Questions CB and TX base station project

[R4002]

Truckers from Poland?   

So you're not in the USA?  By "Band 7" I assume you meant Channel 7 - 27.035 MHz (or 27.030 MHz on the Polish/old Russian/CIS channel plan). 

[Telegrapher]

Yes I live in the Netherlands (Noord Brabant) Europe.

On channel 7 indeed I heard local traffic from farmers who just were talking about equipment and other things usually amateurs and hobbyists talk about. I heard stuff like TX amplifiers and boosting signal over 200 watts so I assume they are talking with each other from their base station. They are always heard on the same channel so it’s a local talk group I think. On channel 10 I heard also once talk about dx CB’ers and they did send results to each other about the AM and FM results. So I guess there’s a little amateur activity on CB here. That’s why I kinda want to give it my first shot for TX experience. Planning to do dx with my base station when everything is in place. On the listening side, I’m still working on the antenna. Beside my dipole I want a full band antenna like PA0RDT’s mini-whip or something better. And maybe the best SDR dongle on the market. I currently have an RTL-SDR dongle with two antenna outputs and a black cover. It’s not found on their web shop so I think it’s either an old dongle or maybe from a different manufacturer. But it works fine to me. I catch a lot of amateurs already and also few number stations I’ve seen on it last year. The English one starting with “000” is the most common received here with my little setup.

Besides my digital equipment I wanna do the real work on my analog radios to get the real feeling like almost every SWL has been through in the past with their nice tube radios.

My radios on the analog side are the USSR-types. (P-250M sometimes called R-250M, and the BC-224)

[R4002]

Those old Russian (USSR) radios are pretty cool.  They're quite rare in the United States (although surplus military gear is popular within the amateur radio community in the United States in general).

Sounds like you want a CB radio that does AM/FM and SSB or you want an all-mode HF radio to cover the entire HF spectrum instead of limiting yourself to the higher portion of the HF band (roughly 26-28 MHz or 25-30 MHz).  Both analog radios you have are receive only.

You can get a multi-norm CB radio (programmed with CB frequencies for various European countries) for relatively cheap.  The inexpensive multi-norm models will only do AM and FM modes, however.  For DX, you want SSB capability. 

Something like a Superstar 3900, Superstar 6900, Anytone 5555, Anytone 6666, CRE 8900 or similar multi-mode 10 meter/11 meter radios will give you AM/FM and SSB capability.  I know in Europe both AM and FM are used on the CB band for local communications.  RM Italy makes decent amplifiers for HF and they are commonly used on CB.  I have a RM Italy KL 203P amplifier that easily does 125-150 watts output with only a few watts input.  I actually had to lower my CB radio's output power to prevent the amplifier from being overdriven.  100 watts is really all you need. 

If you're going to spend the money on a nice AM/FM/SSB export radio or multinorm CB radio plus an amplifier, you may want to look into getting a used HF amateur transceiver instead.  Most HF radios do 100 watts out of the box, no amplifier needed...and they cover the entire HF frequency range instead of just the CB frequencies.  Some operators (myself included) like having stand-alone CB radios in addition to full-coverage HF radios even though the HF radios can transmit and receive on the CB frequencies.

If you want to do higher power make sure your antenna can handle it (and then some).  From what you've told us, it seems like a vertical CB antenna is probably your best option. 

[Josh]

The neat thing about 10/11m is a watt can work the world if the band is playing (that's true for any band however). For dx you need the band and a decent antenna. The prob is there's so many operators congregating on the few cb channels, you need power to be heard above the din. I imagine the number of cbers far outnumber the HAMs of the world.

[R4002]

The neat thing about 10/11m is a watt can work the world if the band is playing (that's true for any band however). For dx you need the band and a decent antenna. The prob is there's so many operators congregating on the few cb channels, you need power to be heard above the din. I imagine the number of cbers far outnumber the HAMs of the world.

Oh yeah.  Although I believe in Europe CB is closer to a hobbyist thing vs. a practical/work-related thing like it is in the United States and the rest of the Americas.  Of course, there's a lot of business/trucking/taxi cab dispatcher use of CB in Europe and Russia. 

Get your feet wet with CB/11 meters.  I recommend getting a radio with SSB capability if you have the means.  I know that Poland has an active SSB CB scene in the lower to middle portion of the 26 MHz band (roughly 26.2 MHz to 26.5 MHz) in addition to AM/FM activity on the regular CB channels. 

Its always better to get a high performance antenna and an entry-level or mid-range type of CB radio instead of getting a high performance CB radio with a mediocre antenna.   

[Telegrapher]

Yes I really want to get into TX this summer as soon as possible. I currently have a CB radio from Midland I got in a local store (it wast the last CB transceiver they had in stock so I kinda feel lucky about that) I’ll send a Imgur link with images of my stuff after this message.

Further I am also experimenting with a raspberry Pi 3 on FM TX which is also very fun to do. Here where I live I know a few other pirates that do the same thing. But they use like 25 - 30 watt transmitters in their backyard. I hope to get my hands on something like they have too. As I spoke a local pirate and asked about the troubles that might be possible to face. He told me that he is doing this hobby for over 6 years and had a few visits from the local police. But they didn’t take him down as he was and still is transmitting on a empty frequency which is not causing disturbing results. So here in the Netherlands it’s accepted as long as there’s no interference. I always dreamed about having my own radio station and teaming up with others. That’s kinda the direction I want to grow to beside having a license for ham radio. I still need to get into my radio exam later. First I want to get some practical experience and a little fm transmitter with 5 watts is good for the long run. And the CB for contacting like a ham does.

My antenna is indeed a vertical (can handle more than 100 watts ) currently mounted on a metal fence. It’s not placed in a ideal location but at least it’s now outdoors instead of sitting indoors on a empty computer case

I can’t get my hands on a SWR meter yet as I asked a few local stores if they had one. None of them had any kind of radio equipment. I wish the days were still there when stores like RadioShack and alike did exist in town. Now everything needs to be bought from the web these days which I don’t really like.

Here’s a list of pictures of my most frequently used radios. Including the CB from Midland and a few USSR radios / others.

Thanks for the responses once again.

Kind regards,
Telegrapher

[Telegrapher]

Here’s the link to my equipment:

https://imgur.com/gallery/FDG0qhU

[R4002]

How much activity have you logged on your Midland CB radio with that antenna setup?

[Josh]

I see you're a fan of radios that can cause bodily harm too!

[R4002]

I've done some listening on Russian and Eastern European-based SDRs and I've noticed a lot of freeband or marine/pescadore like chatter in the 2-4 MHz region, most of it in AM mode and in Russian language.  If your USSR radios can receive that frequency range...it might be interesting to set up a wire antenna and do some listening in the evening. 

Old military radios are always cool.  The fact that yours are from the Soviets is even cooler.

[Telegrapher]

Yeah I bought those sovjet radios because they link to my first shortwave listening experience since my childhood. Right after that night I became addicted to radio hobby and alike. My interest in radio all started when I discovered a mysterious station on the shortwave band. The Buzzer (UVB-76) which I wasn’t able to get out of my head after the very first day. Following it for 10 years since the first time I’ve heard it on my little handheld world radio I got as a child back in 2009

On my midland I’ve discovered a lot already in 2 locations. One here at my main house and one in a big apartment with a balcony and a large roof where I mounted a long wire all the way from the window to the end of the roof (about 50 meters long) and discovered 7 CB’ers in 3 hours evening time. (From 7pm to 9pm) 

Here at my shack I discovered 4 CB’ers so far. With a Gipsy dipole attached to the Midland Alan gave me great success. Even on my SDR I can catch CB’ers with a long wire antenna so I expect to see a lot more in the summer season when the band is more clear. All I need to get is an SWR meter to test the current installed setup. If it all fits within the limits I am ready to DX when the summer arrives

The next thing I want to do is getting a active antenna for my SDR (probably gonna be the PA0RDT miniwhip antenna) and building a stable tower to mount it on. My current tower is only 3 meters in length. My goal is to get it up a little higher to about 5 meters so it sticks above the walls around my little garden. Allowing more free space to radiate. I bought 10 meters of RG58 Coax cable to mount on the new antenna I want to buy soon.

Out of all my radios I have the best one to me seems the R-250M which has a very good noise filter to get almost any signal in clearly without disturbances. Using the TLG function with the tone adjustment wheel. The radio has only one downside which is, after listening to something for a while the tone isn’t always on the position where I set it to. Maybe it’s something that I need to fix inside the radio. It gets a little off frequency after an hour or so without turning the dial. I got the manual for it but due to my lack of knowledge I won’t open the radio yet. I think I easy mess things up inside the circuit so I am first going to read the manual (it’s German, a language I also need to learn) and search info about every single part I can’t figure out what it means. The last thing I learned about circuitry was how to read color codes on different components. That kinda describes how much knowledge I currently have. Almost nothing 

[Telegrapher]

@ Josh - Radios that cause body harm? As in high voltage risk or something else? You make me curious!

[Josh]

@ Josh - Radios that cause body harm? As in high voltage risk or something else? You make me curious!

Lol I mean radios that weigh as much as the operator almost. I have two R390As sitting on the floor because I fear my tables are not worthy of their girth. Also they have high voltage flowing around their inners so they can actually be deadly if provoked.

[R4002]

Some radio ops argue that the only real radios are the ones that can kill you (via high voltage and/or crushed under a pallet of R-390As or a BC-610 transmitter). 

When I first got into radio...my first radio was a RadioShack (Realistic) TRC-415 40 channel AM mobile CB radio and my second radio was a Hammarlund HQ-180-A general coverage receiver (shortwave or HF receiver).  The HQ-180-A was a real beast.  I connected it to a 100 foot piece of wire as an antenna and heard signals from all around the world.  I had experienced the magic of radio and I've been involved in it ever since.  I was about 8 years old at the time. 

Lots of high voltage flying around in those old rigs.  I imagine your old Soviet equipment is similar.  There is something to be said about the older tube-type gear (the American expression for those types of radios is "boatanchors").  Plus, for AM work, its hard to beat the older-generation equipment.  I bet your Russian radios sound great on AM mode. 

[Telegrapher]

Yes they surely sound better than my SDR, high end Roland music gear, and Some expensive transistor radio’s i bought when I was still a kid. The R-250M is the most clear in sound even with the BFO wheel I can listen to my favorite nostalgia on 4625KHz at night without interference issues. I have only one little thing that I still need to figure out how to operate it. While listening to the 80 meter band especially. The BFO has a high pitch noise that I can’t get rid of. While turning the wheel to either the left or right end, there’s a second noise always to be heard right through the amateurs speaking.. which makes it almost impossible for me to listen clearly to them. I think it links to a lot of RF-interference as I always see on my SDR radio spectrum in the 80 meter band. So maybe the focused lines on the spectrum, spreaded on the waterfall like a fence, is the cause for the second tone on the BFO mode. On 4625KHz there aren’t that many of those lines to be seen so it makes sense that that might be the issue.

By the way, the next thing I would love to add to my shack is a surplus LW/AM radio only. As the R-250M doesn’t cover those bands. I just bought a active mini whip yesterday and it’s mounted outside in my garden to the main tower (3 meter pole) which greatly improved my reception on the R-250M. Almost no fading of signals is a nice thing I discovered right after turning it on. The height isn’t that good but I’m planning to get this little thing up a few meters more. Amazing how such a little antenna can provide me excellent reception that I usually needed a 50 meter long wire for to receive similar results.

Yesterday I was listening to some kind of radio orchestra trough the R-250M in AM mode. (I think it came from radio Romania international) the sound was very beautiful and pleasant to listen to. No noise or interference. Just crystal clear like back in the early days