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Websites:
For our Aussie Friends:
Australian Radio Resource Page: CB Radio In Australia 27 MHz CB was
planned as a temporary allocation, with users to move to UHF in five years.
However it proved so popular that the band was extended to its current 40
channels in 1982. If you hear an inexperienced person talk about 'CB' the
chances are that they are referring to 27 MHz...
FIRESTIK LIBRARY Based upon thirty-five years of experience in the
personal communications business, we believe that 95% of your questions will
be answered by one or more of the documents...
Crossfire's CB Radio Reference Guide Circa 1987 Reference Guide to
FCC CB rules, with 10 codes, frequencies and Morse code.
R.E.A.C.T. :
RADIO EMERGENCY
ASSOCIATED
COMMUNICATION TEAMS
"We will provide public safety communications to individuals,
organizations, and government agencies to save lives, prevent injuries, and
give assistance wherever and whenever needed. We will strive to establish a
monitoring network of trained volunteer citizen-based communicators using
any and all available means to deliver the message." Join them today!
Basics & General Information:
General Overview of CB's, the Terms, and FAQ
I set out wanting to get a very good quality stand alone CB with a little
more power then the average units and Single Side Band (SSB). By law CB's
are only allowed a maximum of 4 watts peak envelope power (PEP) on the AM
band (this is the regular band). The radio had to have a good service record
and be able to take banging around off road. I also wanted a unit that had
the microphone jack on the front because I was going to mount the radio in
the overhead console. Having had an inexpensive CB before, I learned that
the antenna and it's mounting position is as important as the quality of the
radio. I figured the best place to start was with the CB radio news group. I
never heard so much made up science as I did reading through that group.
Every so often someone did popup who knew what he was talking about. I was
basically reading the posts to pickup trends on what the better radios were
and what features the die hard Cber's were using. The following is a
synopsis of about 3 months listening in and a definition of the lingo...
What Is CB
-- From The FCC. Not a whole lot of
info, but you can be sure that it's all very, very correct. For LOTS MORE
information, check out
CB (Citizen's Band) Radio FAQ Index from Radio Shack.
CB Radios for Road Trips
I credit Citizen Band (CB) radios with saving my life a couple of times on
the road. Being able to access information like my vehicle's immediate
proximity to a speeding eighteen-wheeler on a one-lane logging road or an
approaching tornado enabled me to make decisions that without this timely
information could easily have resulted in a fatal crash. Likewise, CBs can
bring peace of mind when you're "trapped" on a highway in a traffic jam of
unknown cause. On a lighter note, they can also provide conversation on long
solo journeys. It's easy to think that cellular telephones have turned CB
radios into dinosaurs, but in fact, nothing could be further from the
truth...
An Introduction to the World of Radio Communications
Introduction to CB radio. This section covers
CB radio bands, actual controls on the radio itself, what the radio gear
looks like & even a listing of some 10 codes used on air.
Radio Waves Primer An easy to
understand, well presented primer on radio wave propagation "designed to
provide you with a basic working knowledge of the Radio Frequency Spectrum
and its components."
(CBMW)
ExtremeRadio- Citizens band radio (CB) dxing (shooting skip) For those whom
have been in a cage and have no idea what a Citizens Band Radio is it is a
small group of 40 frequencies between 26.965 Mhz and 27.405 Mhz in the 11
meter radio band for use by citizens without the need for a license to
operate. CB Radio runs on an amplitude modulation (AM) carrier or
Upper/Lower Single Side Band (SSB) waves. (other countries allow FM
operation as well) There are many different types of CB radios including
hand held walkie talkies with a built in antenna, mobile units for vehicles
with mountable antennas, and home base stations with roof antennas...
Rules &
Regulations:
FCC RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR CB RADIO
Made simple to understand (although the background is
a bit annoying).
"FCC Rules Part 95:A – Personal Radio Services"
"General Mobile Radio Services" FCC rules & regs regarding operation of a
land mobile radio station network.
"FCC Part 95:D – Rules for CB Service"
Rules & regs regarding use of Citizen’s Band Radio (freq. 26.965 – 27.065,
channels 1-40)
To report CB radio service violations,
refer to either the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s Divisions:
Codes &
Etiquette:
Q-Signals Three-letter
combinations, beginning with 'Q', originally used to facilitate
ship-to-shore communications in morse but adopted by CB'ers to expedite
transmissions & send/receive information quickly. Using Q-signals lets the
CB Radio Operator on the other end know that you are an experienced operator
and seasoned CB'er.
(CBMW)
Ten Codes
You've probably heard them on the police shows on TV (though
most PD's no longer use them - at least not exclusively) and here's an easy
list to memorize. CB'ers still use them alot.
(CBMW)
Glossary of CB Radio Jargon
While it may not be all-inclusive or comprehensive, it surely is laid out
nicely - with alpha links to get you to a section quickly. Fast loading page
is convenient.
(CBMW)
CB Slanguage
Definitely not "PC". Includes the 10-code list.
Set-Up
& Installation:
CB Radio Basics
- How to install and use a CB radio in your Jeep.
Jeep Cherokee CB Install
- A basic write-up describing how to install a CB and antenna in a Jeep
Cherokee (XJ)
CB Radio Install On Older F-150s This article is for those of you
who have a manual transmission F150 and cannot mount a large CB in the
ashtray area. Or are just looking for somewhere different to mount your
radio.
CB Radio Installation
There are several good reasons to install a CB radio in your personal or
work vehicle. You can use a CB radio to communicate with friends and family
while on the road. CB radios are useful in an emergency since police
constantly monitor channels 9 and 19. CB radios also give you access to
traffic and weather information. Getting a CB radio installed and working
properly isn't always as easy as buying it and plugging it in... See also:
Setting CB antennas
Jeep Wrangler Equipment Rack: This guided pictorial will take a
Jeep owner through the steps of constructing an onboard equipment rack for
electrical accessories.
Install a CB Radio in Your Hummer
Good photos and text to follow along. I don't know how many of you have
Hummers, but I know it's waaaay out of my class.
Mobile Radio Installation Tips Maintaining radio communications
between vehicles, while on the trail, enhances the enjoyment of any trail
ride. The ability to summon assistance in times of emergency can not be
stressed enough. Various types of radios are available to help fulfill these
communication needs. Although most of the methods and techniques covered
here apply to all radio installations, I'll use the CB radio as the focus of
this article. It is the most popular radio in use today on the trail.
Cherokee XJ CB Radio Installation Keep in
touch with your friends on the trail. Project SkyMiles gets a CB radio and
reveals some tips and tricks to installing the radio, and the more-important
antenna, correctly.
Radio Shack "Sports" CB The
Radio Shack model TRC-422 ("sports" model) CB radio would is ideal for
off-highway vehicles. It is an affordable and compact 40 channel CB radio,
easily mounted in small vehicles, and is sealed with gaskets to provide a
high degree of water resistance as well as protection from airborne
particulates like dust.
Grand Cherokee CB Installation
Installing a CB in your Grand Cherokee is easy and very rewarding.
the-hug.org/paul: CB Radio
Installing your CB is really no different to wiring in a radio/cassette. The
only extra work which may be worthwhile is running an earth wire from the
aerial base to a good earth point rather than relying on the contact with
the aluminium. [UK site]
Choosing and Installing a CB Radio - Jeep at Off-Road.com CB radios were a
novelty in the 1970's. I can remember spend hours talking and listening to
the chit chat each evening while the vehicle never left the driveway. While
CB use has declined with the general public, the professional over-the road
drivers, that started the craze, are one of the few groups to still use it
regularly. Another group that uses CBs is the four-wheeling crowd to whom it
is considered an essential and basic trail communication tool.
Microphone wiring can be a real pain if you aren't sure how to work
out which wire goes where. On this page I will try to explain the basics and
also give you the wiring positions for most CB radio's
CB Radio Manuals and Circuit Diagrams
These manuals and pictures have been collected over time
and are in .pdf or .jpg depending on size and the original file source. All downloads have been
checked by Norton Anti-virus and are 100% clean,
but you should always have a CURRENT COPY of a virus checker
installed on your computer at ALL TIMES.
Cobra Model 18 WX ST [PDF] CITIZENS BAND 2-WAY MOBILE RADIO WITH
INSTANT EMERGENCY CHANNEL 9. Operator's Manual. See also
148 NW ST
Mobile CB Product Manual (2.16MB) |
HH 34 Hand Held
CB Radio Product Manuals (0.93MB) |
19DX IV 40
Channel Mobile Compact CB Product Manual (1.30MB) |
HH 38 WX
ST Product Manual (0.73MB) |
HH 38 WX ST
Product Manual Layout (1.40MB) |
148 GTL
Product Manual - English & Spanish (0.58MB) |
148 GTL
Product Manual Layout (0.42MB) |
148 GTL Product
Manual (0.30MB) |
25 LTD Classic
Product Manual (0.89MB) |
25 NW LTD
Classic Product Manual (1.87MB) |
25 WX NW ST
Product Manual (1.91MB) |
29 LTD Classic
Product Manual (5.12MB) |
29 NW LTD
Classic with NightWatch® Display Product Manual (2.11MB) |
29 WX NW ST
Product Manual (2.14MB) |
75 WX ST Product
Manual (0.64MB) |
75 WX ST
Product Manual Layout (1.03MB) |
18 WX ST
II Product Manual (1.61MB) |
18 WX ST II
Product Manual Layout (0.31MB)
Uniden PRO340XL [PDF] represents the most advanced portable radio
ever designed for use in the Citizens Band Radio Service. This powerful unit
operates on any of the 40 AM frequencies authorized by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC). Operator's Manual. See also
PRO510 om.qxd [PDF] Owner's manual. AND
Uniden Portable uh064sx-2 Manual AND
Uniden pc68ltw
How To Install CB In Your Mini: We have arranged our installation
advice over quite a few pages - dealing with the different aspects of what
you need to know to get your install right. Each page is not very big, so
don't be too worried about the amount of reading!
Midland Portable - Model Number 75-822 Owner's Manual
Midland Model 77-092 40 Channel mobile citizens band transceiver
Owner's Guide See also:
Midland 4001 MOBILE CB
Installing The Tuffy #041 TJ Stereo Security Console and Uniden BC-796D
Scanner 1999 Jeep Wrangler Lots of photos (pretty good) but not mush
in the way of text.
Frequencies & Modifications:
Resistor Color Codes and What they mean See also: Resistor
Color Code and
Resistor Color Code Guide and
Calculate Resistor Values from Color Codes
Krazyhorses CB Modifications Good mods for a large variety of
rigs from a guy who owns a CB shop. Annoying "Yahoo" page. Get over it. The
guy is just trying to help out without going bankrupt.
How to Build a Spectrum Analyzer out of a CB A spectrum analyzer
(for our purposes) is basically a device which displays radio activity
within a certain range of frequencies. It does this by synchronizing the
horizontal sweep of an o-scope with the swept tuning of a radio receiver. In
this project's case, the synchronizing signal is a ramp signal generator,
and the receiver is the VCO-controlled receive circuit of a CB.
The CB RIG DOCTORS
Firstly you don't require reams of test equipment as many faults are quite
simple to diagnose. The more equipment you have the easier it can be
especially if you know how to use it but on the whole i tend to get away
with the following... This page talks about "becoming" a rig doctor.
Interesting for some, but at the bottom of the page are links to hints and
tips about all sorts of common problems & fixes for many different set-ups.
3 pages of hints and tips! See also:
CYBERNET CHASSIS PTMB134AOX |
Audioline & Uniden |
Amstrad 900-901
Rig Modifications:
MAYCOM EM-27 ADAPTION |
HOW TO FIT A MID BLOCK (SIMPLIFIED) |
COBRA uk29 LTD ST CB Radio
Adaptation |
Cobra 148GTL-DX |
Midland ALAN 48 PLUS CB Radio |
Midland Alan Plus Multi |
Ranger 2950 |
JWR M2 / ICOM ICB-1050 AMATEUR 10M MODIFICATION This is a UK site,
but the guy seems to know his stuff and some of this may apply - or give you
a hint on how to apply techniques to your own rig... you might want to have
a back-up though.
CB Channel Frequencies:
Handy chart shows frequency assignments for channels 1-40
(26.965-27.405mhz).
(CBMW)
CB Mods (Modification info. Lots of animated
graphics. Slow connections could suffer.)
CB Tips & Tricks - DTB Radio Online
FREQUENCY CHARTS [DOC] Conversion list for SUPERSTAR 2000 (Four
Blocks of 50 Channels). See also:
Position of –11 ch in relation to FCC CB Radio Frequencies [DOC] and
5 low to 4 High [DOC]
Roger Bleep Wiring I don't know what this is, but it seems
important.
CB Radio Citizens Band Radio Problems Help
Kind of a long "tips" sheet.
Antennas: (Be sure
to also visit our
Antennas Page in the Comms Section of the SSRsi Website)
Fabricating CB Antennas - Citizen's Band
Mid-West
Measuring SWR and Things Every CB'er Should
Know - Firestik Antenna
The Ultimate Guide To 11 Meter CB Antennas
Free Coax Calculator Program! -
Simple windows program for calculating coax lengths in meters and feet. It
should work on most Windows systems. See also:
Free Ohm's Law Calculator Program! - Simple Windows program for
calculating voltage, resistance, current, and power. See also:
Free PEP Calculator Program! Easy-to-use program allows you to use a
dead-key reading and an o'scope to make VERY accurate PEP wattage readings.
Useful Circuit Ideas: Browse through the unsorted titles to see
if what you need is there. Click on the title to see the full-size
schematic. Save the image to disk, then use your favorite graphics program
to scale it to your needs and print it out. The files can be pretty big, but
the print-out quality is worth the wait.
55 Magic: The basis for a good antenna system is a good ground, a
good feedline, and sufficient ground plane. Two antenna systems does not
require much planning, but if you are going to extend the system for
shootout, then you need to map the system out before you start. The
following text assumes previous antenna experience. The reflector antenna in
all of the described systems will be grounded through a capacitor, although
grounding the rear antenna will give close results..
MOBILE BEAM SETUP (Straight sticks): First step is to determine
if the second antenna is going to be a passive element, much like that of a
base station beam, or will both antennas be active? For an active system
where coax will be strung to both antennas and the RF fed to both, The
minimum spacing will be 1/8 wavelength. That will be about 54.5 inches at
27.105 mc. That is the easy part. The hard part is to decide if you want the
main antenna fed in phase or out of phase. If out of phase, then by how
much? .
CB Radio Antenna
In trying to get my CB radio to achieve some sort of reasonable distance, I
spent some time on the web doing a bit of research. What you'll find below
is some blatantly bootlegged technical information. I probably broke every
copyright law in existence in doing so. I'll let you know where to forward
my mail and hacksaw. All of the source links precede each article. I have
provided the bolding in the text but that was mainly for my own emphasis for
what I felt were more important issues for my own installation.
THE CBQ ANTENNA, Part 2: A LOW-COST, EASY-TO-BUILD, COMPACT QUAD
ANTENNA FOR THE 27 mHz CITIZENS' BAND BY ARNIE CORO
CB Radio Antenna Adjustment: Here's a step-by-step method of
adjusting the antenna to give you the best signal. It worked like a champ
for me - I reached out almost 20 miles while on the interstates this past
week. I don't take any claim in writing it - just yanked it off of the net
and used it. Maybe this will help someone in getting ready for your next
weekend trip.
CB Antenna Basics
- All about CB antennas and how to tune them.
Magazines
& Forums:
Intro to Basic CB
Our attempt is to help newer people not familiar with CB radios to not be
intimidated by the technical details of purchasing, installing, and using a
CB radio. This write ups is meant to be general in nature, and may not apply
to some applications. We hope this will be helpful, though. See also:
CB Groups
CB Radio Talk Forum A Skipshooter's Paradise.
This forum is for all my fellow skipshooters to enjoy. From the CB to the
PC. Home of the Pirates of DX'ing! Free registration, but it looks like you
can "Guest" on most of the lists.
GRUMPY'S OLDE TIME RADIO FORUM "Bringing CB Radio Operators Together
for the Best Information In Radio Communications" Very nice layout. Looks
like fun.
CB Informer (most online issues contain
conversions or mods)
CB FORUM -- FROM YAHOO
There are some 306 Topic groups, many of which are open to the public,
though some require membership. This may be as simple as registering with a
group - I don't know, I didn't try.
BlueDevils Room You have to register & and log in to see what's what
here, so I don't really know how good a board it is. They say: "BlueDevils
Room is a discussion group centered around the Amateur and Citizen Band
radio hobby." Which really doesn't tell you much.
LiveCBRadio.com
This is kind of cool, but turn the volume down on your speaker before
clicking the link or you might get a bit of a surprise. It woke me up...
ANYONE IS WELCOME to TALK and LISTEN LIVE on a CB Radio Base Station
connected to the Internet. Listen to Live CB Radio, with the Option to
Broadcast your own voice LIVE "ON THE AIR" with the touch of a button. Get
on the Mic!
DTB Radio Online bulletin board that you may use to ask questions or
sell your gear. Or, visit the
CB Chatroom to see who's around.
Citizen's Band Radio - ICQ Interest Groups -
ICQ.com A place for people to
meet and discuss Citizen's Band Radios.
CB Radio Forum |
CB RADIO FORUM - Trucking boards Truck Drivers Forum |
Other:
Citizen's Banditry
(Very funny article) CB? Citizen's band radio? Why don't I have one? I'm
a citizen. So, after mess duty was over I bought a $100 CB radio for my
Volkswagen Beetle at the PX, one of the new ones with 40 channels...
CB Transceivers Reviews from the DXZone
The Dx Directory Unlike several other "directories" this one
appears to have listed at least one (usually many) person(s) in each state.
You have to register to see ANYTHING on this site. I took the bullet for you
- it's not that painful.
Cat & Mouse is a transmitter hunt game which has been played in
Chico for years. This game information is provided on the Internet in lieu
of the previous printed packet which used to be distributed to all the
players who shared the expense of copying the packet. Cat & Mouse is played
on Citizens' Band (CB) radio. One vehicle hides somewhere in town and the
others try to find them. The first person to find them who hasn't already
hidden gets to hide next. Though many of the long-time players have upgraded
to Ham radios for their personal communications, the unique challenge and
character of the game continues to attract many of them. Also, since CB does
not require a license to use, the ability for new people to join in has
attracted a variety of players at all levels of experience.
CB Radio; or, The Service that Wouldn't Die (A Brief History):
Few people remember today that CB radio once shared its spectrum with ham
radio. The FCC removed hams from what was also known as the 11 meter band in
the late 'fifties as the newer Citizens Radio Service gained popularity with
farmers and business owners. Nonetheless, CB would obviously never have
become a pop culture icon if it weren't for the Arab oil embargo of the
'seventies. President Richard Nixon, desperate to distract people from
Watergate, instituted a fifty-five mile an hour speed limit in order to
conserve fuel. Truckers, with bills to pay and schedules to meet, couldn't
be bothered to obey the new speed limit, and adopted the CB radio as a means
to alert each other to the presence of law enforcement. Soon, other
motorists picked up the practice. See also (short):
America on the Move | Citizens Band Radio
Citizens Band Mid~West (CBMW) Club Homepage.
CB Midwest operates on the upper spectrum of the Citizens Band service. Many
CB Radio operators rely solely on one channel to make both local and long
distance contacts. Other CB Radio operators are 'surfers' and can be found
anywhere in any mode, AM, Upper or Lower sideband.
Plain CB Radio
Introduction to CB radio. This section covers
CB radio bands, actual controls on the radio itself, what the radio gear
looks like & even a listing of some 10 codes used on air. After you have
read about CB Radio I recommend you visit the more
technical section also.
CB Radio Citizens Band Problems -
Questions Answered & Help & Information. A little
help from a UK Site.
Citizen's Band Radio
Silly CB song lyrics
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