I begged my mum for a CB in about 1989 and she sensibly said no, yet today's kids all have devices that connect them to the entire world!. A mate had one and I was fascinated by how you could hear loads of random people. Eventually I got one in about 1993, had no clue about swr etc, ran it off a battery charger humming like mad and had a silver rod stuck 45 degrees out of my bedroom window. My dad shouts up the stairs are you on that CB because it's interfering with the TV!! Still got about 15 CBS, about 100 PMR and 70 CMS baofengs etc. Great stuff thanks for the review of the basics😎👍
Thanks for this. I used CB on my dads rig in his Cortina (yes, a Ford Cortina Mk2), in the late 70's. I got my foundation licence a month ago. I have a retevis rt5 transceiver, a few handheld baofengs and a sweet CRT ss6900N. I haven't seriously tried setting things up just yet as the F/L lets you free....to learn. It does not teach this type of important stuff but I guess that's the hobby. I plan to join my local amateur radio club very soon, down in Dorset. I have an swr meter, patch leads, an antenna.......and now this video. THANK YOU.
First rig I ever used was a Harvard Good Buddy my Uncle's setup in London. I was hooked! The following Christmas I got my first radio - the LCL Economy 40. A few years later I got a superb Realistic TRC2000 from Truck King via mail order. (I wanted the Uniden 200 but they were out of stock and the Realistic was suggested as an alternative).
Well of course the Realistic TRC2000 was the same chassis as the Uniden 200. We found an Audioline 341 that I bought at a rally a few years ago for a couple of quid; it had received the kiss of death with some 80-channel bodge & a roger bleep board. Anyway, I asked Mr Chippie (whilst he's stuck here) to put it back to factory condition, which he did. I then sorted the no 5v rail to a couple of caps, the no pa/audio snag to another couple of caps & the tx/rx both at the same time to a duff transistor. My faultfinding time 45 mins, then alignment....now it's spot on. What a resurrection. We wanted an Audioline 341 to do an 'on the air' video with....then Mr C found our original so we can compare the two. Richard
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 Yes they assured me at the time they were the same radio internally. I found it to be top notch especially the receiver which was incredible both in sensitivity and received audio - it could make (almost) any radio sound good! The only downside was from a cosmetic point of view in later years with the dreaded front fascia ungluing scenario!
Wish'd I'd found this video before I'd followed you for over a year! :-D I think I subbed in early 2021. Understood "27/81" but the rest was a big of a mystery. What amuses me about the CEPT channels is that they are the "FCC" channels, lock, stock, and goofiness between 22 and 26! Prior to 1977-01-01 US CB only included the 23 channels on the same frequencies used by CEPT at 22 and below (plus 23). These channels had been the same since "Class D" CB (as it was once known) started in the late 1950s. There had been usage restrictions -- only units of the same license could intercommunicate on certain channels and communications between different licensees were restricted to different channels. All that was dropped in the early 1970s with the only restriction remaining being the one for "emergency communications or traveler assistance" on channel 9. Class C CB was for remote control, mostly of model vehicles (land/air/sea) but not restricted to those devices. These are the channels in the gaps between 3 and 4, 7 and 8, etc. Channel 23 was and is shared between the modern equivalents of Classes C and D. Prior to 1977, what are now channels 24 and 25, located in the gap between 22 and 23, were assigned to commercial land mobile licensees. Above channel 26, which comes right after channel 23 as we know, was used by other services (land mobile, Civil Air Patrol, etc). Like CEPT, the US allows AM and SSB and, very recently, FM on those channels. What I would like to see is for the FCC to make it legal to use UK-spec radios over here. Same channels FM only. Why not? It's not like anyone else is using the spectrum! Cheers, Richard!
I enjoy seeing the deferins in UK n U.S. cbs I live just short way from MFJ I yousta go thru the plants when I come visit my mom N take flyer on thare stuff back to Wisconsin to the ham fest b for thay start going up thare I have cups from them in a hutch whith some old mikes MR Jun is vare nice N MR Stubbs two Stay safe Sir Joe
Thanks. I worked full time in business commercial 2-way radio from 1986 to 2000 & then carried on doing it part-time by mail order since 2000. Most commercial 2-way radio engineers are too snooty to do CB radio. I had a TV/audio shop in Yorkshire from 1979 to 1985. I became a licenced radio amateur in 1979 & when legal CB happened in the UK realised few qualified electronics engineers wanted to be involved. Richard, G0OJF, UK
Great career history Old Dude @@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 watching your vids plus one or two others has made me decide to restart the hobby again after all these years.. So it's all your fault R Kid.! 👍📻💯😜
We use this camcorder for all the 'non-bench' stuff. On this video I set the resolution far too high in error. This video has therefore taken 6 days to upload...so not a camera change, but a cockup. The bench videos are recorded to Sony HDD recorder via a Panasonic production mixer MX50, which I spent a 'once only' £12K on about 2012. It doesn't matter how good the pics are on the CRT broadcast production monitors here...youtube compress the s**t out of it. It appears to me that youtube is optimized for teenagers with throwaway £99 hi-res wondercams, and not middle aged blokes with OB quality kit & formal production training! That's great for recording skateboarding but not tutorial videos requiring a quality optical remote zoom & cameras with external recording connectivity! Richard, G0OJF
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 Good cockup though Richard!! Video looks fantastic.. I wonder if you could maybe find a new middle ground, quality vs file size/upload time etc.
@@wazy_7 The good news is that BT are installing Fibre broadband here in two weeks time...they have installed 16 poles down the lane to me,and hopefully the cabinet will soon go in. I will be the sole property served by all this. Richard
They are available on Ebay @ £34.95. We rarely sell stuff; only when there is a duplicate & we haven't yet had time to do the either the Midland or PNI aerial tests that I've planned. Richard
So this means that you have to be very fast when testing swr with the instrument. I mean it could be that the swr is very high in the red field, and you connect it to the meter and transmit (of course not knowing it will be so high) and the radio is fried?
Radios can be killed with a high SWR within 30 seconds. You should aleways be checking for no short circuits & quick earth continuity tests before going into TX. Richard, G0OJF, UK
If I remember correctly, The different frequency use and the channels landing on the 50hz was to make the sets unique to UK. The Gov't decided it would mean that the sets would be made in UK and would boost manufacture. They shot themselves in the foot as the components required were only available abroad, and the price got hiked a good deal making the sets far more expensive than they could have been if they had just gone with what was widely used already.
and in reality I only remember two genuine British sets, the EMS Mercury & Magpie Autoscan 5000. The others I've seen were re-cased far-eastern main boards with some UK extras. Well added! Richard
It's EU for the Irish Republic. I understand you may use either AM or FM on that set of channels there. I'm sure your government will have a website for guidence. Richard, UK
got some 20 channels 934mhz sets not sure What the Range think they are on OLD BT Cellnet MHZ £10 pounds for them for 7 of RADIO RALLY ? Dont know much about THESE sets
The 934mhz system was withdrawn mid 1990's, so the 934Mhz radios are no longer legal to use. Nice curiosity for the shelf. I've got a Cybernet Delta one here; came in a box of stuff. Mobile phones still utilise these frequencies, but of course digitally now. The CB system was 8W output, so my UHF licensed business radio experience plus 70cms & 23Cms amateur experience, I would expect up to 35 miles base to mobile in reasonably open country. UHF is severely affected by trees. However, the signals bounce off glass & concrete buildings so you get in from places you wouldn't expect. Richard
I'm interested in attaching a base station antenna to one of my three handhelds one of which is a midland allen 42 and two realistic sets from the early 80s ,all have a provision to do this, the question is what would form the ground plain for a half wave antenna is it the pole it's mounted to or would it be something else ?
The base aerial we use for the 'on the air' tests is just an Antron 99 without the optional groundplane kit. On the organ workshop we also have a slightly higher silver rod type aerial with the three short groundplanes they have & it does work a little better...but that could entirely be height (I've had 9000 miles on 200mW CW (morse) on that, on 10M amateur radio). To answer your question though, the pole is adequate as a ground plane. The Midland 42, I don't recall being a 4W radio. The Realistic TRC1001 is a 3.5W radio, the TRC1005 is a 4W radio, as is the TRC1007. I think that with an external mike connected, the Realistics will all knock the spots of the Midland 42. Richard
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 thanks Richard for the advice, there a pair of trc 221s all black with a centre coil on the antennas, bough them new they still work fine, and there compatible with the 42 multi.
The TRC221 is for the American market & would therefore be an illegal import & illegal to use here in the UK. Unfortunately I've no idea what country you are in! Richard
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 hi Richard my mistake i was to lazy to go downstairs and look at them as it was late at night, so i looked for what i thought was them on Google as mine looked different to the ones you suggested, the one's I've got are trc 1010s 40 channel fm 4 watts, there virtually identical to the American version.
You SWR on the centre of the band, If you wanted to use all 80 availabble channels that would channel 1 UK. You then check the band edges are within safe limits. For example. If you get 1.5:1 on UK channel 1, then check channel 1 CEPT is less than around 2:1, then check channel 40 UK is less than 2:1 then things are OK. Different modes such as AM & FM make no difference to SWR so it only needs to be checked in FM (seeing as AM is only allowed on the EU set of channels anyway). To me here in Lincolnshire, the EU set of channels are useless so we set aerial SWR for UK 40. The centre of that is therefore channel 20, then we check the band edges of channel 1 & 40 to ensure the SWR is acceptable. Hope that helps, Richard, G0OJF, UK
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 ok thanks so I only need to swr on FM not am or EU. So if I swr on uk FM channel 1 40 20 then it should all be ok on FM am eu if swr write
not my low loss coax it's 18mm.. but then again it is LDF4-50.. my other low loss is RG223 and some RG214, but not everyone knows what real coax is they just go with the norm.
i thought CEPT came out is 1986 ? and also now days if you want to use CEPT radios on AM and SSB you can use the RT&TTE derivative approved radios as well from the EU. be nice to explain to people that 12w PEP isn't 12w RF from the radio, it's around 4w to 6w RMS which equates to 12w PEP which isn't actually real. seen so many people with CB and Ham radios complain their SSB is only half what the manufacturer states without knowing what PEP actually means.
I begged my mum for a CB in about 1989 and she sensibly said no, yet today's kids all have devices that connect them to the entire world!. A mate had one and I was fascinated by how you could hear loads of random people. Eventually I got one in about 1993, had no clue about swr etc, ran it off a battery charger humming like mad and had a silver rod stuck 45 degrees out of my bedroom window. My dad shouts up the stairs are you on that CB because it's interfering with the TV!! Still got about 15 CBS, about 100 PMR and 70 CMS baofengs etc. Great stuff thanks for the review of the basics😎👍
Thanks for this. I used CB on my dads rig in his Cortina (yes, a Ford Cortina Mk2), in the late 70's. I got my foundation licence a month ago. I have a retevis rt5 transceiver, a few handheld baofengs and a sweet CRT ss6900N. I haven't seriously tried setting things up just yet as the F/L lets you free....to learn. It does not teach this type of important stuff but I guess that's the hobby. I plan to join my local amateur radio club very soon, down in Dorset. I have an swr meter, patch leads, an antenna.......and now this video. THANK YOU.
Great video Richard very informative thanks for posting atb 👍
Glad you enjoyed it.
Richard
First rig I ever used was a Harvard Good Buddy my Uncle's setup in London. I was hooked! The following Christmas I got my first radio - the LCL Economy 40. A few years later I got a superb Realistic TRC2000 from Truck King via mail order. (I wanted the Uniden 200 but they were out of stock and the Realistic was suggested as an alternative).
Well of course the Realistic TRC2000 was the same chassis as the Uniden 200. We found an Audioline 341 that I bought at a rally a few years ago for a couple of quid; it had received the kiss of death with some 80-channel bodge & a roger bleep board. Anyway, I asked Mr Chippie (whilst he's stuck here) to put it back to factory condition, which he did. I then sorted the no 5v rail to a couple of caps, the no pa/audio snag to another couple of caps & the tx/rx both at the same time to a duff transistor. My faultfinding time 45 mins, then alignment....now it's spot on. What a resurrection. We wanted an Audioline 341 to do an 'on the air' video with....then Mr C found our original so we can compare the two.
Richard
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 Yes they assured me at the time they were the same radio internally. I found it to be top notch especially the receiver which was incredible both in sensitivity and received audio - it could make (almost) any radio sound good! The only downside was from a cosmetic point of view in later years with the dreaded front fascia ungluing scenario!
Wish'd I'd found this video before I'd followed you for over a year! :-D I think I subbed in early 2021. Understood "27/81" but the rest was a big of a mystery.
What amuses me about the CEPT channels is that they are the "FCC" channels, lock, stock, and goofiness between 22 and 26!
Prior to 1977-01-01 US CB only included the 23 channels on the same frequencies used by CEPT at 22 and below (plus 23). These channels had been the same since "Class D" CB (as it was once known) started in the late 1950s. There had been usage restrictions -- only units of the same license could intercommunicate on certain channels and communications between different licensees were restricted to different channels. All that was dropped in the early 1970s with the only restriction remaining being the one for "emergency communications or traveler assistance" on channel 9.
Class C CB was for remote control, mostly of model vehicles (land/air/sea) but not restricted to those devices. These are the channels in the gaps between 3 and 4, 7 and 8, etc. Channel 23 was and is shared between the modern equivalents of Classes C and D. Prior to 1977, what are now channels 24 and 25, located in the gap between 22 and 23, were assigned to commercial land mobile licensees. Above channel 26, which comes right after channel 23 as we know, was used by other services (land mobile, Civil Air Patrol, etc).
Like CEPT, the US allows AM and SSB and, very recently, FM on those channels. What I would like to see is for the FCC to make it legal to use UK-spec radios over here. Same channels FM only. Why not? It's not like anyone else is using the spectrum!
Cheers, Richard!
I enjoy seeing the deferins in UK n U.S. cbs I live just short way from MFJ I yousta go thru the plants when I come visit my mom
N take flyer on thare stuff back to Wisconsin to the ham fest b for thay start going up thare
I have cups from them in a hutch whith some old mikes
MR Jun is vare nice
N MR Stubbs two
Stay safe Sir
Joe
Excellent Video Old Dude, you certainly know your stuff and give detailed information with very easy explanation ! 👌📻💯
Thanks. I worked full time in business commercial 2-way radio from 1986 to 2000 & then carried on doing it part-time by mail order since 2000. Most commercial 2-way radio engineers are too snooty to do CB radio. I had a TV/audio shop in Yorkshire from 1979 to 1985. I became a licenced radio amateur in 1979 & when legal CB happened in the UK realised few qualified electronics engineers wanted to be involved.
Richard, G0OJF, UK
Great career history Old Dude @@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 watching your vids plus one or two others has made me decide to restart the hobby again after all these years.. So it's all your fault R Kid.! 👍📻💯😜
thanks for the help managed to swr my ariel on bicuit tin got 1.1 thanks
We used to wind up breakers over the biscuit tin shape; round for omnidirectional performance.
Richard
Great video thanks Richard
Glad you enjoyed it,
Richard
Camera you're using is much improved!! 👍🏻
We use this camcorder for all the 'non-bench' stuff. On this video I set the resolution far too high in error. This video has therefore taken 6 days to upload...so not a camera change, but a cockup.
The bench videos are recorded to Sony HDD recorder via a Panasonic production mixer MX50, which I spent a 'once only' £12K on about 2012. It doesn't matter how good the pics are on the CRT broadcast production monitors here...youtube compress the s**t out of it. It appears to me that youtube is optimized for teenagers with throwaway £99 hi-res wondercams, and not middle aged blokes with OB quality kit & formal production training! That's great for recording skateboarding but not tutorial videos requiring a quality optical remote zoom & cameras with external recording connectivity!
Richard, G0OJF
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 Good cockup though Richard!! Video looks fantastic.. I wonder if you could maybe find a new middle ground, quality vs file size/upload time etc.
@@wazy_7 The good news is that BT are installing Fibre broadband here in two weeks time...they have installed 16 poles down the lane to me,and hopefully the cabinet will soon go in. I will be the sole property served by all this.
Richard
Excellent vidios as always.can I buy the midland antenna from you?
The big lc65.if so how much would it be please.regards tony
They are available on Ebay @ £34.95. We rarely sell stuff; only when there is a duplicate & we haven't yet had time to do the either the Midland or PNI aerial tests that I've planned.
Richard
Interesting to see the different results for each aerial. Richard, have you ever made your own aeriel (dipole) ?
as a radio amateur, yes but not on CB. I used to enjoy working out & making "log periodic" aerials for 70cms.
Richard, G0OJF
So this means that you have to be very fast when testing swr with the instrument. I mean it could be that the swr is very high in the red field, and you connect it to the meter and transmit (of course not knowing it will be so high) and the radio is fried?
Radios can be killed with a high SWR within 30 seconds. You should aleways be checking for no short circuits & quick earth continuity tests before going into TX.
Richard, G0OJF, UK
If I remember correctly, The different frequency use and the channels landing on the 50hz was to make the sets unique to UK. The Gov't decided it would mean that the sets would be made in UK and would boost manufacture. They shot themselves in the foot as the components required were only available abroad, and the price got hiked a good deal making the sets far more expensive than they could have been if they had just gone with what was widely used already.
and in reality I only remember two genuine British sets, the EMS Mercury & Magpie Autoscan 5000. The others I've seen were re-cased far-eastern main boards with some UK extras. Well added!
Richard
What setting would I need to use for the Republic of Ireland ? EU or UK ?
It's EU for the Irish Republic. I understand you may use either AM or FM on that set of channels there. I'm sure your government will have a website for guidence.
Richard, UK
got some 20 channels 934mhz sets not sure What the Range think they are on OLD BT Cellnet MHZ £10 pounds for them for 7 of RADIO RALLY ? Dont know much about THESE sets
The 934mhz system was withdrawn mid 1990's, so the 934Mhz radios are no longer legal to use. Nice curiosity for the shelf. I've got a Cybernet Delta one here; came in a box of stuff. Mobile phones still utilise these frequencies, but of course digitally now. The CB system was 8W output, so my UHF licensed business radio experience plus 70cms & 23Cms amateur experience, I would expect up to 35 miles base to mobile in reasonably open country. UHF is severely affected by trees. However, the signals bounce off glass & concrete buildings so you get in from places you wouldn't expect.
Richard
I'm interested in attaching a base station antenna to one of my three handhelds one of which is a midland allen 42 and two realistic sets from the early 80s ,all have a provision to do this, the question is what would form the ground plain for a half wave antenna is it the pole it's mounted to or would it be something else ?
The base aerial we use for the 'on the air' tests is just an Antron 99 without the optional groundplane kit. On the organ workshop we also have a slightly higher silver rod type aerial with the three short groundplanes they have & it does work a little better...but that could entirely be height (I've had 9000 miles on 200mW CW (morse) on that, on 10M amateur radio). To answer your question though, the pole is adequate as a ground plane.
The Midland 42, I don't recall being a 4W radio. The Realistic TRC1001 is a 3.5W radio, the TRC1005 is a 4W radio, as is the TRC1007. I think that with an external mike connected, the Realistics will all knock the spots of the Midland 42.
Richard
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 thanks Richard for the advice, there a pair of trc 221s all black with a centre coil on the antennas, bough them new they still work fine, and there compatible with the 42 multi.
The TRC221 is for the American market & would therefore be an illegal import & illegal to use here in the UK. Unfortunately I've no idea what country you are in!
Richard
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 hi Richard my mistake i was to lazy to go downstairs and look at them as it was late at night, so i looked for what i thought was them on Google as mine looked different to the ones you suggested, the one's I've got are trc 1010s 40 channel fm 4 watts, there virtually identical to the American version.
Aha, the TRC1010 is a CEPT only FM handheld & is superb. A radio we've yet to do a servicing or test video on, but have several in stock.
Richard
Do u have to swr radio on all 40channels on am fm eu
You SWR on the centre of the band, If you wanted to use all 80 availabble channels that would channel 1 UK. You then check the band edges are within safe limits. For example. If you get 1.5:1 on UK channel 1, then check channel 1 CEPT is less than around 2:1, then check channel 40 UK is less than 2:1 then things are OK. Different modes such as AM & FM make no difference to SWR so it only needs to be checked in FM (seeing as AM is only allowed on the EU set of channels anyway).
To me here in Lincolnshire, the EU set of channels are useless so we set aerial SWR for UK 40. The centre of that is therefore channel 20, then we check the band edges of channel 1 & 40 to ensure the SWR is acceptable.
Hope that helps,
Richard, G0OJF, UK
@@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21 ok thanks so I only need to swr on FM not am or EU. So if I swr on uk FM channel 1 40 20 then it should all be ok on FM am eu if swr write
orrect.
Richard@@grahamwardandcd1594
Wasn't the B licence above 30MHz?
I got my B licence in ‘84 and I’m sure it was for 2M and 70Cms only, Rob G1KEK
@@sarto7bellys I guess it was lowered then as UKCBRS says. I took mine in the early 90's G7TXU
This is the basics?
Email if you want to know something I didn't mention rshireby@yahoo.co.uk
Low loss co-ax is 10.3mm
You are absolutely right, I've just checked. Thank you.
Richard, G0OJF
not my low loss coax it's 18mm.. but then again it is LDF4-50..
my other low loss is RG223 and some RG214, but not everyone knows what real coax is they just go with the norm.
i thought CEPT came out is 1986 ?
and also now days if you want to use CEPT radios on AM and SSB you can use the RT&TTE derivative approved radios as well from the EU.
be nice to explain to people that 12w PEP isn't 12w RF from the radio, it's around 4w to 6w RMS which equates to 12w PEP which isn't actually real.
seen so many people with CB and Ham radios complain their SSB is only half what the manufacturer states without knowing what PEP actually means.