CB Radio

The following is based on an article I wrote in 1995 for "Pants and Barks", the club magazine of the Hants and Berks Rover Owners Club.

Specifications

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In 1996 some changes were made to the specs of CBs available in the UK. This seemed to confuse everyone, not least Tandy! If you're buying a CB you may come across rigs of three different specs:

CB 27/81 - this is the pre 1996 UK spec. Rigs to this spec are legal to use in the UK but not in continental Europe. If you've got an older rig this is probably the sort of rig you've got.

CEPT (PR 27 GB) - this is the current EC spec. Legal to use in the UK and Europe. CEPT rigs are not compatible with CB 27/81 rigs and came on the market later. As a result CEPT has never been very popular in the UK, despite Tandy's best attempts to sell them some years back.

MPT 1382 - this is the new UK spec. It replaces CB 27/81, using exactly the same frequencies but with a higher standard for filtering, case radiation, channel rejection etc (the long term aim being to cut down interference with domestic TVs and radio). MPT 1382 rigs are entirely compatible with CB 27/81.

Retailers were not able to sell CB 27/81 rigs after Jan 1996 however they will remain legal to use and can be sold second hand.

Buying a CB

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You also need an aerial. This must be a CB aerial, an ordinary radio aerial simply won't do and may actually damage your rig.The longer the aerial is the better range you'll get and the easier it will be to set up. It also needs to be very flexible so it won't get damaged when you're off roading so a bottom weighted one is best (essentially a 4-5' stiff wire with a wound coil at the bottom).

Installation

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Installing your CB is really no different to wiring in a radio/cassette. The only extra work which may be worthwhile is running an earth wire from the aerial base to a good earth point rather than relying on the contact with the aluminium.

Since your vehicle is made of finest aluminium you can't use a mag mount to hold the aerial so you're left with two options: drill a hole somewhere, or fit a gutter mount. Most people seem to prefer a hole, and the front wing is the favourite place (both my landies came with holes there anyway!). Some people use the bumper but I'm dubious about this since most aerials rely on the surrounding flat surface of the landie to enhance the gain.

For "shinies" you might like to try a glass mount aerial. I have one of these on my Range Rover. It works OK, although it's not as good as a proper aerial.

The thing you must do having installed the rig is to SWR the aerial. In essence what you're doing here is getting the length of the aerial exactly matched to your rig and the landie. If you miss this step then you'll find that you won't "get out" as well as you should, and in extreme cases you may damage your rig when transmitting. SWRing isn't difficult but you will need an SWR meter. These cost £5-10 but if you ask about you should be able to find a tame breaker who'll lend you one, and may even help you to SWR the aerial.

And Finally

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Your questions answered:

1. Do I need a licence? Yes, you should really, if only because if people don't buy them then HMG may assume that CB is getting less popular and take the frequency away. They cost £15 a year and are no longer available from the Post Office. Instead you need to write to: The Radio Licensing Centre, SSL, PO Box 884, BRISTOL, BS99 5LF.
2. Whatever happened to AM, LSB & USB? They're still illegal.
3. Are we still restricted to 4 watts in UK? Yes. And a good thing too. You can buy amplifiers ("burners") to boost your power but using them is both anti-social and illegal. In any case 4W will give you a range of up to 10 miles with a decent aerial, so who needs them?
4. Do I have to have a "handle"? If you like. If you don't then don't. No one's forcing you to. If you use CB just to talk between yourselves on a quiet channel then you probably don't need one but they're useful for hailing friends on channel 19.
5. Channel 19? The hailing channel, where you ask for directions, warn of traffic queues, call up friends. You're then meant to go off to another channel for extended talks - but this doesn't always happen.
6. What about channel 9? Channel 9 is/was the distress channel but, with a few exceptions, there's not many people monitoring channel 9 any more. Use 19 if you need help. However you still shouldn't use channel 9 for chit chat.