A Little More Power For Cb

[yogi]

As Anyone Tried A Linear On There Cb? I Have A 250 Watt Electronic One I Was Thinking About Adding With A Antenna And Coax Upgrade.

[Thom]

you better get a bigger battery those thing needs lots of power

[cbmel]

And we won't EVEN get into the legalities of it.

 

I'll bet our "ham" members will have a field day with this one.

[yogi]

New Style Electronic Linears Do Not Pull Amps Like The Old Style Linears In Fact Power Wire Is Only 16 Gauge Wire. As For Being Legal, Old Truck Driving Habits Just Dont Die.

[flb_78]

Wattage is wattage.

 

Why the hell would you want that much power being transmitted so close to your head?

 

250watts @ 13.8 volts = 18.1159 amps

 

and yes, it is illegal to transmit on the 11 meter band with more than 4 watts on the AM side.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

Wattage is wattage.

 

Why the hell would you want that much power being transmitted so close to your head?

 

250watts @ 13.8 volts = 18.1159 amps

 

and yes, it is illegal to transmit on the 11 meter band with more than 4 watts on the AM side.

 

If the linear is rated at 250 watts out, and figuring something like 75% efficiency, you may be surprised to know it may draw more than 27 amps on transmit. Some power is lost to heat.

 

Putting aside the fact that this may just kill the alternator, battery, regulator, or all three, (and its also illegal!) it may also temporarily or permanently kill the bikes electronics. That much RF energy will be coupled into the antenna on the other side of the trunk, and may render the AM/FM radio or amplifier, cassette, or intercom useless. You may even fry the electronics in the speedometer, the throttle position sensor, or the cruise control. I seriously doubt the stock antenna will handle that much power.

 

In a car or truck, you have an antenna mounted on the outside of the vehicle, mostly shielded electronics on the inside of the vehicle, a larger more robust charging system, and a larger ground area (the vehicle body) to help dissipate RF ground currents.

 

But if Yogi wants to try it....let us know what happens!

 

[yogi]

I Am Going To Try And Install This Weekend The Linear Is A Rm Italy That Has Been Worked They Have A Internal Fuse That Is Only 10 Amps The Max They Draw Are 10 Amps But By Turning Down The Out Put On The Cb To About 1.5 Watts You Have Plenty Of Output Wattage Probally In The 140 To 150 Watt Range.yes You Are Not Suppose To Use Them But Then Again Those Who Say It Is Illegal Dont Speed Or Change Pipes Or Block Off Anything On There Rsv's That Has To Do With Emissions Do They. You Would Be Surprised How Many Are Running Up And Down The Roads. I Have Trucked Half Of My Life And A Linear Is Just Part Of A Cb To Me. Not Used To Iritate Anyone Or Burn Up Some Ones Finals In There Radio Should Be Sitting Next To Them With Enough Power. Just A Way To Communicate A Little Better Only Used When Needed.

 

Yogibear

[Guest reggiepelletier]

You could allways get licensed and install a HAM radio and run all the power you want. NO NOISE, NO STATIC, talk to folks all over the country. My Amateur radio install took all of 30 minutes. The test is easy no more morse code all the answers are online.

 

Ride safe K4DNA.. look me up on QRZ.com I will be glad to help.

[BOO]

There use to be a guy out in the east somewhere that was running 1500 watts on hf from his Goldwing. He had a trailer with a gas generator in it for power.

Sort of interesting but like the guy said, do you want that much RF right beside you? There are some tables around for calculating the danger to you. I will try and find them and post them.

Get the ham license and buy a 2 meter radio much better then CB anytime.

By the way the standard CB is AM mode. Takes a lot of power to gain any range in that mode.

Jerry W9FE

[yogi]

Right Set Up 150 Watts Will Get You About 10 To 15 Miles Anytime And Alot More When The Conditions Are Right Have Talked To Other Countrys With Not Much More Than That At Night When You Can Catch Some Skip But Very Un Predictable. Actually Im Just Doing This For Fun Of It And To Be Able To Talk To Some Trucking Friends When I See Them. We Normaly Will Go To A Different Channel And Even Going In Different Direction You Can Still Talk For 5 T0 1o Minutes. A Linear Is Actually Useless Unless The Other Person Has One. I Would Think Probally Half The Trucks Running Up And Down The Road Have One.

[BOO]

I couldn't find the calculator I was looking for but this one will work.

http://n5xu.ece.utexas.edu/rfsafety/

It uses average power for the output so I just presumed 100 watts.

0.0 db gain, 2 feet away from antenna and the frequency at 27 MHZ.

Even at these conservative numbers you can see you should be about 5 feet from the antenna to be safe, that's assuming everything is tuned properly.

Hope this helps.

Jerry

[yogi]

Thanks For The Reply But Using That Calculator Even At 4 Watts At Which Most Radios Are Set At. Your Passenger Will Not Be Safe. I Do Find The Calcualtor Intersting Though I Traveled Up And Down And All Around This Coutry. My Radio I Use In My Truck Is A Cobra 29 Tuned And Peaked With A 500 Watt Texas Star And 75 Watt Driver No Telling What Was Going Thru Me At Times. But Never Thought About It Before. Wonder What Damage That Will Do To You? Any Thoughts.i Have Had Some Health Issues Lately And They Wanted To Blame My Body Buildings Days But I Was Always Carefull And Cycled Everything Now I Wonder. Think I Will Do Some More Research. Thanks For The Input.

Yogibear

[Gray Ghost]

I used to have a CB all the time back in the 70s. Anymore I won't use them unless absolutely necessary because of all the jerks that run linears and think they are DJs to the point that regular people can't hold a conversation. For the life of me I never understood why someone would think that everyone in a 15+ mile radius would want to hear them sing, or rebroadcast some song that is playing on their radio.

 

But then again, that is just my 2 cents.

[BOO]

Thanks For The Reply But Using That Calculator Even At 4 Watts At Which Most Radios Are Set At. Your Passenger Will Not Be Safe. I Do Find The Calcualtor Intersting Though I Traveled Up And Down And All Around This Coutry. My Radio I Use In My Truck Is A Cobra 29 Tuned And Peaked With A 500 Watt Texas Star And 75 Watt Driver No Telling What Was Going Thru Me At Times. But Never Thought About It Before. Wonder What Damage That Will Do To You? Any Thoughts.i Have Had Some Health Issues Lately And They Wanted To Blame My Body Buildings Days But I Was Always Carefull And Cycled Everything Now I Wonder. Think I Will Do Some More Research. Thanks For The Input.

Yogibear

 

Well I been around high power most of my life and the only thing I have noticed is I have three thumbs on one hand but..... they are pretty handy at times being a carpenter. LOL

I spent 5 years in the US Navy at transmitter sites with all kinds of power and I'm sure it wasn't good for me. Over the the desert in Africa we had two 800 foot towers with 100,000 watts of power about 500 feet from the building, another transmitter that put out 500,000 watts so I'm not to inclined to worry about a few hundred watts at the CB frequency.

But I think it will cause cancer if you get enough of it.

Jerry

[yogi]

When You Go To Channel 19 Things Like That Happen But Then That Is Why It Is Referred To As The Truckers Channel.but Like You Say There Are A Few That Abuse Things Legal Or Not.that Is Just Part Of Channel 19.in The Early 70s There Were People On All The Channels Most Of The Time At Least The 23 That Were Available Then.but Most Truckers Ended Up On 19 Then Came Everyone Else. Then The Fcc Gave Us 17 More Channels To Play With But Most Stay On 19 With The Truckers What I Am Saying Is You Can Go To Any Channel You Want. But Most Stay On 19 With The Truckers And When You Are There. You Should Understand The Way They Are.to Most It Is A Life You Probally Wont Understand.there Are Idiots There Are Gurus There Are Genius But Most Get Along Even With The Djs And Others Just Part Of 19 But That Leaves 39 Other Channels Were You Probaly Wont Here Any Story Tellers Or Djs.

Just My Two Cents

Yogi

[Thom]

is a cb - am not micro wave , am is a long wave , the only thing that will hurt you with to much output is a hot ant.

a cb is just a little bit above a am radio and a am radio station can put out over 50,000 watts come stations put out over 150,000 watts . if you want more power out of your cb , install a separate ant. and have your cb tuned and peaked , my stock cb tuned and peaked puts out 23 watts and i get about 10 miles out of it , i also have a cobra 29 with a 600 watt linear , i have to use a oil filled ant. to run it at full power because of the heat , to run anything bigger than our cbs on our bikes will not work because the bikes just don't have enough ground plain .

[BOO]

is a cb - am not micro wave , am is a long wave , the only thing that will hurt you with to much output is a hot ant.

a cb is just a little bit above a am radio and a am radio station can put out over 50,000 watts come stations put out over 150,000 watts . if you want more power out of your cb , install a separate ant. and have your cb tuned and peaked , my stock cb tuned and peaked puts out 23 watts and i get about 10 miles out of it , i also have a cobra 29 with a 600 watt linear , i have to use a oil filled ant. to run it at full power because of the heat , to run anything bigger than our cbs on our bikes will not work because the bikes just don't have enough ground plain .

 

Thom,

I need to find the bulletin the FCC put out about 5 -6 years ago about RF power. I think it was developed mainly for neighbors of Ham Radio operators because they were afraid of the RF. Once they developed the tables it sort of opened up the eyes of many operators when they found out about the dangers of RF mainly on the 2 meter and 432 bands but it it still a danger on the HF frequencies and the CB lies in that band.

I have an amplifier that is capable of putting out 2,000 watts, I don't do it because we are limited to 1,500 on most bands and less on others. I'm not sure what you have for an antenna but nothing I have has oil in it except my dummy load which is used for tuning and testing. It does not radiate very far. A few hundred feet at most.

Just because the frequency is in the 11 meter band, don't believe there is no danger. I agree that the microwave bands are much more danger but there is also a danger at 27 MHz.

Jerry

[dynodon]

I have been using CB's since the early 70's. Even actually got a license back then!

 

I guess that Yogi knows that to use that linear, he needs another person with a linear to reply if they are more than about a mile away.

 

I have a CB in everything I drive/ride. On the bike I use it to talk to others in our group, and we use channel 1. Sometimes when alone, or if I want to check traffic I will go to 19.

 

When I was on the road in route sales (in a Nova cage) I was accepted almost as much as a trucker, since I made my living driving basically. But now as a "citizen" I rely on the fact that my son is an over-the-road trucker to give me some street cred with the truckers.

 

Best story on my bike was 20 years ago I had a "one hander" type CB with my own homemade speaker in the helmet. Whip on the back. Had to pick up the mike to talk, but could hear.

 

Trucks came up beside me and lead trucker was talking trash about squashing the "road lice" beside him. I replied that I wouldn't appreciate that, and he was shocked I could hear him. turned out he was an OK guy, and we had a nice conversation for several miles.

 

Never felt the need for a lot more power, most can't reply anyway.

 

Don