CB radios, useful or not..

[falconbrother]

I was digging through a box of stuff and found a CB radio that I had in my toad when we were motorhome-ing. For a moment I considered installing it in my Suburban but, it occurred to me that in the 12 years that it was installed in the toad I never once found a use for it. There was one time in a snow storm in East Tennessee that I turned it on in hopes of gleaning some information on traffic and road conditions. That turned out to be a total waste of my ears. My wife threatened to grab the steering wheel and drive us into a telephone pole if I didn't turn the thing off.

Are CBs useful anymore or do I line my garbage can with this thing?

[Bumpyroad]

MarkTwain wrote:
CB- Those cute little stick on the window antennas are useless and a waste of money

gee, I am successfully using them on multiple vehicles.
I did discover that you can't use them on dual pain windows, however.
bumpy

[MarkTwain]

CB-
The antenna is the key to an effective CB use. The best is the Wilson Antenna. I use the Wilson magnet based antenna as I choose not to have a hole drilled in the top of the roof. Those cute little stick on the window antennas are useless and a waste of money

[Bumpyroad]

mowermech wrote:

Now that the distance limit has been done away with, it is even more versatile. .

please expand on this.
thanks,
bumpy

[mowermech]

"For an ordinary vacationer, sure,, there'll never be a day Internet & phone service is unavailable."
Coming to Montana will be s shock to you, if you truly believe that. There are vast stretches of highways in this state where cell service is poor to non-existent. There are campgrounds where the wifi is so slow or spotty that it might as well not be available.
However, there are campgrounds where they have installed a "cell phone amplifier" so that if you stand in exactly the right spot, you can make a call.
A CB radio is like any other "just in case" tool. Now that the distance limit has been done away with, it is even more versatile. Maybe there won't be anybody local to talk to, but you just might get in touch with somebody hundreds of miles away who can make a phone call for you. Just remember, the key to effective communications is not so much the radio as it is a good antenna mounted in a good location on the vehicle.
That radio just might save your life someday. CB has saved lives in the past, and I have no doubt it will again.

[Dutch_12078]

rockhillmanor wrote:

Slowmover wrote:
I use one for work. 10-12,000 miles/month. Wouldn't occur to me to be without it. Not a week goes by without it making or saving money for me. Rarely turned off. As to what's heard, one learns to separate wheat from chaff as part of the background of getting down the road.

Knowing what lane to be in, confirming that an alternate route will work, etc, lessens stress.

And both my pickup and TT have them.

For an ordinary vacationer, sure,,

there'll never be a day Internet & phone service is unavailable.

.........

Well, there IS one place in the USA where there is absolutely NO cell service, and NO internet!!!!

ALBANY, GA

Had a sporting event there. It was at a historical plantation site. .

I never laughed so hard as everyone pulled in and realized there was zip zero service. When everyone got out of their RV's and started walking all around the site with their phones held above their head trying to get service.

All those people walking around aimlessly trying to get bars on their phones! It reminded me of the movie Night of the Living Dead! Perhaps the confederate ghosts were just getting even. :B

We stayed at the Albany RV Resort last fall for a couple of nights, and our Tracfone/Verizone phones worked fine as I recall. The AT&T signal for our hotspot in the coach was not the fastest we've seen, but it was adequate. Our Max Amp RV booster may have been helping out there. One of the reviews on RVParkReviews also mentions the good Verizon service. I wonder if the poor/no service was mostly in just a pocket where your event was...

[Bumpyroad]

rockhillmanor wrote:

All those people walking around aimlessly trying to get bars on their phones! It reminded me of the movie Night of the Living Dead! Perhaps the confederate ghosts were just getting even. :B

there was an interesting cartoon in the sept. 10, 2017, washington post by "WUMO" showing some zombies walking with one fella staring at his cell phone with the caption "when the zombie apocalypse came, the smartphone turned out to be the perfect cover".
bumpy

[rockhillmanor]

Slowmover wrote:
I use one for work. 10-12,000 miles/month. Wouldn't occur to me to be without it. Not a week goes by without it making or saving money for me. Rarely turned off. As to what's heard, one learns to separate wheat from chaff as part of the background of getting down the road.

Knowing what lane to be in, confirming that an alternate route will work, etc, lessens stress.

And both my pickup and TT have them.

For an ordinary vacationer, sure,,

there'll never be a day Internet & phone service is unavailable.

.........

Well, there IS one place in the USA where there is absolutely NO cell service, and NO internet!!!!

ALBANY, GA

Had a sporting event there. It was at a historical plantation site. .

I never laughed so hard as everyone pulled in and realized there was zip zero service. When everyone got out of their RV's and started walking all around the site with their phones held above their head trying to get service.

All those people walking around aimlessly trying to get bars on their phones! It reminded me of the movie Night of the Living Dead! Perhaps the confederate ghosts were just getting even. :B

[pira114]

RideSlow wrote:
We were doing some exploring this last weekend, in an area where there was hunting and logging. Quite often here in the PNW, someone will spray paint the active CB channel on a board as you head into the woods.

Was gonna say this too. In the Sierras where I live, cell phone reception is non existent. Lots of folks have CB, including the guys who need to find you when you're lost in a snow drift.

Obviously it's gonna be different for everyone. Many hardly ever go outside cell coverage. Many do. So it's a good back up if you're one of us that do.

[RideSlow]

We were doing some exploring this last weekend, in an area where there was hunting and logging. Quite often here in the PNW, someone will spray paint the active CB channel on a board as you head into the woods.

[MarkTwain]

NEHOG wrote:
Occasionally while traveling, I find it useful. Sometimes trucks going the opposite direction will tell where the problem is, and even recommend a bypass route to get around it. If there's not a traffic problem, I usually just keep it turned off however.

X1. Truckers also let you know the location of "Bears". I leave my CB on all the time but just turn my squelch up high when I don't want to be disturbed by the chatter. I also always leave my "Valentine Radar" on when ever I am driving.

[NEHOG]

Occasionally while traveling, I find it useful. Sometimes trucks going the opposite direction will tell where the problem is, and even recommend a bypass route to get around it. If there's not a traffic problem, I usually just keep it turned off however.

[petrel]

I've never had any use for one either driving OTR or RVing. For traveling in remote areas with no cellular coverage, a sat phone is hard to beat. For traffic, I've found iPhone maps or google maps to be better than the traffic reports on my GPS, but I'm sure to check both. These days truck drivers will provide misinformation just for entertainment.

[Slowmover]

I use one for work. 10-12,000 miles/month. Wouldn't occur to me to be without it. Not a week goes by without it making or saving money for me. Rarely turned off. As to what's heard, one learns to separate wheat from chaff as part of the background of getting down the road.

Knowing what lane to be in, confirming that an alternate route will work, etc, lessens stress.

And both my pickup and TT have them.

For an ordinary vacationer, sure,, there'll never be a day Internet & phone service is unavailable.

Same for a set of wrenches or a gun. Tools you'll never need, as a mechanic is always close by, and the cops will be there in seconds.

Better to spend a couple hundred on a ground effects LED light kit than a CB.

A mag mount Wilson 1000 antenna and a Cobra 29 are sufficient. Step up to a Cobra 500 speaker and a Ranger SRA-198 mike.

Not two months ago I pulled off the road and made a call for a trucker broke down with a dead cell phone. Never saw him. Got the info to the wrecker service and was on my way.

.

[Bumpyroad]

traffic alerts on my Garmin are a joke. I would much rather rely on a trucker for information than outdated questionable Gps STUFF.
bumpy

[turbojimmy]

Dutch_12078 wrote:
Our Garmin GPS usually gives us a heads up for any significant traffic delays along our route when we're on the Interstates near larger cities. Further away, Google Maps does a pretty good job for delays. We do turn on the CB sometimes though, to see if there's anything ahead we should know about, especially in bad weather.

Yeah Google Maps is tough to beat as far as traffic goes. In addition to collecting info from their Waze app users, if your GPS is turned on then it's keeping track of you and the traffic conditions you might be experiencing (that is if you have an Android device; on Apple devices you have to be actually using the Google Maps app for it to track you). It's a fascinating - and accurate - application of "Big Data." Google Maps will route you around delays in near real-time.

Sorry but a CB isn't going to give you that type of help. But I have one - I use it to communicate with other people I'm traveling with. I also hope that if someone else that has a CB notices some sort of issue with my rig that they'd let me know. I monitor channel 19 mostly, but let it scan.

Plus, it's a 1984 Allegro. Gotta have a CB on the dash for authenticity purposes.