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inexpensive ham radios for 11 meter conversion ???

HAM or CB

I am both a Ham and a 11meter CB-SSB "LSB CH 38'er".

I like both for different reasons.

HAM: You will find it kind of "stuffy" on 2meter & 440 mhz Ham FM , the guys on FH repeaters tend to be majority white collar techno-geek oriented and much older in general than the more blue collar younger dudes on CB.

I would say the most Ham guys are 45 to 85 years old and most CB & 11 meter SSB guys are 25 to 50 years old. CB -SSB has a younger crowd.

Ya it's true AM CB and 11 meter SSB have a lot of older A-hole teen's, marginaly functional drunks, meth losers, momma's boys living on Mommies front porch, homeless living in van's and anti social types out in the Mojave desert, but it also has a bunch of "average joes" who like to hunt fish drive Jeeps up into the mountains and shoot skip, truckers and old fasioned American guys who are relaxed easy to shoot the shit with.

Ham has more classy guys who never get speeding tickets, who wash there car ever week like clock work, they are very very conservative as a whole, they are good honest law & order type people who in general don't cuss, don't drink, don't smoke cigars under $10 bucks a stick, and they don't like to talk about tits and beer, in other words they are "classy".....lol, BUT they tend to be "tite asses" who demand strict protocol wich make a conversation feel slow and constrictive, its kind of like having a conversation in front of You grandma, you feel like you cant relax ,fart or let an casual F word slip out.

On Ham You will be speaking to mostly retired guys , lawyers, IT professionals, CPA's, Radio Tech's,etc......


On Ham l have to remember the other guys call sign and repeat it and yours every so often , if you deviate in the slightest they will correct you , they all will all look up your call sign and check up on you, you also have to repeat your call sign at the beginning & end and if You don't your looked upon as a heretic or Satanist who is trying to defile the Christian virginity of the repeater system.


The good things is they tend to be "signal zealots" they will put an antenna farm / repeater station on every 5 to 10 thousand foot mountain peak and make sure they will all cover & overlap each others signal radiation pattern and then link them up to each other to where you can transmit on all of them at the same time giving you a thousand circualr mile radius of talk are on a Hand held walkie talkie !!!.

You will have 10 times better TX & RX than even the best cell phone systems and even better coverage and marginal signal than an rural Police Fire and Highway patrol, so you are never out of range of a repeater even with small 2meter 1 watt mini pocket walkie talkie / HT out it in the boondocks you can usually "hit a repeater" / "get into a repeater" and make contact with a Ham in the most remote areas all around the country.

On CB SSB CH 38LSB I dont have the marginal area reception for obvious reasons, but I can usually make contact with someone when I go thru any small to mid sized little American town that has a WalMart , any small town usually has a half dozen sidbanders who are regulars to shoot the shit with & shoot skip without worrying if I am wearing an imaginary suit and tie.

I like both when I get boored of CB noise I pop on my dual band Ham rig, when I get boored with stuffy call signs and protocol I jump back on the SB CB.

take care

Both have there up side and down side, so why not do both ?

Excellent words SteveInOregon(y). Couldn't have said it better myself(y).
 
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Excellent words SteveInOregon(y). Couldn't have said it better myself(y).

Too bad everything he said was grossly exagerated. In my nearly 25 years as a ham I have never found it to be that bad anywhere on any of the bands. Well................except maybe for 14.275 or the high end of 75m but that's another whole ball of wax. :whistle:
 
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hams treat Cb'ers like a lower class. i hated that. Ill be a cb'er and a ham till the day i die but i will never forget where my heart truely lies.
CB FREEBAND is where its at and if you want to see some real power look at the guys on channel 6. Hey it may be class C and sound like garbage but there are some good sounding stations out there and when you see them do 40-60db's in your radio you know they might not be so dumb after all. You can call it conditions you can call it anything you want but it takes some serious heat to put that needle in the corner like some of those boys do
Anyways if your looking for a cheap ham radio to use on cb
try the kenwoods
440 430s 450
guys back home used em and boy do they sound good
check ebay
BIG RED SANDPILE GONE NOW
 
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hams treat Cb'ers like a lower class.

See,that right there is part of the problem and the problem is painting EVERYONE with the same brush. What should really be said is "SOME hams treat CB'ers like they are lower class because of the way SOME CB'ers act. Then again SOME CBers treat ALL hams like they consider themselves to be holier than thou and refuse to get a ticket because of it. To that I say "Less crowding on 20m." (y) :whistle:


:bdh: :bdh: :bdh: :bdh: :bdh:
 
i should have said some


That's OK. You are forgiven. (y) I wasn't trying to pick on you BTW it's just that those exact words keep getting repeated over and over without any foundation. Then again I keep correcting those who make such posts that make it look like it happens all the time hence my :bdh: :bdh: :bdh::bdh: (y)
 
Oh we both know what the other is talking about. (y) I'm just being picky today,a side effect of being pissed with my antenna situation. Actually that should be lack of antenna. The tribander is just about a writeoff and is hanging (barely) from the tower,the tower itself needs to be replaced in a couple years,and the rotator is broken (ring gear) and I spent all my antenna money on a family vacation this past summer.:angry: I'm just :headbang trying to figure out what I want to do to get back on the air before winter sets in. I'm VERY limited in what I can do for a dipole and am considering a vertical for the next year. Then I need to decide a commercial vertical or a simple home made one and purchase an auto tuner to feed it. I can always use the tuner later. Sorry for digressing but that's what my mind is doing today, waundering all over the place. :confused:
 
Well in answer to your original question..

I will side with Icom..
Especially 706 MKIIG or the 718 (746 quite good also)

However i think they all will likely cost more then your currently looking to spend..

That AR 3300/3500 100 watt version is a super clean as well as loud and proud radio indeed..

Your BEST option though is to get your ticket..
( quite easy to do these days)
Then simply pick up a good but cheep (even new can be cheep for strong but basic features) dual band HT
 
:w00t:Thanx "Big Red 222" for that awsome responce on here about CB'ers and Hams. I am strickly a CB'er and always will be. I do run on channel 6 with a little help from a kicker that i built myself. And I have one in my vehicle as well. I kick ass on the week ends with the equipment that I built. I'll be a CB'er till the day that I die.:w00t:
 
Well in answer to your original question..

I will side with Icom..
Especially 706 MKIIG or the 718 (746 quite good also)

However i think they all will likely cost more then your currently looking to spend..


it won't get much easier (to convert) or cheaper than a good used FT 757:oops:
 

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