Legal SSB CB radio as an alternative to VHF/UHF Ham.

[KILLERPARSNIP]

Hello all,

Just wondered what sort of activity levels there are on SSB CB radio by you and where you are , I need to set up an antenna for 27 MHZ and then I will be monitoring myself on an RX only radio as I'm thinking of SSB CB radio as an alternative to the absolutely dead VHF/UHF Ham radio bands. I'm in Shropshire just to the West of the Black Country ,Wolverhampton and Birmingham areas.

Many thanks all

[Octane Red]

In these parts, useage of non commercial radio, and excluding anything below 27 MHz is, in roughly descending order of popularity;

• PMR446 - Albeit almost all users are part of a closed group, and not expecting to be chatting to random strangers that pop up on "their channel"

• UHF DMR

• UHF analogue via repeater

• UHF simplex DMR

• VHF analogue via repeater

• VHF simplex

• 27 MHz FM

• 27 MHz SSB

The last 2 are completely non existent, so you could flip the order if you wish. 27 MHz FM went dead here about 6 years ago, when the last stalwart died, and turned the lights out as he left. I have not listened in myself for a while, but some that have report 0 activity.

A new runner for the list is Meshcore on 869 MHz - Hard to quantify its position in the list at the moment, as its just really getting going here.

[Mitch]

There's plenty of CBer's here in Leicester, it's busy most days and nights, not so much SSB just UK FM19, and of course we've got the village idiots as well. Ham isn't so active though and I haven't bothered with 446 for some time, it's mostly business users around here.