When is the last time (if ever) you had CB radio on a trip?

[Max Rockatansky]

Just this past weekend for me:

I definitely need it for some of my day-to-day tasks, and wouldn't dare try to do something complex like a trip without it.

Seriously, you guys do realize that people managed to travel before the invention of the smartphone, right?

Me personally, most of my trips (complex or not) involve going somewhere a smartphone is useless.  I know that I've mentioned getting paper tickets and having to check in at the airport in Mexico somewhere recently.  On my most recent day trip to New Idria (50 miles from cell coverage) we even took a CB radio and checked out/in with a reliable friend in case we were overdue back to civilization. 

I traveled with two friends (overlanding enthusiasts) and my wife.  The particular region of San Benito County that New Idria is located is sparsely populated and mostly comprised of abandoned mines or ranches.  The nearest San Benito County maintained call box was 25 miles away from our location on Panoche Road.  Definitely seemed like a good idea to be able to reach the outside world that didn't require a cellular signal.  We did pick up traffic from the nearby Clear Creek Management Area.

I don't personally own a CB radio but I'm considering investing given how much overlanding stuff I've been getting back into this past year.  I used to have one when I resided in Arizona and just had it as a backup.

[JayhawkCO]

An actual CB would be with my grandparents in their motorhome driving from Colorado to Minnesota via Montana in the summer of 1994. I've used walkie-talkies with a friend going camping without cell signal back in 2020.

[1995hoo]

I've never owned a CB nor had one in any vehicle I've driven. But I do remember when I was in high school a friend had one. He wasn't thrilled when my brother leaned over, grabbed it, and yelled a very loud "Fuck You" at some truck drivers when we were headed to Kings Dominion once. We had no idea whether any of the truckers knew where it came from, nor whether they could even see us. But my friend took the next exit anyway and used US-1 for a while.

[Rothman]

If getting a CB radio, beware of Mark Sherman/Mud Duck/Fine Tune CB, if he's still out there blocking channel 19...

[oscar]

I used a CB many years ago. The one conversation I remember was a snarky "Speedy Gonzales" comment on my speed on the I-55 viaduct in Louisiana between I-10 and I-12.

I stopped using that CB soon thereafter, tiring of the constant jabbering about truckers' supposed sex lives. But I got another CB just for emergencies (never used).

[bandit957]

Back before cellphones became popular, I sort of wished I had one, because I always felt like I was outrunning the bumbling sheriffs who were really big on TV and the movies in my day.

[Henry]

My father never got into the CB radio craze of the 70s because, in his own words, they were too distracting to concentrate on his driving. Also, he couldn't figure out any of the trucker jargon until he read some sort of travel book and learned of their definitions in that book. When I began driving in the mid-late 80s, CBs were already being replaced by cell phones anyway, so I never got the chance to own one either.

[1995hoo]

I think another reason CB's popularity dropped after an initial spike was that a popular use of it in the 1970s was warning of where cops were after the 55-mph speed limit was imposed. Once radar detectors came to market, those took over that function in most states.

[GaryV]

Personally, never.

But when our college choir was on tour (1970's) the bus drivers had them to talk with each other. If you were near enough to the front of the bus you could hear the chatter.

I remember one car zooming past us and the bus driver said he could be the "bear bait". The driver responded that he had a radar detector.

Another time one driver told the other that the left lane was much smoother. Then the bus got pulled over for blocking a cop car in the left lane.

[Alex]

Back in 1996 a friend of mine and I drove tandem to Oklahoma and used CB radios to communicate with one another. Made it easy to convey when to stop at a rest area or if one of us needed to get gas.

Cary Todd and I used CB radios when we went roadding to North Jersey, Baltimore, PA, etc. from 1993 to 1995, as it was a good way to learn where cops "bears" were set up looking for speeders, and also traffic jams. Cary had a Cobra 19.

Also in 1993/94 there were four of us who used it locally in Delaware as our way of hanging out during evenings. I had a CB Radio Base Station from Radioshack.

Besides the channel 19 nonsense such as what Oscar eluded to upthread, there was also a group of users that got on just to "shoot skip". That was generally in the upper channels, and you'd hear guy's just trying to get responses from far away places when the atmospheric conditions were right. I recall once briefly talking with someone from Nova Scotia on my CB in Delaware.

The last time I used a CB was in 1999 when I lived in Mobile, Alabama. The CB I had then was my friend's old Cobra 29 unit. When it eventually stopped working, that was the end of CB'ing for me.

I also recall back in the early to mid 1990s echo mic's, power mic's and using amplifiers. There was also having the power governor removed from your CB. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think 4 watts was what was legal. R&R Communications was a CB shop off Delaware Route 92 (Naamans Road) where you could have that done to your radio if you asked for "getting heat". Wow that shop was still in business until January of this year!

[kphoger]

At one point, I had a handheld CB radio, which I bought refurbished online back when I did hitchhiking trips.  I did use it while driving a few times, and I remember one specific time.  We were driving south through Illinois on I-55, and a wreck in Springfield had caused a traffic jam.  I turned on the handheld CB to see if I could find any trucker chatter about the situation, and one trucker offered advice for an alternate route through town to get around the jam.  So we followed that alternate route, only to find that so did a zillion other truckers, and we'd have been better off just slogging through on I-55.  Ironically, I don't think I ever actually used it while hitchhiking.

As I recall, the thing took 18 AA batteries (not exaggerating) and, if kept on the whole time, wouldn't hold a charge for more than a day.

It stopped working in 2007, so that was the last time I had it on a trip.

[JayhawkCO]

At one point, I had a handheld CB radio, which I bought refurbished back when I did hitchhiking trips.  I did use it while driving a few times, and I remember one specific time.  We were driving south through Illinois on I-55, and a wreck in Springfield had caused a traffic jam.  I turned on the handheld CB to see if I could find any trucker chatter about the situation, and one trucker offered advice for an alternate route through town to get around the jam.  So we followed that alternate route, only to find that so did a zillion other truckers, and we'd have been better off just slogging through on I-55.  Ironically, I don't think I ever actually used it while hitchhiking.

As I recall, the thing took 18 AA batteries (not exaggerating) and, if kept on the whole time, wouldn't hold a charge for more than a day.

It stopped working in 2007, so that was the last time I had it on a trip.

Although I know you got rid of your smartphone for other reasons, it's funny how you shun its conveniences despite your past willingness to endure that massive inconvenience.

[hbelkins]

I have a handheld CB, but I have no idea where it is at the moment.

Used it mostly for traveling in Virginia due to their ban on radar detectors.

[kphoger]

Although I know you got rid of your smartphone for other reasons, it's funny how you shun its conveniences despite your past willingness to endure that massive inconvenience.

Hey, it wasn't much bigger than my current cell phone! [/sarc]

Really, though, this was the early- to mid-2000s.  I think the cell phone I had at the time was this ...



... and nobody out there really had a better one.

[Molandfreak]

I don't know why the CB market hasn't caught on to the fact that every vehicle sold within the past 15 years or so has a center console that severely limits where you can install one. Sure, there are some that have the complete functionality within the handheld microphone, but if I'm going to go through the trouble of installing a radio in my car, I want it to be fully capable. Just one radio on the market with a detachable face, SSB and FM functionality, and maybe an audio system integration would be nice.