Saturday 20 October 2012

Citizen Band - "The Super Bowl"

Not feeling too well at the moment, have a suspected inner ear infection which is causing dizziness and nausea, so taking it easy today.

I switched on my scanner this morning and decided to peruse the CB channels, it is something I haven't done very often as usually there is nothing to receive and is problematic since my scanners cannot exactly tune to the UK frequencies accurately.

What I did find were a lot of suspected 'Eastern European' transmissions on the CEPT/EU band in FM and AM mode. I also came across lots of activity on the "Super Bowl" Channel 6 (27.025 MHz AM). Apparently the popular channel for "skip shooters" using high powered amplifiers and indeed copied a few 1kW transatlantic transmissions. There were also a lot of SSB transmissions about but the PRO2006 scanner I have doesn't have side band capabilities.

I have thought many times about getting hold of a cheap CB, or one of those popular 10m/11m amateur rigs just to get some practice in operating a transmitter before getting around to taking my foundation test. Especially as OFCOM have announced they intend to finally harmonise with the EU on the use of AM and SSB next year. http://www.southgatearc.org/news/october2012/ofcom_ecc_decision_on_am_ssb_cb_apparatus.htm


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