Offroad-Express

Hi,

I thinking of buying a car mounted CB Radio.... any ideas on what features it needs/channels etc? I have no clue

Will be used for offroading in convoy... a group of us have decided that we ought to have some sort of mobile comms as mobiles aren't reliable in alot of the areas we visit.

Thanks,

Bill

Hi bill,

I've had a CB radio for years. Its a 40 channel AM one. Although good I find the hand held PRS units much better, especially for convoys. I bought two .5kw uniden PRS hand helds for $140 which gives two points of contact whereas your looking at 240+ for a 40 channel AM CB in the truck which only gives one point of contact. Hand helds are good cause you can get out of the truck with it and direct from an advantage point if needed.

Having both is always good though. Someone else may shed some light on the difference between them. All I know is that PRS is line of sight more so than CB

Mike

Thanks for that.... been spreading the word on the grapevine here and looks like a friend of a friend has about 8 car mount CB's spare.... he's just upgraded the CB's in all the farms vehicles...

I now have 2 12 channel CB's but my next question is what sort of arial would you recommed? a 2m whip antenna? mounted on the frotn wing?

Thanks,

Bill

Over the years I've found that the am models are best for clear reception over close range,ie convoys, and the fm models offer the best long range for emergency comunications and recovery. As to arial I've got a meter one for the am and a 2 1/2 meter for the fm. Works well.

A couple of bits & pieces I've picked up over the years using RT's for work

Your choice of arial length, go see taits or someone similar. The length of the arial will affect the tuning on a base unit (car mounted) best to talk to the pro's about it.

As for the hand helds, compare wattage, the stronger the watts the better the unit will deal with hills and gulleys, cheap ones (low power) are line of sight and even dense scrub can affect them, the more power the better so they can bounce signal off hills etc

Oh and if your after second hand FM units try the trucking companys they upgrade all the time

Cheers Reece