Connunications update following Polls:

[Straight Shooter]

thankyou ned,any reccomends for a rig ? not used one for 30 years

[PrepperJohn]

[The Local Ned]

thankyou ned,any reccomends for a rig ? not used one for 30 years

Just like back in the day mate - most of the rigs today are much the same , all very similar - in that you might get 3 identical rigs re-branded in different names etc.

A generic CB these days has all of the euro fm channels as well as the uk fm freqs and can be bought for around the £40 / 50 quid mark.

You'll probably remember Ham International , Cobra , Midland - these are all still around , and still good quality , jeez - some of the rigs I used in my youth are still doing the rounds - rock solid , and good quality.

For ' freebanding ' Paul is the man to ask but my guess is any rig like the ANYTONE AT5555 / MAAS DX5000 will be more than sufficient , but if you're a CB'er from back in the 80s/90s then you'll already have a good idea what you need and want.

TLN

[RoadWarrior]

im of an age where i had a CB after they were made legal..for xmas 1981.....mega fun then......and when i passed my test had with a big firestick ant on a mag mount both an FM and a 120 channel tri star rig...with USB and LSB and the graveyard stuff etc.....still alot of folks still have them ....and i was talking to someone on this great forum bout them and am seriously considering buying one....for a comm device and for the old days...yes its coming flooding back.. i was also suprised that ...Midland ,Cobra and others are still going........think they are a viable means of post collapse uk IMO ...

[Paul]

Well I am one of the M lot so I suppose I am going to get abused by the CB crowd for being a snob and the ham crowd for not being good enough.

PJ

Not from me you're not PJ.
Good on you for passing your exam.
As LS says,
Our little group has been plagued by a small number of hams who take great delight in causing us F.B. "wanderers" problems.
Funny bit about it is they are going outside the ham bands to do so.
All because they don't like unlicensed operators.
Silly AR##'s.

As for the 'hams' bit, you'll probably get more grief from them than from CB'ers as you had the audacity to invade their sweet little exclusive club. Bunch of pansies.

Happy modulating.

[Lightspeed]

[Paul]

Boring! What ever next.
Keep the thread going in the open LS you might encourage others into the wonderful world of radio.

Still, I love to talk geek, so here goes.
Here's a dead simple Generic HF SWR circuit.
Not fussy about HF frequencies and VERY robust.
The ideal first project, no tuning, not fiddly, nice and simple.

Just don't hit it with too much power.
2 watts maximum and don't leave it in the circuit.

[Lightspeed]

Cheers Paul,

Tune for maximum brightness yes?

What would be the minimum RF wattage needed to make this function?

LS

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For the ATU I was thinking a simple L match would do the trick.

L match has very low loss and has teh asvantage that by reversing connections can be used to tune short or long antennas.

[PrepperJohn]

Maybe we should start a project building group and build a few simple kits

[Lightspeed]

Maybe we should start a project building group and build a few simple kits

Hi PJ

Its possible but they'd have to be fairly generic things like Paul's SWR meter and the little ATU that I described. These would work for HF as well as CB equipment.

I guess component parts could be specified with links to internet suppliers so that all interested parties could acquire the necessary components independently.

Not sure how much interest there would be for this though?

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Paul,

do you by any chance have an adaption of the SWR circuit that's function at UHF??

A low cost, low power SWR indicator for UHF would be ever so useful to me.

LS