"Big Kahuna" wrote in message
...
Rightio.

This is my observation and opinion after doing a round-trip from San
Francisco to Oklahoma City. The Eastern loop took me up through
southern Utah then back down to I-40 at Gallup, NM. Coming back, it was
I-40 all the way to Barstow then the "squiggle" over to I-5 North.

Observations and 2-cent bits:

--CB was useless and basically unlistenable off of the interstate. As
soon as I got off, every town of any size seemed to have a few folks on
big (illegal I'm guessing) super loud, echo base stations. Even when I
had the volume down, they'd nearly blow the speakers out when they keyed
up. They seemed to stick to channel 6 when I was on the interstate
leaving 19 pretty free. But when I got off the I--all hell broke loose.

Kinda like this forum: For every on-target post that actually has
something to do with CB, there are 10-20 rants, attacks, loud yelling,
off-topic junk, etc.

--Truckers were pretty cool and courteous. I only heard a few using
high powered radios with echo, annoying roger beeps, etc. Talk was
usually short and if it started into a discussion, they were quick to
jump to another channel (off 19). Right on.

So overall I'm kinda sad I couldn't use the radio off the interstates.
The superloud folks were pretty idiotic too; talking in a strange,
affected southern drawl voice, mouth so close to the mic it was muffled
most of the time, and using lots of fakey laughter (to just hold on the
modulation I guess).

Question: Is anyone using 2 meters or 70 cm on the highways? That
might be a more sensible way to go in the future....

-Kahuna

You are gonna have problems on Ch6 (AKA Superbowl) all the time. The locals
here talk on 7, it is tough sometimes if the superbowl goes into overtime.
They usually bleed 2-3 channels up and down. It's a bummer but we deal with
it I guess. I spend most of my time on sideband. 38LSB to be exact. Here
you do have some superpowers but their conduct is MUCH more refined, as
always there are a few bad appled, that's to be expected. No echo, some are
running modified Ham rigs and the audio is pretty clear. Those who try echo
get their wings clipped quick. If you have a sideband radio give it a shot,
you may like it.

Chad