Radios - CB Export/10 Meter - A Re-Post

Hi Everybody, Frank here.

Summertime has certainly come to this part of Oklahoma. It's hot, it's humid, and it's time to be outside. I wanted to share this re-post with you, as it's one of the most popular articles under Frank's Radio Communications. It's a good reminder of the different uses of CB type radios. If you're not paying attention to what's going on in the world, then you seriously need to start looking. Now is the time to upgrade your communication gear. Please go back and read some of the other radio posts. If you've got food stored, and you've got your beans, bandaids and bullets, then it's seriously time to think about some form of communication. If you would, read this re-post, and you need to get your act together. Take care.

We'll talk more later, Frank

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Originally published June 27, 2013
 

Hello, Frank here.

I would like to tell you about a CB radio that is not really a CB, but it can be. I don't understand exactly why these are made or sold, but I would assume it has to do with profit. There is going to be some new jargon on this post, so like always, if you don't understand everything, wait a little while and it will soak in. 

Export radios, to the best of my knowledge, are what they say they are. These radios are meant to be sold outside of this country - exports. Other countries use different bands and frequencies for their radio communications. Therefore, these radios are easy to modify and can be used for the frequencies and bands in this country as well. Some export radios are programmable via computer which makes it easy to add the CB frequencies. Another option is power capabilities up to 100 watts, 200 watts and more. These radios also tend to be more expensive. Are they legal to use on the CB frequencies? The answer is no. Do people use them on the CB frequencies? The answer is yes. Some of the previous sites I have posted sell export radios. If this is what you are looking for you will probably never have any problems with the FCC unless you are interfering with other forms of transmission. 

10 meter radios are similar in nature to export radios. Almost everything I said above applies to 10 meter radios. Let me explain the difference. A 10 meter radio operates on the amateur radio frequencies or ham radio. You have to have an amateur radio license to use the radio on 10 meters. I will talk more about amateur radio licensing and frequencies in a future post. Okay. Follow me here now. Some of the ham bands are 10 meter, 12 meter, 15 meter and so forth. The CB radio frequencies fall between the 10 and 12 meter ham bands. CB is often called 11 meters. Meters have to do with the length of the frequency signal. But at this time, that is not important. It will be discussed more later.

So. You can buy a 10 meter radio with a small modification or you can program in the CB frequencies with the computer program option if it is available. Let's clarify something here. A ham radio license does not allow the ham radio operator to operate on 11 meters because CB radios are approved by the FCC to operate on CB frequencies only. Is it legal to operate a 10 meter radio on CB frequencies? The answer is no. Do people use 10 meter radios for CB purposes? The answer is yes. These same dealers mentioned above also carry some of the 10 meter radios. It's a matter of driving 56 MPH in a 55 MPH zone and driving 95 MPH in a 55 MPH zone. Both are illegal, one will attract a whole lot more attention than the other. 

Can you mount these radios in your car or truck? Sure, you can. If the radio runs higher power, it will come with the appropriate size

power cable. If you need to extend this cable to your battery, use the same size cable or larger. In most cases, you can use the same antenna as any CB radio, unless you are running an exorbitant amount of power. In that case you need to make sure your antenna will handle the power. If you need to tune these, you can do it yourself or you can take it to your local CB shop and they can tune your rig for you.

If you are giving thought to purchasing one of these types of radios, please get one with SSB. Remember, some, but not all of these radios can be used for 10 meter ham radio operation.

If you choose to use this type of radio for a base station, your one amp power supply will not work. A quick review here: P = E x I. P = power or watts, E = voltage, and I = current or amps. Let's say you are running 200 watts of power. That is your P. Your voltage will be 13.8, that is E. That is 200 divided by 13.8, equals 14.5 amps or I. Don't forget the rule of 80. This means you will need at least 18 amps just to run this radio. That's why on the last post it was recommended that you purchase a 30 amp power supply for your home. 

There is something I failed to mention on the last CB post. You cannot take your base station and outside antenna to a CB shop and have it tuned so you will need to do it yourself, or have a competent friend help you. This will involve an SWR meter, and a three foot jumper, which is a short piece of coax with a 259 connector on each end which allows you to put the meter in line between the radio and the antenna. This will allow you to tune your SWR down. Read the FAQ at this site. It will answer most of your questions about SWR. Again, make sure your base station antenna can handle the power you are using. Don't push any antenna to the maximum, use the rule of 80.

If you can, ground your radio. The radio may or may not have a ground plug on the back, most CB's don't. If it doesn't, slide in a piece of flexible, coated, copper wire about size 12-14, where you attach the screws to mount the radio. This will give you a good, solid ground. In your car, find a screw somewhere connected to metal. In your house, run the ground wire back the same way you brought in your antenna wire and attach it to the three foot copper rod that you placed in the earth. Do you have to ground your radio? No. Will it help clean up some sound issues? Yes. When we talk about ham radios, grounding will be covered in greater detail.

By the way, if you choose to get your ham radio license, you can use these radios to operate on 10 or 12 meter frequencies. Just a little bonus there if you decide to make that switch. 

I know all of this information about the CB radios, export radios and 10 meter radios is a general and broad view. I would encourage you to read some of the earlier posts about laws, regulations, safety, and some of the websites that have FAQ sections about radios and antennas. There is a lot of information about CB radios that is not included here. In future posts we'll be talking in more detail about power supplies, antennas, coaxial cables, connectors, ham radios, GMRS, FRS and commercial radios.

What I have to say now is a personal observation. The reason I got into radio communications is because someday there may not be the regular types of communications that we have now. When I say regular, I am talking about cell phones, hard-line phones, internet, television, AM/FM radio, etc. A lot of people currently have CB

radios. Some folks approve of the type of traffic on them and some don't. But if there is a nationwide emergency, CB radios and GMRS will be excellent forms of communication. Most people don't realize that the two-way communication radios that they have right now are of an excellent quality and can be used during an emergency. Of course, I hope this day never comes. But I believe that the wolf is at the door. I would recommend all families have some type of communications, whether it is two-way or listening only. We will talk more about receive only radios - how to power them with things such as rechargeable batteries, small solar panels or car batteries. This is all part of communications. 

This finishes up my posts on CB's for now, more will come later. Next I am going to talk about GMRS, FRS, and MURS. 

We'll talk more later. 73, Frank

Radio - Become a Ham, Part 6

Hello, Frank here.

Sorry for the delay, it's just been real, real busy lately. My wife tells me that radio people just don't comment much, that if I was writing about green beans or cheese I would get more comments. But I see according to the stats page that hundreds of people are at least looking at these radio posts daily, so here goes.

This is a long chapter, so I am going to cut it into two pieces. And since my typist is a little bit ill today, it's going to be a little bit shorter unit. 

Radio and electromagnetic properties. Okay, this is on page 15 of the No-Nonsense Technician Class, Study Guide. Most of this stuff you can read and figure out for yourself, but I'm going to throw in some highlights. What we are going to be talking about here is radio waves. Like it says, it's an electromagnetic wave, therefore, dealing with electric and magnetic fields. 

The next term is frequency. Every radio signal, TV signal and cell phone signal all have a certain frequency and travel through space on radio waves. We talked earlier about alternating current, AC, which is also called

a sine wave. One up, then down, then back to the middle, is called a Hertz and it is measured in seconds. Another name sometimes used for the name Hertz is cycle. Your house current, for example, in the USA is 60 cycles per second, or 60 Hertz per second. When you tune in your favorite AM radio station, let's pick 1320 kilohertz. What you have is 1320 kilohertz, and remember kilo means 1000, so you have 1,320,000 Hertz per second. I know that sounds like a big number, but it's really not, especially when you get into the higher frequencies. All frequencies in the ham radio spectrum are higher than what was just mentioned. So, picture in your mind a Hertz is one wave length. That means there are 1,320,000 wave lengths per second.

Radio waves travel at the speed of light, which I was taught is 186,000 miles per second, or 300,000,000 meters per second. Remember, the reason we use meters is because radio's practical use was developed in Europe, and in Europe they use the metric system. 

Okay, this next part is going to be a little bit awkward to explain, follow along with me. As your wave length gets shorter, the frequency increases. Picture in your mind, you have 5 wavelengths  in one second, now we're dealing with time here. Now picture 10 wavelengths in one second. You notice that the wavelengths are a little more compacted, therefore, that wavelength is shorter as the frequency increases. If you want to figure out a frequency, use the 'T' formula I taught before. Put 300 on top, put meters and frequency in megahertz (MHz) on bottom. A commonly used frequency for

Technician operators is 144-148 MHz. This is commonly called the 2 meter ham band. Take 300 divided by 2 and you get 150 and that is your MHz. Okay? Now, this is not a scientific formula that is exact or precise, but it will get you in the ballpark. Another example is the 10 meter band. You want to know what the estimated frequencies are? 300 divided by 10 equals 30, or in this case 30 MHz. For the Technician, this is the only part of the HF band that a Technician can use. It's from 28.3 - 28.5 MHz. I hope you get the idea here.

RF is something that you will see often. All it means is radio frequency. But if you've read some of the other posts when I talked about frying your little girl's brain, RF is one thing that can damage you and others, so know what you are doing. An example, one day I asked my wife to hold an antenna while I was testing a radio. Not high power, nothing special, but the antenna burned her hand, just like it would if she had put her hand on an electric stove. Not a good day.

Next we are going to skim some frequency ranges. For the vast majority of ham radio operators, there are three sub-ranges of frequencies that most of us use. Yes, there are some guys beaming signals off of meteors and playing with much higher frequencies, but the average ham operator uses the three following frequency groups. HF, VHF, UHF. 

HF, which means high frequency, covers from 3 to 30 MHz. VHF, which means very high frequency, covers from 30 to 300 MHz. The UHF spectrum, ultra high frequency, covers from 300 to 3000 MHz. For Technician purposes, you'll be concerned about VHF and UHF primarily. Okay, some general information here. Most police departments, fire departments, ambulance, marine band and many other groups are covered under VHF as well

as 2 meter ham band, which is again 144-148 MHz. Most shortwave radio broadcasts are also in the HF spectrum between 3 and 30 MHz. So if you buy an HF radio, you can also listen to shortwave frequencies. And while you're looking at it, there are some radios that cover all three of these spectrum's in one radio. So if you have limited space and you want one radio that covers all, look around on some of the retail sites that I have given you. Lots of people like this type of option. Also remember, VHF and UHF are line-of-sight communications. This isn't always the case, but it is the vast majority of the time. 

Many VHF operators use what is called a repeater. Somewhere in the area, maybe on the tallest hill or a tall building, a person or group will set up a repeater. It takes the UHF or VHF signal and rebroadcasts it back

out. So, if you can hit a repeater, you can cover a much greater distance, but you still need to be within line-of-sight of the repeater. Most moderate sized towns and up, have some type of repeater around. Your local ARRL club can provide this information. 

As for HF, this is what most people envision when they think of talking around the world. There is a small piece of HF open to Technicians. That is 28.3 to 28.5 MHz, which is the 10 meter band. 

Okay, now let's put a little bit of this together. 2 meter, or 144-148 MHz, is VHF. Okay, let's see. 2 meters is a little over 6 feet. That's how big your

antenna needs to be for a full wave signal. A half-wave signal is about 3 feet. A quarter wave is about 18 inches and an eighth wave is approximately 9 inches. That's how antenna length is figured. It's a whole lot easier to put a one-half wave 2 meter antenna on your car, which is approximately 3 feet long, as compared to a 10 meter antenna which full-wave is, give or take, 30-something feet. Half-wave is approximately 17 feet. Which one is easier to operate with? A 3 foot antenna or a 17 foot antenna?

Okay, start putting some of these things together in your head. It's a whole lot better to be able to see it and understand it than to just be able to match a question with an answer. Give it time, it will soak in. And if it doesn't soak in, just memorize the answer.




That's all for today. Read back through the previous posts. Read the CB posts too, because CB is just 11 meters. Read ahead in the manual, take the practice tests, talk to your local ARRL group and best of luck. Never substitute safety. Don't drink and drive, all guns are loaded, don't ask your wife to hold an antenna, don't fry your cute little girl's brain, always practice safety. Always safety first.

We'll talk more later. 73, Frank

Radios - CB Export/10 Meter

Hello, Frank here.

I would like to tell you about a CB radio that is not really a CB, but it can be. I don't understand exactly why these are made or sold, but I would assume it has to do with profit. There is going to be some new jargon on this post, so like always, if you don't understand everything, wait a little while and it will soak in. 

Export radios, to the best of my knowledge, are what they say they are. These radios are meant to be sold outside of this country - exports. Other countries use different bands and frequencies for their radio communications. Therefore, these radios are easy to modify and can be used for the frequencies and bands in this country as well. Some export radios are programmable via computer which makes it easy to add the CB frequencies. Another option is power capabilities up to 100 watts, 200 watts and more. These radios also tend to be more expensive. Are they legal to use on the CB frequencies? The answer is no. Do people use them on the CB frequencies? The answer is yes. Some of the previous sites I have posted sell export radios. If this is what you are looking for you will probably never have any problems with the FCC unless you are interfering with other forms of transmission. 

10 meter radios are similar in nature to export radios. Almost everything I said above applies to 10 meter radios. Let me explain the difference. A 10 meter radio operates on the amateur radio frequencies or ham radio. You have to have an amateur radio license to use the radio on 10 meters. I will talk more about amateur radio licensing and frequencies in a future post. Okay. Follow me here now. Some of the ham bands are 10 meter, 12 meter, 15 meter and so forth. The CB radio frequencies fall between the 10 and 12 meter ham bands. CB is often called 11 meters. Meters have to do with the length of the frequency signal. But at this time, that is not important. It will be discussed more later.

So. You can buy a 10 meter radio with a small modification or you can program in the CB frequencies with the computer program option if it is available. Let's clarify something here. A ham radio license does not allow the ham radio operator to operate on 11 meters because CB radios are approved by the FCC to operate on CB frequencies only. Is it legal to operate a 10 meter radio on CB frequencies? The answer is no. Do people use 10 meter radios for CB purposes? The answer is yes. These same dealers mentioned above also carry some of the 10 meter radios. It's a matter of driving 56 MPH in a 55 MPH zone and driving 95 MPH in a 55 MPH zone. Both are illegal, one will attract a whole lot more attention than the other. 

Can you mount these radios in your car or truck? Sure, you can. If the radio runs higher power, it will come with the appropriate size

power cable. If you need to extend this cable to your battery, use the same size cable or larger. In most cases, you can use the same antenna as any CB radio, unless you are running an exorbitant amount of power. In that case you need to make sure your antenna will handle the power. If you need to tune these, you can do it yourself or you can take it to your local CB shop and they can tune your rig for you.

If you are giving thought to purchasing one of these types of radios, please get one with SSB. Remember, some, but not all of these radios can be used for 10 meter ham radio operation.

If you choose to use this type of radio for a base station, your one amp power supply will not work. A quick review here: P = E x I. P = power or watts, E = voltage, and I = current or amps. Let's say you are running 200 watts of power. That is your P. Your voltage will be 13.8, that is E. That is 200 divided by 13.8, equals 14.5 amps or I. Don't forget the rule of 80. This means you will need at least 18 amps just to run this radio. That's why on the last post it was recommended that you purchase a 30 amp power supply for your home. 

There is something I failed to mention on the last CB post. You cannot take your base station and outside antenna to a CB shop and have it tuned so you will need to do it yourself, or have a competent friend help you. This will involve an SWR meter, and a three foot jumper, which is a short piece of coax with a 259 connector on each end which allows you to put the meter in line between the radio and the antenna. This will allow you to tune your SWR down. Read the FAQ at this site. It will answer most of your questions about SWR. Again, make sure your base station antenna can handle the power you are using. Don't push any antenna to the maximum, use the rule of 80.

If you can, ground your radio. The radio may or may not have a ground plug on the back, most CB's don't. If it doesn't, slide in a piece of flexible, coated, copper wire about size 12-14, where you attach the screws to mount the radio. This will give you a good, solid ground. In your car, find a screw somewhere connected to metal. In your house, run the ground wire back the same way you brought in your antenna wire and attach it to the three foot copper rod that you placed in the earth. Do you have to ground your radio? No. Will it help clean up some sound issues? Yes. When we talk about ham radios, grounding will be covered in greater detail.

By the way, if you choose to get your ham radio license, you can use these radios to operate on 10 or 12 meter frequencies. Just a little bonus there if you decide to make that switch. 

I know all of this information about the CB radios, export radios and 10 meter radios is a general and broad view. I would encourage you to read some of the earlier posts about laws, regulations, safety, and some of the websites that have FAQ sections about radios and antennas. There is a lot of information about CB radios that is not included here. In future posts we'll be talking in more detail about power supplies, antennas, coaxial cables, connectors, ham radios, GMRS, FRS and commercial radios.

What I have to say now is a personal observation. The reason I got into radio communications is because someday there may not be the regular types of communications that we have now. When I say regular, I am talking about cell phones, hard-line phones, internet, television, AM/FM radio, etc. A lot of people currently have CB

radios. Some folks approve of the type of traffic on them and some don't. But if there is a nationwide emergency, CB radios and GMRS will be excellent forms of communication. Most people don't realize that the two-way communication radios that they have right now are of an excellent quality and can be used during an emergency. Of course, I hope this day never comes. But I believe that the wolf is at the door. I would recommend all families have some type of communications, whether it is two-way or listening only. We will talk more about receive only radios - how to power them with things such as rechargeable batteries, small solar panels or car batteries. This is all part of communications. 

This finishes up my posts on CB's for now, more will come later. Next I am going to talk about GMRS, FRS, and MURS. 

We'll talk more later. 73, Frank