RadioBanter - View Single Post - I was going through about ten years of ham catalogs, and I noticed a disturbing trend.

On 2006-06-05, wrote:
Alot of people are telling me that CB is just for inbred hicks and that
I should replace the CB in my truck with a ham radio. What do you
thjink?

Depends on how you feel about inbred hicks. If you're right at home
with rednecks, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer, CB may be your
thing. OTOH, if electronic hole theory of semiconductor physics is
more your cup of tea, ham may better suit.

Both camps can be serious as a heart attack about their equipment. My
late FIL was an avid CB'er. He had the first Yaesu I ever saw. A
$1600 model under a huge boom antenna on a rotating mast which he used
to talk skip all over the country. His boat and car both sported
illegal linears pumping top o' the line Cobras. I know he didn't know
spit about antenna theory, and probably more importantly, didn't care.
But, he knew who to ask and being able to do so on his rig is what
it's all about, right.

While I, myself, was never attracted to long discussions with truckers
about the merits of strip clubs or local gossip about the "new
waitress down at Bubba's", I knew some of the local CB'ers and knew
they were good people. CB, specially with respect to home stations,
is just another mode of communication to them. This is more true in
rural communities. The ham crowd, OTOH, by it's very nature of
requiring a basic knowledge of science, tends to attract a more geeky
element, a more literate slice of humanity. Not necessarilly better,
or even smarter, just more educated and more into the technology of
radio communications.

Try them both and then choose one or the other ...or both. Good
people are good people, no matter the media.

nb