We just installed a Cobra 75 WXST and a 4' Firestik. We had it tuned/calibrated at a local CB shop that's been in biz for 35 years. They told us that it's not a very good unit, and that we will never get the kind of reception a full size unit gets. We live in a totally flat area about 4 miles from a major freeway, and all we can tune in is the weather channel.

I don't know much about CB's, so I picked this one based on good reviews I read on this forum and elsewhere on the internet. I also like the hidden mounting location under the glove box, and the compact design. We are almost always alone when we travel off road, so I thought this would be a good thing to have for added safety when out of cell phone range. Maybe my expections of what it would do were unreasonable. I don't know.

I was hoping that some of you with knowledge about these things could let me know what kind of range and reception I should expect, what might be done to boost signal power, and how useful this will be in emergency situations.

 

 

It's been twenty years since we used a CB. But from your post you mentioned you were only receiving the weather channel. I know that if nobody else is on the same channel as you and talking you won't hear anything.
That is of course if my bad memory serves me right...haha

Maybe get someone else running a cb to do some field tests with you.

Happy trails.

 

 

I think on the trail runs the rigs are usually fairly close together making the wattage not that important. For trail runs that CB is popular, maybe not so popular with the big rig crowd who needs higher powered CB's to go longer distances. That has been my understanding anyways.

 

I will try to keep this short because it is a very long subject. I've done a lot of research.

You can have the best radio coupled with bad coax cable and bad antenna, you will get no where in the cb radio.

The Conbra 75 is fine for communication, but it has a low wattage speaker so you will not hear someone very well.

On the SWR you should be reading 1.o to 1.5. Ask your radio shop what the reading was.

The CB antenna can communicate within a straight line of site. If you are in between hills, no one will pick your signal up. Even if your offorading with a group. If you get left behind some twists and turns, forget about it, there will be no signal.

Go on Channel 19 and say "radio check channel one nine". You will have truckers respond to you if they can hear you. That's the best way to find out if you are being heard.

 

Well maybe when we first tested it, there just weren't too many people on the radio. This afternoon on our way home from work, we were able to pick up a long winded conversion between two truckers. They mentioned their location, so we know that they were about 30 miles away. So maybe it's not as bad as we first thought. We just expected to pick up tons of stuff. Even the guy at the radio shop said that it seemed kind of quiet on the channels today. Guess we'll just keep trying it to get a better idea of what it will do. We're not in the L.A. area. I bet if we were, there'd be constant chatter!

 

I have the same setup as you - it works exactly as it should. Its not like amatuer radio or anything. works great on the trail. compact and effective. I pick up highway chatter all over town no prob. its not the best unit for sure, but it works great and does its job.

 

RubyJeep has the same radio and gets out pretty well but its not as clear as my uniden and according to everybody my radio just blasts everybody, its a simple Uniden 510.

RubyJeep



RubyDoo

 

To throw a little bit of a curve ball.... if I were traveling alone, I would not rely on CB for emergency or need assistance calls. Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) is a much better choice. Benefits are much lower wattage needed to communicate, you can use mountain top repeaters to communicate through, and the average ham radio person will be more likely to provide assistance.

For CB, you might need 5 watts to talk a few miles line of sight. With amateur radio, you can get just about anywhere with the use of repeater at .25 watts in the 2 Meter and 440Mhz bands.

There is a new movement out there called "Outdoor Adventure USA Amateur Radio Net". Its a group of Ham people who are also off-road people. They are setting up a structured network of radio comm for just the purpose you desire.

Through mountaintop repeaters and other methods, I believe the idea is that off-road people can connect for logistical puposes, socially, and for emergency.

I learned about this from a training class I took a while back at Hungry Valley. I haven't read up on it yet, so I cannot give you more specifics, but I have had a license for almost 20 years. Definitely worth doing.

Something else to consider....