I have just installed a Uniden radio transceiver uh 500 sx rm model.On my old truck cb it was just a matter of selecting channel 18 and away it would go.I am told that I should log in channels 40,39,29,20 and 18.Naturally I will only do this when I finishmy Master of Reading the instruction book degree.Any hints,tips,suggestion(proper ones)would be greatly appreciated.In the meantime I will now go and have a cold one,hot and humid here in North Arm Cove NSW.Cheers Ibbo
mike and Judy said
05:04 PM Feb 1, 2009
g.day Mate
had a uniden for a looooong time , in the 4by, just got another in the bus to come up here to Sapphire , not a spot of trouble all the years, and I been on the road for years
put it on 40 and forget it, some time some very valuable info is recieved from trucks
such as how wide the load is coming at you, condition of road, how deep the flood water is, etc
never had the need to use it in emergency, thank god, good move mate,
M&J
enjoy your sunrises
ibbo said
07:47 PM Feb 1, 2009
Thanks Mike.I will punch in the channels that i understand are the best.Had channel 6 on by mistake never knew that so many foul mouth drongoes were around.Cheers Ibbo
Bridgee said
08:08 PM Feb 1, 2009
ibbo wrote:
Thanks Mike.I will punch in the channels that i understand are the best.Had channel 6 on by mistake never knew that so many foul mouth drongoes were around.Cheers Ibbo
Ibbo, just be aware that while Channel 40 is very informative and entertaining (as Mike & Judy have mentioned) remember truckies call a spade a spade - well actually they call it a f....... shovel!!
So just bare in mind that even on Ch.40 the language can be a bit blue from time to time .... but at least it's usually "civilised swearing" if there is such a thing.
Hope you get as much fun out of your Uniden as we have.
Wombat 280 said
07:48 PM Feb 2, 2009
The colour is all important in getting the message across at times
VK3FEMT said
06:49 PM Feb 3, 2009
mike and Judy wrote:
put it on 40 and forget it, some time some very valuable info is recieved from trucks
I agree totally, 40 is the best place to be if travelling.
Now its time to get on my soap box ere... Whatever you do, don't stake your lives on a UHF CB, end of story. Without going into technical babble about radio propagation and the likes, in a nutshell UHF is line-of-sight, eg: if you can see it, you can talk to it. Obviously this isn't a hard n fast rule, but a good one to live by, familarise yourself with repeater operation, as in some cases if your stuck in the middle of nowhere, and you can't raise anyone on 40 you might just be able to access a repeater somewhere and get some help.
Repeaters work on channels 1-8 (output) and 31-38 (input). therefore its not a real smart idea to use channels 31-38 for general chitchat as you could be screwing up a repeater. You need the duplex or rptr button in or on to access repeaters, select channels 1-8 and hit the mike button, if you hear a kerchunk your acessing a repeater. Sometimes you will also hear a morse ident.
Also I believe now channels 21 and 22 are not to be used for voice comms, and they are solely for telemetry operations only.
Channel 5 the emergency channel... Again don't stake your life on this, back in the boom days of CB every cat and dog was monitoring the emergency channels, these days its the domain of a few hard core and lost souls. Not reliable at all. And in some of the major cities you would be more likely to be told to get F'd then get any form of help unfortunately.
Re repeaters unfortunately they come and go, and its near impossible to get an accurate listing of active repeaters throughout the country, all lists I have seen on the net have repeaters listed that havent been active in years, due to the expense of running these things. For very little gain I might add to.
The RFDS network these days isn't what it used to be, so the VKS-737 network is the only real viable alternative in HF land. Costly though.
ibbo said
08:36 PM Feb 3, 2009
Thank you for your informative and helpful info.All is taken on board and will be remembered when I am using my CB.In the meantime keep it safe .Cheers Ibbo.
So just bare in mind that even on Ch.40 the language can be a bit blue from time to time .... but at least it's usually "civilised swearing" if there is such a thing.
Hope you get as much fun out of your Uniden as we have.
Now its time to get on my soap box ere...
Whatever you do, don't stake your lives on a UHF CB, end of story.
Without going into technical babble about radio propagation and the likes, in a nutshell UHF is line-of-sight, eg: if you can see it, you can talk to it. Obviously this isn't a hard n fast rule, but a good one to live by, familarise yourself with repeater operation, as in some cases if your stuck in the middle of nowhere, and you can't raise anyone on 40 you might just be able to access a repeater somewhere and get some help.
Repeaters work on channels 1-8 (output) and 31-38 (input). therefore its not a real smart idea to use channels 31-38 for general chitchat as you could be screwing up a repeater. You need the duplex or rptr button in or on to access repeaters, select channels 1-8 and hit the mike button, if you hear a kerchunk your acessing a repeater. Sometimes you will also hear a morse ident.
Also I believe now channels 21 and 22 are not to be used for voice comms, and they are solely for telemetry operations only.
Channel 5 the emergency channel...
Again don't stake your life on this, back in the boom days of CB every cat and dog was monitoring the emergency channels, these days its the domain of a few hard core and lost souls. Not reliable at all. And in some of the major cities you would be more likely to be told to get F'd then get any form of help unfortunately.
Re repeaters unfortunately they come and go, and its near impossible to get an accurate listing of active repeaters throughout the country, all lists I have seen on the net have repeaters listed that havent been active in years, due to the expense of running these things. For very little gain I might add to.
The RFDS network these days isn't what it used to be, so the VKS-737 network is the only real viable alternative in HF land. Costly though.