Kevin Groat

In the local 2nd hand shop a couple of weeks ago and I came across a Tristar 777 for £15 which was a bit of a blast from the past - when we used to have CB's - early 80's, AM frequency, the Tristar was the one to have. Anyhow, bought the radio, was going to Ebay it (£50 is typical) but am tempted to set it up. Anyone using kit like this now?, is it still popular and is DXing still alive and well?
Radio has CW/AM/FM/USB/LSB and low/med/high band, believe it can kick out 21 watts on the sidebands.
What's a good ariel to get for home (&mobile).
I know I probably need a licence for this, anyone advise?

Kevin.

Nevetas

Licensed for CB is being phased out. I wouldn't bother.

Get ureself a new style amatuer license and get a 2m/70cm rig.

Just like the one I'm selling here:

http://tinyurl.com/ywst8

This can pick up just about everything, analogue phones, All Emergancy Services. It's great fun to listen to in the car.

And it has a 'face off' front, and is standard dimm size.

CB is dead, go amatuer and start bouncing off beacons, and talking to your mate 200 miles away. Trust me, this is where the action is

Steve
http://www.sti7.net

Leslie

I well remember listening to the CB SSB dxing in those days. I also remember how well the CB operators behaved, they used standard radio prcedures and took a pride in it. Amateur radio is not as the previous guy said, Yes there are repeaters that you can talk through on VHF and UHF frequencies. There is also a great deal of Dxing on the other Ham bands as well. I regularly talk to friends all round the world and find it an absorbing hobby. Your radio could also be adapted to work on the 10m band quite easily.

Les

Poor Guy

when will you no longer require a license for CB?

how do you 'bounce off a beacon'?

Daz34

On the side

S.B.

I knew a bloke who used to be well into the cbs he used to have a well strong signal could only use it at night because he wiped out all the tv signals in his street

S.B.

Breaker on the side come alive

Daz34

LOL

Tim66 STi8

CQ CQ CQDX... had a 100 watt burner my 28ft sigma 4 twig turned bright green

Daz34

eyeball eyeball

S.B.

10 10 til we do it again

Poor Guy

so can anyone answer my questions?


"sheperd this is lost sheep, come back "

S.B.

One Four For A Copy

Tim66 STi8

Not to forget Rodger Dodgerrrrrrrr good bud

Markus

If I didn't know any better, I'd think you've all been watching convoy lol

mart360

I can answer good buddy!!

it is an am rig

it was illegal then, as i would suspect it is now...

cb radios were licenced on the 27mhz band, and if my memory serves correctly a further allocation at 48mhz

the Am rigs could get into the fm section by playing around with the usb and lsb settings

although they could only get a few or was it the lower end of the 40 channels..

you could use it as a lurker and earwig on any am transmissions...

a good half wave dipole should do...

dont forget your SWR meter though

10 10

Mart

S.B.

One Four For A Rig Check

Tim66 STi8

Comming in at 5 over 5 loud & clear

Daz34

A definitive jargon guide is here

deano

Our Cortina was the daddy with a K40 magmount stuck on the boot. Remember those rectangle plastic badges that said-

You have just eyeballed
(insert sad handle here)

FR05T1

Wow, this thread takes me back a bit and made me remember some real good times!
I remember dx'ing, a friend of mine used to have a Tristar and a burner and a real big antenna on a swivelling mount, just in case he was going to get a visit!
I had a dual band rig initially (way back) it had illegal AM/FM and the legalised 27meg FM band also.
I still have 2 legal FM CB's gathering dust in a corner somewhere. Lost interest totally when the whole thing was taken over by the bucket mouth's and wind up merchants.
I also did the amateur radio qualification some years ago too (Yaesu FT290) but I'm no longer active. Repeaters were good for mobile & portable operation, but to work a long distance contact on low power was always the trick no matter what band you were on.
CB was really good in the early days . . . .

Kevin Groat

Thanks guys, some good memories amongst all that stuff. Might try knocking the rig together for all it'll cost for a laugh. There again, I've got a Yupiteru 7100 as well, might flog them both and go for the 2 metre stuff.

David_Wallis

fookin ell.. Ive got a class B licence (M1AXT) also had Class B Novice 2E1ENB,

This is going back a bit.. Mobiles are much easier..

Still got my Uniden CB and cough.. 400w amp.. Ant was a blue rod.. Amtron A99 wasnt bad either..

Got a tribander 2m 6m 70cms and Vertically polarised 2M yagi up at the moment

David

Tentenths

Blimey

And I thought being an ex CBer was something that was not admitted to these days!!

I started off in the illegal (but what fun) AM days, then went legal on to FM. Got bored with that, so then went back to AM but sidebanding with all sorts of interesting bits of kit. Could only operate at night 'cos my "booted home base" set up used to knock out most of the TVs within 300 yds or so.

As someone else has already mentioned, the protocol for the serious sidebanders was very similar to amateur radio procedure. When the "skip was up" I "copied" operators all over the UK, Europe and even the States a couple of times.

Funnily enough I "found" my Stalker SB rig, PSU and SWR meter in our basement only last week. Was very tempted to set it all up to see if it still worked, but couldn't find an aerial.

Andy McCord

No you have got to have a firestick with the light on the end, IIRC the dogs danglies was the Ham international multimode II

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

your all thinking to small! you want to get a nice HF radio, I managed to get comms from East Falkland back to Cyprus with an Army PR320 HF man portable radio.

What is the furthest anyone else has got?

S.B.

I remember the cortinas with the aerial in the middle of the boot there used to be loads of them around.

You got your ears on

Brendan Hughes

Brother and I saved up for a hand-held (40 channel, not the usual 2 channel crap). I'd hang around the main road trying to eyeball someone. I remember the conversation usually went towards "How many candles are you burning" quite quickly, and then died off as the car got out of range. Quite embarrassing really. But I was about 12

Boro

iTrader: (1)

WOW, this brings back some memories LOL I had the Tri-star 777 but the dogs bollox was the Cobra 148 GTL-DX (iirc) had one them too. Does any1 remember QSL cards? I used to send em off/receive them, italy was a common one.

Had the "burner", base mic, swr meter, 1/2 wave gp antenna

Ahhhh, those were the days LOL