I just got rid of my old cherokee, and I'm in the market for a mobile ham radio that will get me from CB all the way down to 70cm, if possible.

Does such a radio exist?

I've seen a few that do 10m-70cm but never one that also does the 11m CB bands.

I'm not at all opposed to opening up a new radio to remove resistors, if that's all it takes to make it TX/RX on 11m, BTW.

The only radio I know that does 10m-70cm without doing the rest of HF (and carrying the associated cost) is Yaesu's FT-8900. Even if you can modify it to go down to 11m, which I don't think you can, it only transmits FM. CB is mostly AM with a little SSB, so an FM rig isn't going to do you any good there.

That leaves you with the DC-to-daylight multimode rigs, which are an order of magnitude more expensive, but can mostly be modded to cover CB (think IC-706/FT-857 and the like). Standard warnings about type acceptance and illegal transmissions apply, of course.

While a bit less convenient to use, it's cheaper and far more legal to just keep a compact CB along with a regular mobile FM ham rig.

No such radio exists.
If you just want those bands mentioned, you'd need the Yaesu radio mentioned above plus a stand alone CB radio.

you would need 2 separate antennas for that as well,
so it is likely easier to just have 2 radios even if someone did sell that combo radio.

You would be much better off with two separate rigs for that. If your interest lies within CB, 2 meter and 70cm, then you can easily accomplish that with just two antennas and two fairly inexpensive radios.

midland 1001z CB radio on amazon for $29, free shipping. Just bought one. I think CB is about to make a little resurgence. Spend your money on the antenna.

Cobra has a bluetooth CB radio where you can talk on your cell phone as you would a normal CB conversation. Around $150 though I think.

Mostly to echo the statements of others, the FT8900 has dual antenna ports, one for 2m-440 and another for 10m and 6m. While yes i agree it would be cool to modify everything into an all-in-one box life doesn't usually work that way. Especially with radio I've found.

Given the low cost of COTS CB's you're much better going this route and then finding the elmer at the truckstop who can soup up your CB with higher power (this is illegal FYI, but if you're running a reasonable amount of power <10w) the chances of anyone noticing are slim. The 8900 goes for $406, a CB is $40 at walmart, bringing your costs sans antennas to <500. If you wanted to get into a multi-mode rig like a IC-706 prices start around 900.

No, I know Ill need a few antennas, what I dont want is the interior of my new car stuffed with radios and mic cables.


Im probably going to stick with a mag-mount 2m/70cm antenna, and then mount a 11m whip.

I was hoping I could find an auto-tuner to let me use the 11m antenna on 10m, but I guess the snobbery that the ham radio community has towards CB means that there really arent any radios that cover both.

Fuickin retarded. I dont generally want to know about some old fuck's radio or his bunions when Im in the car, but I do want to know where the speed traps and lane closures are.

CB in the car is good, I guess Ill just get a crappy little cobra CB and stick with my 2m.


Frustrating.

Not to sidetrack this thread, but you're absolutely right. I did ham radio off and on for years, in my late 20s, and found that everybody was 50+ years old and only talked about electronics. I was living with a girlfriend at the time and she would always wonder why I listened to "geezers." Eventually I wondered myself.

The only interesting time I had was in 2006 or so when there were big fires in the hills here in SoCal. I did some stuff on a local emergency repeater and that was interesting. Otherwise it's all baby boomers talking about their new RC plane or whatever. With the exception of the 435 repeater in LA that I can sometimes catch.

The problem with ham radio is all you talk to are hams, IMHO.

Yeah, I stay current with ARES/RACES for the emergency aspect, but for a social outlet, I dont have any desire to get on the radio and rag chew.

It's got less to do with "snobbery" and more to do with "it's illegal."

While I haven't read the FCC regs about type acceptance for various services in detail, I don't know of any reason you couldn't get a radio type certified to operate on both amateur bands and on CB, assuming it was programmed to restrict power level and modulation types on 11m. But with the low sales volume of ham rigs, the additional sales gained from integrating 11m probably wouldn't recoup the cost of jumping through another set of type certification hoops. Add to that the fact that a fair portion of hams are snobbish about CB and the fact that much of the CB community is perfectly willing to run illegal gear (like a ham HF rig with a widened transmit range, if they wanted ham and CB in one package), and the likely sales for such a rig drop even further.

So even though it may be legally possible to manufacture and sell such a rig, and it would be a simple software modification for a lot of HF rigs, the expense of satisfying the FCC is probably what keeps it off the market.

Seems silly because ALL the freqs are a wasteland these days. As I've said before I monitor from my home almost every freq that can be used by non-gov't.. cb, gmrs/frs, murs, the ham bands. And there are maybe 2-3 convos going on at any one time. And sometimes all are in spanish.

You could take away all the amateur freqs except for the 2m spectrum and it still wouldn't be crowded. Cell phones killed radio.

My girlfriend and I sometimes use a local 2m repeater. She doesn't have a license. We use it as a long-range FRS type setup. She's not even aware that you're supposed to have a license for this thing. I've never, in about 7 years, ever heard ANYBODY else use it. It's always on, never in use. So we just use it as our private line. I don't know if the guy who set it up died or something. It's on all the Socal repeater lists with the CTCSS access code and all. It's in a fairly big metropolis. NOBODY uses it.

Bizarre. I think in about 20 years amateur radio will be done for.

ORLY? Do all the big "DC to sunlight" rigs have cutouts where they dont DX/TX on cb? Because the specs Ive seen on say, the Yaesu 817 say stuff like this:

Power 2.5W SSB/CW/FM/CW, 0.7W AM (int. batteries) ,
5.0W SSB/CW/FM/CW 1.5W AM (with 13.8V supply)

RX 0.1-56MHz, 76-154MHz, 430-470MHz
TX 1.8-432MHz (not 70MHz, not 220MHz)

As long as the radio reduces to the legal power limits for CB, GMRS, and MURS, it seems to me that it should be okay. Is that not the case?

I am actually pretty ignorant of the laws for CB. The only radios Ive ever had for it were little crap Radio Shack rigs that I bought used for $20 at flea markets.

All I know is that virtually all hams I know look down their noses at all CB users as illiterate yokels who all use 10Kw leeners and shit up their bands.

I think a lot of people are living in the past, and hams have a compulsion to follow every little rule no matter how inconsequential, just for the sake of following rules. It's a personality trait I just don't have.

Fact is, these days nobody is on any of the bands whatsoever anyway.

For the past several months I've been driving from LA to Riverside and back about once a month with my Yaesu vx-6 scanning the CB bands in AM with an antenna that should pick up something at that freq. NEVER have I heard any CBers on any bands.

I think CB could be reduced to 5 channels, the 6m freqs gotten rid of, 2m reduced to 2 MHz bandwidth, 440 reduced to 2 MHz bandwidth, 220 gotten rid of, and all the HF freqs opened to all licenses. The GMRS license should be reduced to $25 for 10 years. That would make things more interesting. Might actually hear someone every once in awhile.

Quite honestly, if you made the ham license completely no-test like the GMRS license, it would not appreciably increase the number of people using the amateur radio frequencies. It might double the usage... oooh then I'd hear 6 conversations in a day instead of 3.

Right now it's 8:30 pm and I hear two 2m nets, just a bunch of geriatrics "checking in," and there is a static filled conversation between a couple of dudes on GMRS. 3 convos. And that's it, as far as all the VHF and UHF bands are concerned. Arguably the busiest time of day/night and that's it. And that's near LA!

Oh wait, a 440mhz convo just popped up, red letter day. 4 convos at once!

Yes, ham rigs are at least programmed not to transmit outside the amateur bands. HF rigs can usually be opened up with a software change or very simple hardware mod (like removing one resistor and rebooting the radio). VHF/UHF rigs can similarly have their transmit range widened by a few MHz, but not as far as the HF rigs due to practical limitations of the hardware. For example, that FT-817's default transmit range is only the US amateur bands from 160m to 70cm, without 220 MHz. If you modify it to open up the transmit range, you get 1.8 - 33 Mhz (which includes CB at 27.mumble MHz), 33 - 56 MHz, 140 - 154 MHz, and 420 - 470 MHz (which includes FRS/GMRS in the 460s).

However, it's illegal to transmit on CB, FRS, or non-amateur licensed service bands with a radio that hasn't been specifically approved ("type accepted") by the FCC for that service, even if your transmission otherwise meets the applicable rules. Getting that approval is an expensive process, so manufacturers won't go through extra certifications if they don't have to. There may also be details in the regulations for some services that would make it impossible to integrate them with other services in the same radio.

Enforcement of all this is strictly complaint-based, though. If nobody can tell you're using a non-type-accepted radio, nobody will ever complain and you'll never be caught. Hell, even when it's obvious that people are violating the regs (like that guy on CB that you can hear from 100 miles away), nobody bothers complaining to the FCC. So legally, no, you can't do ham, CB, GMRS, etc. all in one radio. Practically, it's pretty easy (if expensive) as long as you don't mind the illegal aspect.

Bonky, dude, how many times have you been spoken to about not discussing illegal activities on the forums?

Actually Pete, it's only illegal if a licensed operator isn't present. If he's licensed and she's using it around him, he's responsible for the station and her use of it. It's perfectly legal. This is how we get kids interested in the hobby, by letting them talk to folks around the world. At least, that's how we did it at the old club...

eta: Just read the whole post... yep, that's a nono in this case...

my FT-817 will not transmit in the FRS band after the modification, or at least I remember testing it, I guess I have to go test it again now.
my FT-817 will transmit in the entire HF spectrum with no gaps at all.
my modified ICOM W32A works on FRS and the marine VHF frequencies and the aircraft band (AM) just fine.
(tested into a dummy load in case you are wondering about legality)
and on the topic of legality,
the only way you will get caught violating FCC rules is if you are causing interference or you tell people about it, like on an internet forum,
that info can be used against you.
I just don't get why people seem to enjoy incriminating themselves...

Bonky, you must have a shitty antenna. I always hear contacts on 80m, 40m, 20m everyday. Some of the higher bands are spotty but HF is anything but a wasteland.
And I like checking in on the Monday night 2m net around here, after the net, a few of us hang around and talk about anyhting and everything, usually always prep related.

I modded my VX-5R for extended transmit and receive and I still can't tune in the CB channels.
No plans to mod my FT-897 but I can listen in on the local CB traffic.

I thought we just couldn't ADVOCATE doing illegal stuff. Suppose I told everyone about my DUI that I had back on '04? Is that a no-no too, because it was illegal?

Is it we can't mention illegal activities at all, or we can only mention illegal stuff that we've been caught for and "paid our debt to society" for? Or we just can't tell other people that it's ok for them to do it?

I'm a lawyer, you've got to be clear about the rules or they're "void for vagueness."

You're not allowed to condone or instruct others on how to commit illegal activities.

If you're not willing to follow that rule, then you're not welcome here. It's that simple.




Uh, what? A Lawyer with a felony that's continuing to commit felonies? Hilarity ensues.

anyone that would use the phrase "void for vagueness." must be a lawyer.
now you make sense to me.
the only real rules on any forum is not to upset the moderators.

LOL I suck at following that rule. Censorship is awful, in all it's manifestations, and no matter the reason. There is never a good reason to limit speech.