C B radio

May put one in the KW, may just plug the holes.

 Yeah,,Shameless,,I used to really like BS'ing and shooting the breeze with them truckers back then,,and I always heard bout some people that got "saved" by others during the winter after they had fallen off the roads ,,all because of them CB radios,,

Thinkin on them CB's I think I'm gonna go ahead and get a better antenna set up on the garage just to "listen"

 My older brother, a Dr in Milwaukee still has his Ham radio in his car and tells me he talks to people all over the world. He started with a home built radio while he was in high school,,,

CBs are very basic 2-way AM sets.  They're designed with only enough capability to push 4 watts of carrier power.  'worked on' modifications typically mean they've attempted to increase modulation, which does nothing appreciable to actual RF output, it just makes it 'sound' louder, which has a nasty side-effect of causing your clean signal on one channel to splatter over onto other channels, and other bands. 

There's guys who partake in all sorts of silly investment to increase power, and add sound-effects, for the sake of self-satisfaction, it has no benefit to the 27mhz band's ability to provide communication between stations... it doesn't matter how powerful the OTHER guy's signal is, if he can't hear YOU, you're not communicating.  Modifying radios to do this sort of thing, and adding amplifiers, is illegal because it violates a list of international treaties... guys get serious fines and prison time for it, which is stupid- all they really have to do, is study, take a test, and get a HAM liscense, then they can learn, experiment, and build properly, legally, and with the encouragement of others.

The CB service was intended for short-range communication...  2-4 miles or so on average, but when you're out in a large, flat area, and have some elevation, it can go substantially farther with no atmospheric enhancement.  the 27mhz band DOES experience enhancement as a result of reflection during daylight and grey-line timeframes (dusk and dawn).  The direction will be relatively unpredictable... depending on a variety of circumstances, it's very possible to be able to hear a station several 'skip lengths' (bouncing from sky, to ground, to sky, to ground) away, but be totally unable to hear a station 4 miles from you. It is also frequent that you might be able to HEAR that station, but due to their location, they may be hearing other stations or local noise an order-of-magnitude stronger than your signal, so you'll be a spectator.

CB is still used for extreme-short distance utility communications (loading yards, drop lots, quarries, etc), but most of those locations will run with the squelch very, very loose, meaning that unless you are VERY close, with a very strong signal, they won't hear you.

The proliferation of smart-phones, internet radio, and audio-books on demand have made CBs in trucks pretty much silent.  The appearance of UHF and VHF FM two-way (like FRS/GMRS and MURS) has taken the place of farm operations, particularly where a repeater atop a high spot provides group coverage with no noise, for a hundred-mile radius.

You can still use an old CB, you'll still hear some talking.  A basic vertical antenna, up high, and a 4-watt set will give you plenty of reach when the conditions are right... and it won't require any other service, costs, or license.  If you have a buddy who lives on the hilltop on the far side of the valley, pick a channel, call it your 'home'.

What you were using, was a LISCENSED business band tranceiver that was in the 12-meter band... they couldn't FIND you, because it was in a different (non CB) frequency range.  In that point in history, there were AM business 2-way systems from 22mhz all the way up to 70mhz in many places all over the world, the US and Canada included.  Radio sets that 'looked' like the GE and Johnson CBs had factory built, tuned, and sealed amplifiers specific for those business bands.  Those manufacturers 'cb' sets looked like biz-band radios, because they were built in the same chassis, with many of the same components... but that's where much of the similarity stopped.  There were plenty of idiots who'd open a biz-band, remove the tubes, and swap 'em into their CB thinking it would magically 'make more power', and while the meter seemed to imply, a spectral analysis revealed that what really happened, was the tuning of the set was totally screwed up, the tubes were no longer neutralized, and it had become a high power oscillator at 81mHz, and this is why your neighbors were so angry- you were blasting uncontrolled energy into TV channel 5.

Going from four watts 16 watts is only 3db... or twice the effective power... which is to say, insignificant when you're already communicating at line-of-sight.  Putting a linear on a CB radio nets more power OUTSIDE the band, than within it, and still gains nothing, except a violation of international treaty.  Just like overfueling a diesel, it makes lots of smoke, but nothing more.  It's what fools do when they feel a need for attention.

"the real thing", doesn't exist in CB.  Step into HAM radio, when you have a choice of dozens of bands from 1.6mhz to GHZ range, with a myriad of modulation methods in popular use, and the legal option to create a modulation scheme all of your own, and the legal privelage of using up to 2500w into ANY antenna design you choose, is the "REAL" thing.

I can hold a perfectly clean, clear conversation with my pal in Australia, on a radio slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes, running on two 9-volt batteries, and a piece of wire strung between my back lot trees.  Two watts.  That's "REAL".

The greatest improvement of CB performance, is buying a unit with SSB capability, for TWO reasons:

SSB allows the power envelope to be utilized WITHOUT need for a carrier emmission (the radiated power is concentrated in audio, not wasted in carrier)

SSB capable sets include a substantially better recieve front-end... they HEAR better... Even in AM, they have better noise immunity, better rejection characteristics, and much better sensitivity.

The next improvement, is to use a properly designed antenna, with shortest length of low-loss coax, good bonding, quality soldered connectors, and good tape.  All the power in the world doesn't beat a good antenna install.

CB's authorization for all 40 channels between 26.965 MHz and 27.405 MHz.

Regardless of what you THOUGHT you were doing, it was NOT 'CB'.  There was a time where several frequencies were reserved for LISCENSED commercial service, which your transmitter and auxiliary amplifier, if installed and maintained by a liscensed radio service, would have been entirely legal.  I happen to have several of these in my collection... Johnson Messenger was one of the most prolific models, and as I noted above, they're visually very similar to business-band units in the sub-28mhz as well as 48-51mhz and 78mhz range.

If you had your radios 'modified' to be in that range, or were operating at frequencies or power levels other than those prescribed in your company's commercial liscense, you were operating illegally, and you were also operating in US military frequency space.

If it was the latter, and a unit found your operation to be problematic, they would NOT have sent the FCC to 'talk' to you, they would have radiolocated you, arrested you, and confiscated all your equipment, but not until they'd gathered up enough to do the same for all those with whom which you interacted on that frequency.

Citizen's Band is not a 'hobby' band.  It is a general purpose public-use band, prescribed in specific through 47 CFR 95.   By violating Subpart 95, you are violating an international treaty.

Experimentation belongs on the AMATEUR bands (47 CFR 97).  Since 1933,  Anyone who wished to do so, need only do a little reading (online study nowdays), take a test, fill out an application, and they're awarded a callsign which is INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED by the same treaty structure which promises every OTHER country on the planet, that we won't allow idiots to violate frequency allocations agreed-upon by the treaty.

In the old trucks we had used Side Band Radios originally the 23 channel "CB" radios that were supposed to have license, 99.9% never licensed up and never were approached as to arrests or chastising by a federal agency.  40 Channels came out next where we ran those same way.  Can still hear the old guys with high watt Amps speaking Skip across cloud cover into UT from CO or WY even from ID.  Could tell they were amped up by the echo on the transmission.  Livestock Haulers(Bullracks) nearly ALL had HUGE amplifiers and would walk over any and all other conversations.