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The Best CB Mod

Nice thread here so I will say this.

1) There is no magic mod to make your radio do crazy watts.

2) You must DOUBLE your wattage to gain 1/2 an S unit.

3) A properly tuned radio with a small amp0 is bang for the buck.

4) If you must have a barefoot radio talk to this guy. Site Disclaimer - Custom CB radios



By the way, you must know what the heck you are doing and have the proper equipment to work on radio's. As an example Doug at Custom cb does an RFX-75 mod to Cobra 29 radio's and gets about 120 watts peak when done. The other option is take that Cobra 29 and have it tuned for a 3 watt dead key and 25 peak watts. Run that into this X-Force amp

200HD

Transistors 2 x 2SC2879
Dimensions H 4 1/4' x L 7 1/8' x W 4 1/4'
Amp Draw (maximum) 37
Class C
no SSB Delay
no Pre-amp
no Driver Required N/A
Power Output (RMS) 200 Watts
Power Output (PEP) 370 Watts
Driven Power (RMS) N/A
Driven Power (PEP) N/A

NEW!!! Choose your LED light colors!



Price: $212.99
Hookup Kit
236:+:0,237:+:19.99
Preamp
238:+:0,239:+:35
Biasing & SSB
240:+:0,241:+:25,815:+:35
Led Color
816:+:0,817:+:15,818:+:10,819:+:10
Quantity:



And you will have 350-375 watts all day long. There you go.
 
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Reactions: 1 person
9C1Driver I've seen Doug's videos, that's how I knew about the RFX75. Man I wish he gave classes 'cause I'd be there.

So along these lines, how does a guy go about learning this stuff? It seems to be kind of a black art.
 
mr_fx I really like your idea, I've never heard of these stinger boards. It would be really nice to have it in the radio. Most of the guys I work with would never feel comfortable having another box in the truck. In their mind it would be too complicated, and they'd never really understand what it did or if they were going to do something to break it.
 
Hak-it said:
mr_fx I really like your idea, I've never heard of these stinger boards. It would be really nice to have it in the radio. Most of the guys I work with would never feel comfortable having another box in the truck. In their mind it would be too complicated, and they'd never really understand what it did or if they were going to do something to break it.
Click to expand...

There inherent dangers in this option also.
 
Robb you said something about there being no heat sink, are you referring to the fact that the RM-3's are mounted on a "metal" backing and not an aluminum foil of some kind?
 
Hak-it said:
Hey hammer how many miles can you talk on the KL-35 as apposed to the KL-203 during daylight hours in noisy conditions?
Click to expand...
I wish I could give a number and that's it but unfortunately I live in a mountain range "Catskill Mtns" But I can tell you my wife ran a KL-35 for several months and without knowing or comparing it to anything else I wasn't so happy. I recently ordered a RM Italy KL-203 and just a few hours ago I got to hear it while on my base station. From 18 miles away "and completely on my bad side" my wife called outside the super market during peak skip also I heard her and was getting signal readings from 3 to 7 s-units. This is a route we have tried to talk before with the KL-35 and could not communicate 75% of the way with no skip! How far can I talk well easily 50 to 75 miles to other base stations as long as they have some watts to get back to me but you have to keep in mind if you have a mountain in the way 2 miles could be a bitch. Well anyway I was very very happy today with my Cobra 29LTD and my RM Italy KL-203 I know now from base to mobile I can cover a lot of miles in all directions now.
 
9C1Driver said:
Nice thread here so I will say this.

1) There is no magic mod to make your radio do crazy watts.

2) You must DOUBLE your wattage to gain 1/2 an S unit.

3) A properly tuned radio with a small amp0 is bang for the buck.

4) If you must have a barefoot radio talk to this guy. Site Disclaimer - Custom CB radios



By the way, you must know what the heck you are doing and have the proper equipment to work on radio's. As an example Doug at Custom cb does an RFX-75 mod to Cobra 29 radio's and gets about 120 watts peak when done. The other option is take that Cobra 29 and have it tuned for a 3 watt dead key and 25 peak watts. Run that into this X-Force amp

200HD

Transistors 2 x 2SC2879
Dimensions H 4 1/4' x L 7 1/8' x W 4 1/4'
Amp Draw (maximum) 37
Class C
no SSB Delay
no Pre-amp
no Driver Required N/A
Power Output (RMS) 200 Watts
Power Output (PEP) 370 Watts
Driven Power (RMS) N/A
Driven Power (PEP) N/A

NEW!!! Choose your LED light colors!



Price: $212.99
Hookup Kit
236:+:0,237:+:19.99
Preamp
238:+:0,239:+:35
Biasing & SSB
240:+:0,241:+:25,815:+:35
Led Color
816:+:0,817:+:15,818:+:10,819:+:10
Quantity:



And you will have 350-375 watts all day long. There you go.
Click to expand...




You read my mind on this one. Just remember for every one person who likes RM/KLV amps, there are hundreds who don't.
$220 is a very small price to pay if you want an excellent amp to use for decades.
 
psycho said:
You read my mind on this one. Just remember for every one person who likes RM/KLV amps, there are hundreds who don't.
$220 is a very small price to pay if you want an excellent amp to use for decades.
Click to expand...

So why don't you like RM/KLV amps?
 
hammer0630 said:
I wish I could give a number and that's it but unfortunately I live in a mountain range "Catskill Mtns" But I can tell you my wife ran a KL-35 for several months and without knowing or comparing it to anything else I wasn't so happy. I recently ordered a RM Italy KL-203 and just a few hours ago I got to hear it while on my base station. From 18 miles away "and completely on my bad side" my wife called outside the super market during peak skip also I heard her and was getting signal readings from 3 to 7 s-units. This is a route we have tried to talk before with the KL-35 and could not communicate 75% of the way with no skip! How far can I talk well easily 50 to 75 miles to other base stations as long as they have some watts to get back to me but you have to keep in mind if you have a mountain in the way 2 miles could be a bitch. Well anyway I was very very happy today with my Cobra 29LTD and my RM Italy KL-203 I know now from base to mobile I can cover a lot of miles in all directions now.
Click to expand...

Thanks hammer for getting back to me, and for the info. It sounds like this KL-203 would be all we would need.

The more I think about this though, the more I wish a couple other guys would get an amateur license and then run on 2 meters. We have a repeater very close to where we're working right now. I talked to one guy today who said he had thought about it before, but that he didn't know what the process was to get his license. I told him to check out QRZ.com and do the practice tests, who knows if anything will come from it, but that would be the best solution.

I may get one of these KL-203's and then at least when I'm around I can call out and help on my end anyway. Maybe then some of these other guys will see how valuable it would be to be able to communicate.
 
With the 11 year sunspot cycle near its peak, I think it may be cheaper to abandon CB in favor of VHF and used commercial gear, reprogrammed to MURS or dot frequencies. I used CB for personal communications over the last few years and its got to the point where its almost useless with all the skip coming in. Channel 19 is just about jammed with noise, so much some of my radios wont even squelch the noise anymore when it comes in strong.
I run export radios and ham gear, with the weakest being 8 watts dead key swinging to 100%, with wilsons, k40s and 102" whips for antennas. I can get about 3 or 4 miles mobile to mobile over somewhat hilly suburban terrain. I used to easily get 5 to 8 miles a few years ago, with just FCC type accepted unmodified CB's and mediocre antennas.

If you do still want to run CB, I would run regular CBs without a bunch of nobs and buttons to accidentally adjust.
I think an amp would be less to fuck with than most export radios, just one switch that says power on it, verses clarifiers, mic gain, rf gain, rf power, talkback, dimmer,etc,etc,etc.
Palomars and Cobras work well with regular unmodified radios. Texas Star is in my opinion the best out there but expensive. With a stock radio and amp, you arent going to be booming loud but so what, instead you will be clear, and trust me, plenty loud to be heard.
You also need to find an amp of at least 100 watts to cut through all the crap.
A neat trick you all could do, if you did get export radios or import radios from europe, is run FM. You can run FM through the crappiest amp it not be distorted because that is why the amp is crap, class C_rap amps are designed for FM not AM, although if not run too hard will sound acceptable.
100 watt amp means 25w dead key swinging to 100 for perfect modulation.
100 watt amp means 100watts on FM. Remember the gaps when the signal swings, will be filled with noise. Is one reason why 1 watt swinging to 50 is dumb.
Extra channels are nice too, I still hear truckers running below channel 1 but not much above 40 except DX. The alternate channels are pretty clear too, if you dont mind hearing spanish all the time, as other countries dont have the gaps between the channels like we do.

I do not think a ham license would work for you. You are not supposed to use ham for commercial purposes. If all you did was warn each other when you were coming down the road, it might** work, thats a safety thing not just for your company but for anyone else in the woods. Use it for dispatching purposes, asking for help or assistance or anything else I would think a clear violation of the rules, and the rules are enforced, self enforced.

Once again, I would go commercial if I were you. You can use a shorter antenna for best results than CB too.
Most ham gear can be made to TX on VHF band freqs also.
Cheaper arent they
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