New Radio

[Mtn Lynx]

Got a replacement CB for my truck a Realistic TRC 421 A. I set it up as a home base to test it out. Sounds a lot better than the TRC 479 that I have in the truck. Skip was clear, too bad it don't have ssb.

[MDYoungblood]

Not a bad little radio, has a lot more features then the 479 (got one in the junk draw) for sure. You are missing out on a lot without SSB though.

3's

Greg

[443 Arizona]

when on a base , SSB is fun. lots of finesse' can be applied.

[Scipio Kid]

OK, are you guys just messin' with the rest of us here? I mean, "a lot more features" like ANL and a power meter you can only see with my grandmother's bifocals? You guys are runnin' Galaxys, Strykers, Magnums and such with linears and acting like those little RS boxes are cool. Not that I don't like 'em. I've had a few but I thought you guys liked to get on here and brag about your Ranger beating out someone else's Connex or the reverb, echo, rogerbeep, talkback, mosfet mods in your Cobra LX's.

Oh well, to each his own. I was going to brag about the LX I just picked up brand new for 40 bucks, and all those features I'll never understand, (I mean, it scanned my truck and told me there was too much sulfur in the fuel)! But if it's all about Radio Shack then I'll brag about my all crystal, 23 channel, Archer / Realistic / Navaho TRC 23C base station, circa 1967, with squelch, headphone jack, delta-tune, modulation and on-air lights, power/ RX meter and real wood grained vinyl cover!

Now just try to 'one-up' that!

(If you do, I'll give you the specs on my Pace CB-162!)

[Mtn Lynx]

I got a galaxy 959 at home I use for a base station. Probably giving that to my dad. Later I'm getting a 2547 to use at home.

[Scipio Kid]

I found a new (never been out of the box but used) 2547 on a used equipment site today and an old but nice Uniden Washington. I low balled both and got a call right off on the Washington so I went and checked it out and it was a great deal, just got it cleaned up and set up and played with it a little tonight. I'm hoping to get the 2547 tomorrow. That's really a nice rig and it comes with two antennas a 5/8th wave base and a di-pole. I only bid a hundred bucks for everything, they countered at 200 but I think I can get it for less. Got the Washington for only 50. Now to figure out how to use them ...

[Mtn Lynx]

Sounds like you got a killer deal. I'm way out here in rural Alaska. Have to make bids on the auction sites. No one around here would have nice radios like that.

[Scipio Kid]

Well buying used is sometimes rewarding and sometimes upsetting. I like the guarantee on that auction site and have bought a few radios there. In fact I got a killer deal on 4 Cobra NW's and picked 'em up for 25 bucks each including shipping. They all work great! The radios I mentioned above are local. I check the local sites regularly and buy every real good deal I come across. Funny thing is I check the classifieds and find a good deal every 4-6 weeks (Salt Lake / Northern Utah) but if I check Las Vegas, there are killer deals all the time. I found a couple unbelievable deals there for pennies on the dollar and lost them because no one wanted to run to the post office to ship them. I found a Galaxy DH55 down there for only 25 bucks and offered to pay another 50 to ship it and the guy wouldn't do it. I almost jumped in the truck and drove down to get it.

I didn't buy the 2547, he's firm at 200 and that's a great deal but It's 60 miles away. I'll be working up that way next week and if he still has it, I'll probably get it too. Too many radios ... not enough brains.

Where are you in "rural Alaska"? You realize that covers more area than most everything west of the Mississippi down here. Do you ever skip into Idaho or Utah ... or beyond?

[Mtn Lynx]

75 miles up the Yukon from the Bering sea. Little village called Mtn Village. Haven't been on th radio too much while skip,is active. I'm either at work or out hunting. Going out tomorrow morning to the Bering sea to hunt. On the couple times when skip was loudest I was too amazed to make contact. I tried to get Mod Squads attention but my linear is too small right now. A fella in Washington acknowledged my location but that's it. Hope to acquire either an export or a bad a** linear soon. Made a couple bids for linears but didn't win.

[drdx]

You know, if you have the space you could erect a few wire beams to switch back and forth between and have a much larger signal than going through the expense of more amplification. Once you have a small amp, it takes a ton more to make the needle jump on the other end. Get some wire and coax, get creative, and read up.

-drdx

[Scipio Kid]

Yes indeed, Antenna, Antenna, Antenna! No need for more watts if you can't blast 'em out with a good antenna. I have a lot of radios and 4 different antenna setups here at my home but neighborhood restrictions keep me from putting up anything substantial (two story house but can't put anything on the roof). So none of the radios do well here. My mobile setups in my trucks do better than the base antenna's in most cases but I'm having fun experimenting.

On the other hand, I've got a lot of room at some property in the desert with no "homeowners association" watching for "ugly" antennas. I can take any radio out there and it transforms into a skip monster. Well, maybe not like a lot of these guys have, but I can talk all over the western US on am and haven't even tried a sideband yet ... No linear or anything. The only difference is a good antenna, and it's not even up that high. I had a big antenna on top of a three story building at my old shop and, with only a little 4 watt radio and a good power mic, I could talk all over the place. I'd talk to the local truck stops and they all thought I was using a linear the way I'd boom in on them. But no, just a big antenna way up in the sky. Of course mountains can be a hindrance too. That's part of my problem here at home. I hear you may have a few mountains up there in Alaska too. Maybe we need to move to Texas so the mountains don't get in our way. I have a good friend in Texas, his dog ran away ... and he could see him for three days!

Also, I just looked up "Mountain Village" on Google Earth. I'm officially Jealous. Tell you what, I'll come up for a while, maybe a couple months (next summer of course) and we'll build you a huge antenna! ... in between hiking, fishing, hunting, boating, flying around in small, dangerous aircraft, that sort of thing ... ahhh, the Land of the Midnight Sun. I'll trade your radio problems for your location any day. And please, don't tell me about biting flies or killer mosquitoes, or ravenous Grizzly and Polar Bears or Cougars (I've got those here). I'll just enjoy the view from the vantage point of fantasy and imagination and remain, very jealous.

That brings up another, very interesting point, I get a lot of Mexican skip even up here in Northern Utah. So do you get Russian Skip up there? Do they even have CB's in Russia? I'd think you're in a real good place to listen in on them although figuring out what they're saying might be a problem. What about Canada? I never hear any Canadian skip ... unless they're speaking Spanish just to throw me off! ... Hmmm, I've got to look into this.

[Mtn Lynx]

Nope haven't heard any Russian skip. Canada neither. Heard Japan yesterday. I'll read up on antenna setup more. I may be able to setup some radials, that should help. But it's getting cold out. It has to be a summer project. And nope no killer bugs here. No killer animals, the only wild animal to worry about are the neighbors dogs.

[Scipio Kid]

OK. I'm coming then. I can even help with the neighbor's dogs. Years ago I was apprentice to a guy who learned radio and electronics in WWII. He had all kinds of G.I. radios and doo dads and electronic stuff ... and a problem with his neighbor's dogs. They (the dogs) figured his front lawn and Fitzers were their personal bathroom so he strung chicken wire all through the Fitzer bushes and ran a circuit through some coil he had in the garage one side grounded, the other to the chicken wire. (OK you animal lovers, it wasn't me, it was him) He'd wait in his garage, looking through the window and when a dog would lift its leg to water the Fitzers, he’d throw the switch and zap em. Did you know a thin stream of water is an excellent conductor when the voltage is high enough? He said it took a few days to get them all but in the end (or, perhaps in another place) all the dogs in the neighborhood changed their watering habits.

I’m sure once we’re done with your antenna, we could have some fun with the dogs too. (OK, again for you animal lovers, I was thinking we could play Frisbee with them until they were more friendly, better trained ... or something.)

Also, any more skip from Japan? How often and how well does it come in? Anybody know how big CB is in Japan? I have a son getting his degree in Hawaii (graduates in a week) and just got a job offer in Japan and may be moving there. It'd be nice to get him going on a good radio set up. It'd also be a whole lot of fun trying to skip all the way to Japan.

[Mtn Lynx]

Going to Anchorage on Monday. Going to check out the pawn shops for a good radio or CB equipment. Skip has been quiet for a couple days. MMM must have drained the life out of my radio.

[dgbacb4148]

OK, are you guys just messin' with the rest of us here? I mean, "a lot more features" like ANL and a power meter you can only see with my grandmother's bifocals? You guys are runnin' Galaxys, Strykers, Magnums and such with linears and acting like those little RS boxes are cool. Not that I don't like 'em. I've had a few but I thought you guys liked to get on here and brag about your Ranger beating out someone else's Connex or the reverb, echo, rogerbeep, talkback, mosfet mods in your Cobra LX's.

Oh well, to each his own. I was going to brag about the LX I just picked up brand new for 40 bucks, and all those features I'll never understand, (I mean, it scanned my truck and told me there was too much sulfur in the fuel)! But if it's all about Radio Shack then I'll brag about my all crystal, 23 channel, Archer / Realistic / Navaho TRC 23C base station, circa 1967, with squelch, headphone jack, delta-tune, modulation and on-air lights, power/ RX meter and real wood grained vinyl cover!

Now just try to 'one-up' that!

(If you do, I'll give you the specs on my Pace CB-162!)

OK, I've laughed my a__ off reading your tales until I have one of my notorious migraine headaches, but it was fun and well worth it. It didn't take me long to figure out that not one of you but both of you are warped in the head LOL. This is why I try to read as many of post as possible, good funny stuff from you both.
That older 60's Navajo TRC 23 BASE, was one of the loudest and had crisp/clear modulation that was made, and awesome with an Astroplane antenna. Brings back many memories. Hope you and Mtn Lynx enjoy this, I did. For now, 3's to you both.
David g.....

[Mtn Lynx]

Just saw a set up on YouTube almost identical to mine except he has two power supplies. One for the linear and one for the radio. I just have one. Looking at more setups. I now know more about CB setups than I did a month ago when I bought my gear. In a couple weeks I should be heard by the DX champs that have been making noise on my radio I hope....

[MDYoungblood]

Like the video I run a different PS (actually have several) for the radio and amp, that way the drain the amp causes doesn't degrade the alignment of the radio, hope that makes sense.

3's

Greg

[Mtn Lynx]

Like the video I run a different PS (actually have several) for the radio and amp, that way the drain the amp causes doesn't degrade the alignment of the radio, hope that makes sense.

3's

Greg

That wouldn't have made sense to me a couple of months ago.

[Scipio Kid]

Yes, and it still won't make sense to me a couple of months from now.

Hey David (dgbacb4148),
Sorry about the migraines, I get that from a lot of folks but it's usually not from laughing. So far as that little Navaho goes, I've got it out in the desert as my base station there and I have real good luck talking skip without any kind of amp. Sounds like I'm the only one without one though (an amp, that is). I had the chance to pick one up here a while back for 50 bucks and passed, now I wish I'd bought it. Mtn Lynx is going to amp up and maybe I'll be able to hear him down here in Utah. We don't have any power out there in the desert so we're working on solar and wind. We use a lot of power when we're there so we have a few generators but for the base station, I have a bank of 12V batteries and a solar charger. When the generator is up and running, it also charges the batts but they're pretty much on their own most the time. So I don't need two power supplies, one for the radio and one for the amp and so understanding stuff like degraded alignment (or even baking cookies) doesn't really apply to me. (Although, fresh baked cookies really sound good ... maybe I should try learning a few things). If i get an amp, then I'll see how the batteries fare but I can receive all day and talk back and forth off and on all day without worrying about voltage drop.

Anyway, I do more listening here at home and I get good skip out of Georgia. I've picked you up several times! I noticed you're running a Philippines, Uniden Washington. I just picked one up and set it up here at home. Without a good antenna, I can't brag about much but it seems to be a great unit so far. My antenna is so much better out there in the desert, I'm thinking of taking it out there, maybe then I could get through to you and the boys down in Georgia! I'll give it a shot next time I'm out there. Also, I think I figured out the sulfur problem on my pickup. I figured it just needed a little more kick so I borrowed a few gallons of Nitric acid from work to use as a fuel additive. After I poured that in (and the smoke cleared) I added a couple gallons or Walmart brand dish soap ... It's been boiling now for a couple days now but I can't wait to see how it wakes up that old Powerstroke once I fire it up! Anyways, 3's back at ya, hope to see you on the radio.

And Mtn lynx,
Holler my way when you get that amp set up and don't fry your centerloads trying it!

-- Sunday, 30 October 2016, 21:39 PM --

Hey Mtn, Lynx,
You get that amp up and uhhhh, ampin? I haven't heard anything down here in Middle America from your area but I'll be listening for you. Where are you hanging out?

[Mtn Lynx]

Saw a rci 2950 at a pawn shop. She's selling as a CB. Asking 150. She didn't know a dang thing about the radio. And she's asking 150. I let her know it's not a CB it's a 10 meter. Almost bought it but I wonder if I would have to convert it.

[drdx]

Beat them down on the price and see if it works. 99%+++ chance it is converted. See if it goes to 27 MHz when you power it up.

-drdx

[MDYoungblood]

The 2950 is a nice radio, there is like 3 versions of it, orange display background is the oldest (non DX), green display bg is the DX model and the newest has a black display bg, think it has DX3 on the ID tag. When dealing with a pawn shop I always bargain, you know they only gave a 1/3 of the asking price, and they are probably using that auction site as a price reference. Actually for your area, if the radio is rated a 9 to 10 in looks (no damage and clean), is modded, and works the buck and a half isn't a bad price, that is what they go for here.

3's

Greg

[Mtn Lynx]

Missed my chance at the radio. Shop was closed when I got there. Well, hope it's still there next trip to anchorage. Then I can really low ball.

-- Wednesday, 09 November 2016, 9:20 AM --

Just won a 2517 in an auction. Hope its better than a 2547.

-- Wednesday, 30 November 2016, 19:19 PM --

Just got the 2517 today. Seems to be already converted, unless The "D" setting which is 29.965 to 27.405 was already there. Probably don't have to use the j29 jumper.