PMR446 - licence-free or CB radios?

Ice Tea · 6 May 2020 at 01:13

Does anyone use PMR or the old CB radios?

I see that you can buy CB radios on Amazon but a neighbour chucked all his CB radio gear a couple of years ago as he said you rarely hear anyone and when you do it's either a (out of band) Ham radio operator asking for a Signal check or a Trucker playing music or swearing, no real sociable conversations taking place.

I just wondered if things had changed with the Lockdown?

Ice Tea · 6 May 2020 at 07:31

I read a couple of forums where people were complaining about the low power of PMR makes them useless and the general consensus of the replies was if you need to speak further than a car park or sports field then just use the internet and be part of the modern world.

Ice Tea · 6 May 2020 at 12:37

ttaskmaster said:
Why do you ask - You fancy a foxhunt?

LOL , i was looking up the price of (SDR) Software-defined radio scanners on Amazon and got side tracked with the CB radios that turned up in search and thought of what my neighbour said and was curious if lockdown would prompt people to start using them again.

No further interest than a topic , i'm not buying one.

Ice Tea · 7 May 2020 at 13:22

To think some people spend their entire life trying to transmit Morse Code to the other side of the world with the lowest amount of power possible , if i was going to Dah-Di-Dah it would be at 1000 watts.

Ice Tea · 9 May 2020 at 08:33

To think Women are considered better communicators yet 99% of Ham Radio users are Male.

Ice Tea · 9 May 2020 at 09:04

Narj said:
I found 2m incredibly boring.

I must admit that i've felt the same every time i've heard 2m or 70cm , it seems to be full of people that just want to talk about Ham radio and very little else.

Ice Tea · 9 May 2020 at 09:20

I keep meaning to have a listen to Zello as that's supposed to have a million users per week.