CB Radios

[Joe Dorn]

Your best bet for money and efficiency is to just go ahead and get a simple ham license and go with an inexpensive hand-held 2m radio, like a YAESU VX170, 5W 2M radio. It is simple to use, water resistant and has an option for AA batteries. Total cost under $140.00. You will be MUCH happier with a ham radio than any of the FRS or other noted radios. You can also call in spotter reports in many areas, not all, as some are private. (Don't get me started on this topic). In addition, many chasers use 2m frequencies to communicate with each other. The power and distance of a 2m (or 440, etc) radio is by far the best. By going through a local repeater, the distance is many, many miles. The only advantage of a CB is monitoring truckers. They can provide critical information about road closures, etc. I think many truckers have gone to FRS? CB's are also good entertainment as the conversations are often off the scale.

W.

I have to agree with Warren's assessment of the radio choices since it is very similar to my set up.

I am very active in the local emergency communications activities and teach amateur radio classes several times a year. I am also a mentor with the ARRL Emergency Communications Courses with almost 200 students to my credit and a Volunteer Examiner for the amateur radio tests.

I am amazed at the support on this forum for FRS that I have found to be adequate for parking lot control and little else. There are also compatibility issues between radios from different manufacturers. The repeater network for the other services is limited and the radios will cost as much if not more than the amateur radio equivalent.

CB radios are a great source of road information that you are not going to get anywhere else. We spend a lot of time on the Interstates; CB and Street Atlas have saved us many hours of dead time on the highways. Some of the language is below par but not much worse than you hear in the local movie house. I don’t leave home without my CBs.

The big downer: CB is AM which is subject to deafening lightning noise and might be useless near a big storm system. 5 to 10 miles is the outside range limit for legal CB's.

As to the commercial use of amateur radio, there are ongoing discussions as to where the line needs to be drawn. I have had to face this issue several times with our 16 hospital amateur radio network and hams that work for the hospitals. Each ham has to evaluate his use of the radio in relation to his job.

In Warren’s case and many others; shooting photographs for sale is not an illegal use of amateur radio. If this was not acceptable then the many authors of amateur radio books and articles would be in trouble. Ask yourself if you are directly being paid or remunerated to use the radio.

In Warren's case, if he uses amateur radio to coordinate his caravan of 'pay to play' tourist chasers, then he is illegally using the radio. He would be most welcome to make storm reports on our wide area repeater with EchoLink connection to the NWS in Fort Worth.

Cell phones certainly have their place in the communications network BUT they are the first to go in disaster situations either due to cell failure or overload. BTW, tornados have been known to create disasters. FTW has limited inbound telephone lines for storm reports with no one assigned full tme to that function. There are about a dozen hams available to run the FTW amateur radio network. They are unpaid volunteers.

As far as the amateur radio tests go, anyone that is capable of understanding the basics of meteorology should have little problem preparing for the Technician license. Manuals are available from arrl.org, amateur radio stores and amazon.com. Practice tests are available at http://www.eham.net/exams/ and http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl. Testing locations and dates can also be found at arrl.org. If you are in the Central Texas area, contact me and I will arrange for your test.

BTW, I also share Warren's distaste for the 'closed' repeater systems put together by a bunch of ham snobs...


When all else fails, amateur radio is still there....

 

[Jason Foster]

......To clarify what Jason said, it actually isn't necessarily illegal to sell video taped while ham radio was being used to coordinate. 98% of storm chasers atleast stay within the letter of the law, if not the exact intent......

Yes, Dave, thanks for further clarifying that point. I should have, but the post was getting a little long.

Bottom line, it's the use of the radio to profit from vs. just running a business while on the radio. Big difference.

Think of a plumber...it's OK for him/her to talk on a radio while heading to a customer location, but if he receives or transmits advertising, or communicates with a dispatcher for his job, it's illegal.

Yes, most do stay within the lines, but it was worth mentioning because of so many getting a license.

 

[Jerry Prsha]

I bought a Cobra 75 WX ST and have the NWS on that while I scan the repeaters with a Scanner. And as someone mentioned, the trucks pass along a lot of info as to police shooting radar, much further away than a radar detector ever could.

It was worth the cost in the long run having the whole radio on the handset.