Any CB guru's here?

[taper]

I am heading to Florida later this year with my sisters family. We will be driving two vehicles and I was thinking of buying a couple hand held CB radios to communicate with. I already have 2 ways but the range can be poor and I find the battery life is starting to fall off. I can get a 12 volt adapter for the CB's, which would be much easier. Is there any thing I should look for or stay away from in a hand held. I was looking at a pair of GE 3-5980A radios for a pretty reasonable price, does any one have any experience with these?

[Terry]

handheld CBs have terrible range, the grs radios do as good or better

 

you might do ok if one of the cars have a fixed mount radio and antenna or if you can buy a fixed mount antenna for the handheld radios

otherwise I believe you will not be happy with the results

[chubbon]

Telus Mike phones have a setting on them where you can set them to work like walkie talkies and you won't use airtime. Just go through the menu and you will find it. Also a cheap radio shack radio with a magnet mount would work fine for what you want. Unless you spend a lot of money you probably won't get much further than a couple of miles. Good luck. P.S if you are going to buy something try one of the truckstops after you cross the border. eg. T/A truckstops,Pilot Truckstop, Flying J,Loves. All have websites with locations.

[Jonny]

We used to use under-dash-mounted CB's with magnetic roof antennas that worked VERY well. I also had a hand-held that was terrible unless you put the short magnetic mount antenna that came with it on the roof and ran the wire through the window. Then it was OK. (It had a built-in antenna - old "walkie-talkie" fashion - that's what wouldn't work in the vehicle through all that metal).

 

We also used to carry battery-powered hand-held CB walkie-talkies for hunting. In the open air they worked well. Now we use FRS radios - much better battery life, compact, and range pretty well as good.

 

The advantage of CB on the American highways is you can listen to the truckers and get all the latest on where Smokey's hiding with his radar.

 

"Hey good buddies, there's a Smokey hidin' under the overpass at Interchange 86 waitin' to take yer picture." We heard stuff like that all the time. Whenever Smokey was around the CB would start to squawk like there was a fox in the chicken coop.

 

Bottom line - IMO - on the highway, use a CB, but only if you can attach a roof-mount antenna.

Edited August 23, 2009 by Jocko