Starvin Larry

“Most, myself included, dismissed CB a long time back as little more than a relic of generations gone by. A fun throwback to the 70s and 80s, with more practical and capable equipment options coming into the market it quickly started looking obsolete. Older CB radios left much to be desired in terms of practicality for much else that being mounted on a dashboard. And, to be fair, they were built for their primary purpose.


The fact remains that CB radio itself actually has a ton of utility. From 26-27mHz, its nestled right in the upper end of the HF radio range, behaving much like VHF locally but having the capability of transmitting incredibly long distances with a little original thinking and application of antenna theory. It remains the strongest option, at least frequency wise, for rural applications due to its ability to cover long distances while experiencing lower signal loss due to vegetation. In a nutshell, the lower in frequency you go, the less signal strength you lose to vegetation according to the PRC-64 tests in Vietnam.Growing up on the tailend of the CB heyday, many of the handhelds we used in our hunting clubs left much to be desired and usually wouldn’t last more than one season. Truck mounted units were fine, but there was no real field worthy option and the handhelds were pricey to be an essentially one time use item. This led to the rise in popularity of the Motorola FRS Talkbouts, even though they were limited both in terms of range and capability. Once the Baofeng radios hit the market it really became a game changer for a lot of reasons and at least around here a revolution coupled with the utility of the license free MURS frequencies. CB became mostly viewed as obsolete. But one huge thing of note – it remains the option of choice for Spanish speakers to communicate off grid at least in rural NC. Do not let that data point be overlooked…it works for a reason for them and does for you as well.”

Read more @

https://brushbeater.org/2023/08/02/the-cb-for-a-new-generation-the-cb-58-ht/