Hand Held CB radios..who has one and what one is the best

Ren, ya shoulda posted this in the Cove or W&C... all my answers are TOTALLY inappropriate for here.;):D
 
Ren ... Gee whiz .. I would have given you two of them (GE's) if you'd asked during July. :D After having my pair sit around in a drawer for yearsssssssss ..., I got rid of them. The handheld thing is nice, but the pair I owned took 8 AA batteries each and burned through them purdy quick on high power (handhelds usually give you output power options to conserve battery power). Mine were also kind of bulky dudes that looked like they wouldn't take a whole bunch of abuse.

Not sure if you've thought about this option, but Cobra used to sell a car kit CB that plugged into the cig lighter. Came in it's own hard plastic case that included a magnetic mount antenna and was around $100.

Razz
 
i agree with razzierb dont get one that uses AA batts, i have one from when i traveled a lot and while i enjoy it it sure does use the batts fast, i dont have a plug in cord for it and dont know if they even make one,
 
If you're going to use it in your car, you may want to reconsider. The cage/cab of your car acts like a farraday cage. So the signal just bounces around inside and only a small amount gets out thru the windows. You can transmit short distances and hear further, but that's about it. Plus the signal bouncing around gets picked up by your antenna and will eventually burn out your final transmit amplifieres.

An external antenna is the way to go. Let them signals soar.
 
Ren,

I have experimented with many different options for CBs in the car/truck over the years - starting with a handheld inside the car.

The disadvantages with a handheld in the car are the antenna does not work too well (although it works better if you stick it out the window) and, like others have mentioned, they eat AA batteries like crazy.

The next option with a handheld would be to get one that you can hook up an external antenna to and also hook up 12V from the cigarette lighter.

I think the best cheap, temporary, CB option is to buy a regular CB from a garage sale (I see them all the time and they are usually very cheap) and hook it up to an antenna with a magnetic base or with a window mount. If you find you are getting some good out of the CB then you can later add a permanently mounted antenna.

In my truck the CB and antenna are permanently mounted and the antenna is tuned. However, we also own a garage-sale CB and an antenna that you put on the top of the window and then roll the window up to keep it in place. When we travel with other families, or other family members, we loan them this second setup and it works amazingly well to communicate with our truck.
All they have to do is plug the CB into the lighter and place the antenna and roll up the window and they are good to go. Of course this has much less range than a decent mount that has been tuned but it is quick and easy and cheap.

We finally gave our handheld away to a neighbor (a Boy Scout) because he was really interested in it and we got tired of buying batteries. It was a Radio Shack that was 20 years old and still worked fine.

--SAK
 
SAK said:
The next option with a handheld would be to get one that you can hook up an external antenna to and also hook up 12V from the cigarette lighter. I think the best cheap, temporary, CB option is to buy a regular CB from a garage sale (I see them all the time and they are usually very cheap) and hook it up to an antenna with a magnetic base or with a window mount.
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Sak is right. You see these at garage sales from time to time. I picked up a small 40 channel Cobra in it's original box (they had the original sales receipt as well). The guy said that he thought he'd used it on a couple of trips tops. Came with an external magnetic mount antenna & cig plug .. $15. :D
 
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