I don't hear much about CB radio anymore, don't even own one for several years now. But even when I did, I never had much more than the cheap 40 channel with a built in weather radio.

Have any of you used SSB? The radios with SSB are more expensive but they appear to be readily available.

I have wondered what kind of performance one could expect using SSB instead of the typical channels.

What prompted my question was what might work well in a disaster area such as we had on the gulf coast after Katrina. There were no working cell towers closeby. I don't know about AR repeaters.

CB SSB would be strictly simplex, but I did wonder if it's of any value to look at for the future. Also, I wondered about range as I suspect it's probably decent in our swampy terrain (flat).

I look forward to your wisdom.



Brian

You have a very good idea and one that most RVer's and CB users have overlooked. SSB works very well on 27 megs. Seems most RVer's want to go on the cheap and that's what they get. I have used it for years and still do even though I have my general ham ticket. I have had more QSOs on CB SSB than HF; everyone on HF seems to be contesting. They just want a call sign and grid number. Sometimes however, regardless of what equipment you have or how many watts you are running, atmospheric conditions and over powered stations will make it impossible to carry on a QSO. You are on the right track; now go get your ham ticket.

Hi eastcentralmn,

Thanks for the input on SSB. It's something I may explore further as I'm thinking about being able to communicate with my wife while she's traveling. It's not generally all that far away but I know I'll never get her to sit for a ham license... just not gonna happen. Also, one cannot have too many radios! LOL!

That said, it might be fun to get into the ham frequencies and explore that realm further.

I had a buddy up in PA (N3EIO) who used to hang out on the 2 meter band. He even gave me some tapes to learn code. I doubt I still have them, but I was doing pretty good with them for a while. I forget what happened, but I never got any further with it.

Now, I understand that there is a non-code Technician's license, which is probably what I should shoot for to get started. Not that I wouldn't like to do the code, it'll just take time.

I already know some of the theory as I did work with basic electronics for a few years... voltage, amperage, resistance, capacitance, reluctance, and a few of those things aren't exactly new. But I didn't deal much with RF frequencies or antennas so a lot of that would be somewhat less familiar.

One of these days... maybe when some of these projects get caught up...

Thanks again for the input.

Brian

Brian, the Technician test is no biggie. It doesn't get all that much to any depth. As far as antennas and such, the basic length for each band is about it. A few hours per week study for a few weeks will do it for most folks.

Sideband is really a good way to go because you get further range, the equivalent of running 40 watts instead of 5, and the added bonus that non-sideband rigs cannot copy your conversation.
Russ

Let's get technical. ssb vs am gives better performance for two reasons. fcc allows 4 watts for am cb and 12 watts peak for ssb.

am when not modulated for max cb is 4 watts and when modulated the info is from 0 to 4 watts. And what isn't 4 watts is still transmitted carrier.

ssb, because of the reduced total power allows more average transmitted power. ie, there is no modulation, just the voice stepped up to, in this case, 27 megs.

You get 3 times the effective signal with far less average transmitted power. An added benefit is the information is transmitted with half the bandwidth of am, reducing the noise for other users.

Because of the 12 watt peak rule you can use a clipper to limit the peak to 12 watts while boosting everything else for maybe an additional effective gain increase of 3db power. The total power improvement being about 8db which would improve range by about two and a half.

27 megs is stll considered line of sight regardless of modulation and 'if' there is some bounce it doesn't care what the modulation is. You would be far better off in the hf band at 14 megs for daytime and 3.5 megs at night.

Which gets back to the ham thing. Code is easy and fun and with a license, communication options really open up.

Here's a free download of a really good cw practice program that you will find will get you up to speed plenty fast for the test. http://www.dxsoft.com/en/products/cwtype/ My wife knocked it out in no time and has her advanced ticket [old rules] and we have communicated for many years over thousands of miles. Just one bit of advice, never look at the code, ie dots and dashes, just listen for the song each letter has.

A bit more technical: 4 watts antenna power is based on a five watt input level to the final amplifier with 80% efficiency. That is the maximum that could be obtained from a class C amplifier. It requires 2.5 watts of audio power to fully modulate that signal. The result of that 100% modulation is the 5 watt carrier plus 1 and 1/4 watts in both the Upper Sideband and in the lower Sideband. SSB is just a transmission of one sideband without any carrier so an SSB signal of 1 and 1/4 watts has the same talk power as five watts of AM signal. By the way, PEP (peak envelope power) is roughly twice an equivalent constant (single tone) power level. That is why the FCC allows 12 watts of PEP to the antenna for a SSB signal. It is basically the exact same power level as 5 watts AM.

If the entire 5 watts of input power is in one sideband (an SSB signal) it has the same talk power as a 20 watt AM signal. That is 6 db of improvement. As previously stated, the bandwidth is half that of an AM signal so the receiver can be sharpened to half the bandwidth per channel, cutting the noise in half. That is another 3 db gain from the receiver. The total of the 6 db gain from the transmitter and 3 db noise reduction in the receiver is 9 db, the basis for my previous statement that the advantage of SSB is equivalent to running forty watts instead of five. The difference of 5 and 40 watts is 9 db (doubling three times.
Russ

Russ---Are you on hf from time to time-ben ab0el

Benwd, I'm mostly inactive in recent years. Just a dual bander (2 & 440) in the truck. In the 60's & early 70's I spent some time on 75 and occasionally 15 for fun. I never was competitive enough to get on 20.
Ham radio was a hobby that led into a career and it seems that I just drifted away from it the past ten years or so.
73
Russ
Wb5gke

I understand why 2m/70mm is is good, gosh what a pain it is to get a antenna to work for cb or20,40,10 meter bands. Fiberglass roofs/motorhome are a grounding nightmare
Gary KI$VLH

Gary----I've had good luck with several antennas on the rv. My first was a screwdriver that I used a lot on 20m, then, later came balanced antennas on the roof for 80m using the luggage rack for one side and the ladder for the other with some coils to get it close. I had an antenna once that I strung around the top of the rv on poles that stuck up on the corners that worked ok, and another that was a loop wound around poles that didn't do so good. I don't mess with them on the roof much anymore but carry a slingshot and string now as I usually park by trees.

Thanks benwd for your comments,I am sure that I am off a bit on the subject objective, but antennas in general on rv's is or can be rocket science. CB is a very important part of radio world and I do use CB for those 'what is in front of me that stopped traffic. Unfortuantly most cb's that are installed on new units, barily, if at all, do not work. I will continue to work on my antenna make it work project and hopefully will find a workable solution,

I can't believe that no one mentioned to Brian that the code requirement on any class of license (ham) in the U.S. no longer exists.

Wow, I didn't know that. I thought it was just a Technician class license that didn't require the code. I figured the General or Extra classes still required it.

It still would be fun to do some code, though, when time permits.



Brian

Brian,
Go get your HAM ticket and enjoy amateur radio.

www.qrz.com has practice tests you can take online. They are a great way to study. The first step is getting "Technician".

There are lots of 2m and 70cm repeaters around for local QSO's (conversations) and then getting a General license so you can use HF is not that much harder, since there is no code required for any license level. You'll get 40-60 mile range on 2m working a repeater.

One thing...if you are familiar with CB, dont use the CB jargon on Amateur Radio. For example saying "break" on amateur bands is signaling that you have an "Emergency".

Go to
www.arrl.org
to learn all about Amateur Radio.

You can get into 2m for around $200 (this includes a new 2m mobile and the antenna). A dual band radio (2m & 70cm rigs) is about $125 more.

New HF mobile rigs begin at about $600 for the least expensive new radios, plus the antenna which adds a few more hundred, but used rigs can be had for much less. For example, my 25 year old HF rig in my house was donated to me by a friend who has been a Ham for about 50 years. It still works fine and I talk all around the US mainland and have made contacts in Hawaii also. HF has a dead zone out to at least 100 miles, so HF is for distant contacts only. HF base "wire" antennas are much less costly, and can be set up from an RV quickly.

There is also ECHOLINK. It is for licensed hams only, and using VOIP, connects your computer to a distant repeater/radio or another user's computer for voice traffic. You operate as if you are in radio to radio contact.

Three major manufactures of radios are Yaesu, Icom, and Kenwood. They all have websites.

I went to qrz.com just to check out the practice tests. And since they were only 35 questions, I figured I'd fly through one of the tests to see how I'd do without any study at all...

Made 77.1%, which appears to be passing, though not a great score. Much of it seemed to be either basic electronics or common sense.

Might not be as much work as I had thought!

Thanks for the link.

Brian