UHF is far better for sound quality however
HF on the other hand can bounce its signal off the ionosphere, making it able to negotiate mountains and the earths curvature.
Probably more important that what brand is to get the right antenna, good quality, mounted and wired correctly, and there really isn't any BEST antenna, despite what some might say, different terrain may favour different gains (for coverage) and construction/length (to last)
If you weren't sure how often you were going to on remote trips i'd say get a decent UHF and just hire a satphone for a trip for safety.
UHF is really only car to car communication, so if you could only have one and were on your own get the satphone!
I like HF but theyre about 1500 for a good 2nd hand one, can also pick up all the AM cb channels with it.
Best to do a decent google search.

Absolutely right Mick15 ..... The best, most recommended, preferred, I had it for years, two way ... hooked up to a cheap, improperly mounted antennae, will probably not work much better than one of those $25 elcheapo handhelds.

Nashy3 .... if your not a radio enthusiast ... stick with UHF over CB ... UHF is now more common in Aust and is what most use. More than adequate for comms on regularly used roads / areas.

CB ( Citizens Band / 27mhz ) is still common in the US as no UHF is offered there for general use (AFAIK) so most jeep articles from the US refer to their "allowable" equipment not Aust - just like the susp mods etc ... For remote travel in Australia - Sat Phones or HF etc give the required safety margin UHF transmission range can never manage.

Lionel A ... 5w output reduces tranission strength and in some cases transmission range - compared to the higher output. Aids in reducing interference signals to others and other equipment.

Of course there is always the situation where the rules applied alweays seemed to be there to stop the masses from communicating with anybody outside their area. Could well be a leftover WW2 attitude that any private person with long range radio gear " had " to be a spy .... lolol.