Earlier this year, I pulled my old CB radio out of my junk box and installed it into my car. Often times while driving to and from work, I am stuck in enormous traffic jams, and I thought a CB radio might provide me useful information for bypassing a jam now and then. Since many CB antennas mounts use the standard 3/8" threaded antenna, and so does the Ham Stick® antenna for the ham bands, I could use the CB antenna mount for my ham antennas when I want to run my Icom IC-706MKIIG ham radio in my car.
The first day on the road listening to my newly installed CB radio brought me back a few decades. It seemed like the same old jammers, whistlers, bone heads, and ignoramuses were still on the air causing trouble. More often than not, the usefulness of CB approached zero, along with its appeal.
Since about 2004, I have mostly been off the HF bands due to one circumstance after another. This is not to say I was inactive, but that I spent very little time, comparatively speaking, listening to the HF bands. Due to my recent windfall of a very nice, semi-new Yaesu transceiver, I am back on the HF bands with gusto. And, I might add, having a great time too!
There have been numerous times recently that I thought my ears were deceiving me. As I tuned across the 75 meter band, I heard music in the phone portion of the band that was right on top of an ongoing QSO. The music signal was quite strong, peaking at 40 over S-9. I could make out what the ops were saying over the music, and they were none too happy about the deliberate interference. If I didn't already know that I was listening to amateur radio, I would have insisted that I was listening to channel 19 on my CB radio.
I like to chase DX, although I am poorly equipped for the task, but it is fun nonetheless. Again, on numerous occasions, OM's were whistling and laughing on top of a DX station, and of course without identifying. What gives?
Many, if not all CB radio dealers sell 10 meter radios as well, which are advertised as such so they do not draw attention to themselves for selling illegal radios. These same CB radio dealers, however, also offer "modification services", which "tweak" their various products to produce the illegal results their customers wants, as in expanded transmit coverage to include the CB band.
Here are two examples:
In a nutshell, we have unscrupulous vendors selling 10 meter radios to unlicensed CBers and also modifying said radios to operate illegally on 11 meters, the CB band. These CBers are the caliber of folks who cause deliberate interference on the ham bands, and probably because they easily obtained a "no code" ham license. This scene is playing out while the FCC turns a blind eye to enforcing their own regulations.
Is this interference a sample of the future of ham radio? Will more and more "CB hams" show up in unwelcome ways? Will ham radio become a copy of channel 19, only at 1500 watts of 'legal' power? If we're lucky enough, someone will invent a new apparatus using GPS to zero in on the malicious interference and fire a laser beam to disintegrate their antenna. I think it's too late to hope for the FCC doing their job.
Michael Carroll N4MC
From someone who used to be a cber I totally agree. The Ranger 2950 can be modded to go from 26mhz to 29mhz+, even though I owned this radio with out being licensed I NEVER transmitted on those freq's due to fear of FCC. Although the FCC has become a little slack when it comes to modded radios, I believe it wont stop. I live in the Chicago area and have seen alot of illegal CB setups, guys with 2-5 antennas on a Chevy Suburban, 10-20 batterys, 2-5 alternators, and 5-10 liners running over 10k watts. Its a shame that these people are doing this because it looks bad on those of us who have a license to operate on these freq's.
ReplyDeleteI got out of the cb world due to this, I dont want to be a part of something that is just wrong.