CB radio Convoys

klondike_bar · Post by **klondike_bar** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:14 pm

Breaker one-nine, breaker one-nine, this heres klondike_bar, captain of the magnificent crazy train. We got the frontdoor, and are looking for someone to close up the back! Looks like we got us a convoy!

I can only assume that in the 2-3 days before the event, theres a large number of burners travelling the cross-country highways.

I think that we need to get as many CB radios into these vehicles as possible, and get some good ol' convoy runs

a burningman covoy is sure to draw a peculiar crowd, and some interesting looks. whos interested?

keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your tail. yee-haw!

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:42 am

I do this almost every year when traveling to BM with another vehicle or two. because we go through a lot of no-cell-phone territory.
The problem with CB is the super-short range, especially with mobiles.
Also, we'd need an agreed-on burner channel, and that needs to be 17 or 19 because that's where people on the highway will normally be.
I've driven to BM countless times with various size groups, and find that caravans of more than about three tend to slow down progress. In a large group, SOMEONE always has to go to the bathroom, needs fuel, has some kind of issue to solve. And every stop tends to take forever with a big group.

BUT.....
I have found that CB is great for on-playa mutant vehicle-to-mutant vehicle communication, though! The big flat landscape is ideal for radio waves, and you can easily talk all over the playa. It's WAY better than those worthless FRS or GMRS walkie talkies, and there's almost no one else on CB out there to clutter up the channels.

oneeyeddick · Post by **oneeyeddick** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:22 am

Ditto on that, CD....what channel do you use on playa ?

Sail Man · Post by **Sail Man** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:05 am

Klondike, I'll be the four-wheeler in the red tonka truck hauling a tincan westbound on the 80. I'm 10-4 on the CB, haven't left home without once for the last 30 yrs and will be keeping an eye out for smokey.

klondike_bar · Post by **klondike_bar** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:46 pm

heh, i got into a stint of watching truck-movies (smokey, convoy, white line).

im going to try and hunt down a nice ol' rooftop ballerina to get a bit of range to the signal.

youl know the crazy train when you see her. Shes a purple long-wagoned rookie rig on 4 wheels, with enough dents to do the 'FORD' on the grill justice.

If she can destroy fenceposts, sidecheck a forest, and still run sound, then she can take on the playa!

Sail Man · Post by **Sail Man** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:33 pm

Top 10 Trucker Movies from an internet site:

01: Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
02: Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1953)
03: They Drive by Night (1940)
04: Convoy (1978)
05: White Line Fever (1975)
06: Roadgames (1981)
07: Duel (1971)
08: Sorcerer (1977)
09: Big Rig (2007)
10: The Great Smokey Road Block (1977)

Other Trucker Movies/TV Shows
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
B.J. and the Bear (1979-81)
Black Dog (1998)
Blacktop (2000)
Breakdown (1997)
Breaker! Breaker! (1977)
CB Hustlers (1978)
Citizen's Band (1977)
Coast to Coast (1980)
F.I.S.T (1978)
Hijack (1973)
Hoffa (1992)
Ice Road Truckers (2007+)
Jacknife (1989)
Joy Ride (2001)
Joy Ride: Dead Ahead (2008)
Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior) (1981)
Moonfire (1972)
Over the Top (1987)
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)
Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983)
Thunder Run (1985)

Post by **AntiM** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:01 pm

I'm married to a real trucker ... heavy haul skateboard.

Good free coffee at Donna's Ranch in Battle Mountain and Wells. Free showers too. They are always on the CB. And they have truck parking.

oneeyeddick · Post by **oneeyeddick** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:18 pm

Too bad the rest of the services there aren't free.

klondike_bar · Post by **klondike_bar** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:31 pm

to wannabe truckers count as truckers?

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:33 pm

I'm not really a "trucker" but I do drive (and constantly polish) a really cool Peterbilt 359... hell I never hear anyone use anything but real, plain English on CB!

I haven't used the Land Yacht CB in a few years (the others I used it with haven't been on playa for a while). We'd have to pick a channel... maybe 22? Definitely not 6, that's the skip-shooter's channel, most likely to have noise out there. At least that's how it used to be way way back.

ibdave · Post by **ibdave** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:32 pm

I use to be " The Midnight Cruiser" in high school...
I was a major Bucket Mouth.....

Thecatman · Post by **Thecatman** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:01 pm

Sometimes I miss truck driving. Driving the western states, going places I have'nt been to or have'nt been in years. Truck driving is'nt what it was 20 years ago though when drivers looked out for each other and there was comerady.

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:45 am

Way back when, all my friends and I had CBs, in our cars and at home. It was the internet chat room of the day, before there were such things.
"Our" channel was 30... there was the rowdy channel 10 bunch, the younger channel 14ers, the older channel 28ers, the skipshooters on 6, etc.
We put up big beam antennas, ran big illegal power amplifiers, modified our radios to get on illegal frequencies above and below the 26.965Mhz to 27.405Mhz CB range (plus a few skipped in-between ones).
We did stealthy things like painting antennas green and hiding them in trees to avoid being detected... like the internet, conversation wasn't always friendly - but unlike the internet, it was local and could be tracked down.
We ran our cables inside rain gutters and strung fake ones in plain sight... they'd get cut, too. And we did our share of "coax cutting".
One guy was such an asshole, what we'd call a "troll" nowadays, that I'm not sure if it'd still be incriminating to tell what happened. It did include successfully outrunning the cops!

The age of cell phones and internet wiped all that out... and that's fine, the new stuff is better, but to this day my best, life-long friends are mostly people originally from that old social network, though none of us has talked on CB in decades.

Oh... I used a few names, my favorite was "Pope Assassinater", sometimes "104", but way most often simply my real first name.

Tiahaar · Post by **Tiahaar** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 11:32 pm

That's a big 10-4 there Captain, the good old CBs were the networks of my little small town too. I too was never a real trucker, just a farm kid driving cattle and grain trucks around, one place I worked for had CBs in all the trucks and tractors so everyone could yak back and forth when needed.

The Starship Palomino (my yellow city bus) is always on 19 coming and going from the playa, ready to get on the air with fellow roadwarriors. On-playa I've spun around the dial now and then looking for traffic, not heard too much, I'll second adopting 22 as a playa main channel

Tiahaar out

MRGUMBY · Post by **MRGUMBY** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:03 am

Wow, what a way to make a first post.

A couple of suggestions to make the CB's run farther.

1. Place the antenna on the roof of the vehicle with nothing else around it.
(It makes a HUGE difference, but if you have things on your roof that will touch or be close to the antenna, better off to stick it on your trunklid)

2. Channel 19 has so many people for hundreds of miles in either direction, that the range is greatly cut down. The further away from it you can go, the less "crap" you will have fighting you. Channel 1 or 2 is a good idea and very often free of skip-boys.

3. A good quality antenna is a lot more important than a pricey radio.
The little 2 foot tall fiberglass sticks are close to useless. Get yourself a K40 or a wilson 1000 and spend the 60 or 80 bux to do it. You will never be sorry.

4. Have your SWR checked and adjusted.
You SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) is the "lost" power being trapped instead of radiating from your antenna. It cooks your radio and limits your range severely.

5. On the playa, the higher, the better!!
Getting your antenna 10 feet higher increases your ability to receive and transmit greatly!

6. Sideband increases range big time, but the radios are big money if you only use them once a year.

You can look up a ham radio club in your area and ask them for help. You will always find someone there who will set your SWR for you.

wedeliver · Post by **wedeliver** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:08 pm

Captain Goddammit wrote:Way back when, all my friends and I had CBs, in our cars and at home. It was the internet chat room of the day, before there were such things.
"Our" channel was 30... there was the rowdy channel 10 bunch, the younger channel 14ers, the older channel 28ers, the skipshooters on 6, etc.
We put up big beam antennas, ran big illegal power amplifiers, modified our radios to get on illegal frequencies above and below the 26.965Mhz to 27.405Mhz CB range (plus a few skipped in-between ones).
We did stealthy things like painting antennas green and hiding them in trees to avoid being detected... like the internet, conversation wasn't always friendly - but unlike the internet, it was local and could be tracked down.
We ran our cables inside rain gutters and strung fake ones in plain sight... they'd get cut, too. And we did our share of "coax cutting".
One guy was such an asshole, what we'd call a "troll" nowadays, that I'm not sure if it'd still be incriminating to tell what happened. It did include successfully outrunning the cops!

The age of cell phones and internet wiped all that out... and that's fine, the new stuff is better, but to this day my best, life-long friends are mostly people originally from that old social network, though none of us has talked on CB in decades.

Oh... I used a few names, my favorite was "Pope Assassinater", sometimes "104", but way most often simply my real first name.

CQ CQ CQ DX CQ DX

I think a 500watt linear on a side band up in the funnies might work fine on the Black Rock.. could pretty much cover the WHOLE thing.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:12 am

Films?

Road Games
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083000/

And did anyone else know Jamie Lee Curtis was in Buckaroo Banzai?
You know where that film starts.

And Duel, of course.
http://www.moria.co.nz/index.php?option ... 48Itemid=1

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:50 am

All correct about the antenna... CBs are all 4-watt (unless you've got a "heater"... ) and it's all about the antenna. Longer, higher, and tuned properly are what makes them work.

CQ CQ CQDX! Good gracious alive you cotton pickin' pea pickin' chicken-chokin' duck pluckers out there in DX land! Roger D right on! We be walkin' the dog, wall to wall and treetop tall! Droppin the maul on y'all!
Unit 104, on the flat side and standing by.