Metro Detroit CB

[syntheticexctasy]

Feel free to remove if discussing in the wrong forum...

I recently dusted off my old CB and antenna and have been listening a lot, talking a bit.

Who else around here 'has their ears on'?

[Turkeytop]

I'm not a CBer and have never been. But I have radios that tune the CB band. It's been years since I've heard any activity on the band.

Now that all the nut jobs have vacated the band and while we're at solar minimum, it might be a useful band.

[kc8yqq]

I only have mobile units and listen on channel 19 during my commute Jackson/Dearborn, primarily for traffic screw-ups that haven't yet made it to AM/FM/TV. CB usage has declined to the point I rarely hear anything anymore.

[syntheticexctasy]

I've found a few regular knuckleheads on throughout oakland county, and always truck traffic along the interstates. I'm usually on in the mornings and afternoons during my commute between pontiac and farmington hills.

There's some guy up near 17 and John R - I hear him almost every morning. Not sure what kind of power he's running, but I do know he gets out along middlebelt from it's end at orchard lake all the way down to 696!

A recent trip over to macomb twp along M59 netted quite a few contacts.

[Arthur Mometer]

The last time I tried, I only heard skip from stations using linears and reverb. If the propagation was line of sight, I heard very little.

Between cell phones and internet becoming universal, the reasons for widespread use have disappeared. I wonder how much time and money the FCC spends on CB enforcement unless there are spurs and harmonics interfering with other services anymore. Years ago, Irby Tallant caught his neighbor using a linear and just told him he was pinning his Field Strength meter.

[SolarMax]

I wonder how much time and money the FCC spends on CB enforcement...

None, and Zero.

[syntheticexctasy]

The last time I tried, I only heard skip from stations using linears and reverb. If the propagation was line of sight, I heard very little.

Between cell phones and internet becoming universal, the reasons for widespread use have disappeared. I wonder how much time and money the FCC spends on CB enforcement unless there are spurs and harmonics interfering with other services anymore. Years ago, Irby Tallant caught his neighbor using a linear and just told him he was pinning his Field Strength meter.

That's when I kind of gave up on it. All I could ever hear was Mexican skip. Don't hear that much now. Has to do with the solar minimum I'm sure.

Talked to a guy along 23 the other day, stretched it out to see how far we could get apart. Made it about 7 miles - not too shabby for an old Colt 355 and a 3' mag mount.

[Calvert DeForest]

I have a Radio Shack 5-watt hand-held CB that I bought many years ago. It has a standard rubber-duck antenna. Every once in a while I pull it out of mothballs just to see if I can pick up any traffic. I don't usually hear anything although once in a great while I'll pick up a faint transmission. Granted I don't live in a large urban area, although I'm less than a mile from a major expressway. I know that some truckers still use CB, but the evolution of modern technology combined with deterioration of the band due to sunspot propagation has made it pretty much unusable. Can't remember the last time I talked to anyone on a CB.

As far as regulation goes, the FCC gave up on Citizens Band decades ago. Licensing and fines were a revenue generator when it was a hot thing in the late 70's, but once the popularity of CB died down it probably wasn't worth the cost and effort required to regulate the band so the Commission just let it go.

[k8jd]

Now and then I tune thru the 11 Meter band to see if there are any signals. If I hear a lot of people screaming on many channels , I quickly retreat to ten or 12 Meter Ham bands and start calling CQs on CW !
So CB is A good place to check for any sporadic E-layer propagation.
WWV is on 20 and 25 MHz and If there is any signal on those freqs there should be some possibilities on 15, 12 and 10 M bands, but it's fun listening to "DX crazed CBers" too.

[syntheticexctasy]

Have been hearing various E-skip (or perhaps F2?) just about every morning for the last week now. Texas and Oklahoma seem most common, but have heard TN and FL as well. These guys don't really uh.....formally identify or locate. I've keyed in a few times but don't think anyone has heard me (or is simply too rude to respond accordingly).

[syntheticexctasy]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d5GrhjSi-A[/youtube]

I heard what sounds to me like a beacon of some kind the other day. It was strongest near Lone Pine and Middlebelt, and was only on for the day (but on all day long)

Any ideas what this could be?

[syntheticexctasy]

not sure why the youtube tag didn't work....

[k8jd]

Strong enough to be local, maybe commercial paging is trying to reclaim 27 MHz channels.
May be testing a system. When I first started in mobile radio servicing (4 decades + ago), there were a few systems on the 27 MHz range. using legally assigned channels for paging.

[k8jd]

Have been hearing various E-skip (or perhaps F2?) just about every morning for the last week now.

Most likely some E-layer popping up, not going to be any F-layer skip up on that freq range, with the low solar activity..

[CK-722]

E Skip, F2, and other Skip models can be statistically described by a two axis graph with loss over free space and frequency, with probability curves. The lower frequency reflection happens with greater probability. I'll find the graphs if I can.