A lot of trucking companies are switching to commercial UHF radios, so fairly soon you will also lose those few resources for traffic info.
CBs are more of a novelty today. They're fun to mess around with, but have few practical applications.
I disagree. A good chunk of the truckers I work with have CB's. The company doesnt provide them, as they are useless for dispatch purposes. Then again many of the drivers go from here to Boston, CT, RI, NY, and Pa. Cell phones obviously are the best choice. A good number of them, maybe 85% buy their own and move them from truck to truck. Many of the over the road guys have them too so they can talk to other random drivers regardless of where they are. CB's are relativity inexpensive, and for use in a truck have acceptable range. If a truck is driving down the road and say his trailer door comes open, unless his cell # is plastered down the side of the trailer Ch. 19 is your best bet to get ahold of him. They use them for directions, recommendations for places to eat, police warnings, or just BS'ing with each other. Some of our guys switch to a upper channel when they are driving to NJ etc so they don't burn through cell minutes, or violate cell phone laws (case in point, CT)
I have a CB within arms reach right now on my desk, and both Receiving departments have one in the office to call drivers up to doors for the holding pad if they prefer to be contacted that way. You would actually be surprised as how many of them don't have a cell phone. And cell batteries go dead & lose service, the CB will work as long as the vehicle is running and theres someone in range to hear you. I hear from some of the long haul guys that they dont bother keeping it on up in the north east because A) mountains limit range severely, and B) there isn't as much radio traffic worth listening to / they get harassed (listen to Ch 19 by Springfield/Holyoke in the afternoon on the Pike). Out in the mid-west / down south apparently its a somewhat different story because its so much flatter.
As HAM Radio is way over my head right now, I was thinking about getting a handheld CB radio to keep in the car for a few reasons.
1) Listen in to find out about any traffic jams
2) Weather - I found some CB radios with NOAA weather channels
3) If the SHTF; I could utilize it for communications
4) Get a charger so I can keep the radio charged wherever I go
5) Mobility - thus the handheld version of the CB
Does anyone else have CB radios in their vehicles? If so, why? If not, why not & do you have some other type of mobile communications (besides cell phone)?
Thanks.
Just to answer this, I had a cheap radio shack CB in my last car, but its impossible to run the wire into the trunk (mag mount) in this car, and its a convertible so mounting is a problem anyway. I have a handheld, but they aren't so great. Even with the cloth top (or top down) my friend cant pick me up at the end of the street. I have a Midland 75-822 that I tried to use. I like it because I could use AA's, rechargeable AA's, and an adapter to plug in in the car & use the small antenna or a mounted one. Problem is I have one with a common problem for the model. With the adapter on, all you hear is a feedback squeal. Haven't bothered to try and fix it because the signal doesn't make it out of the car anyway. Only good thing about it, is you can make a simple mod to it and change what channels it has. hi-low and European channels, but that's of no use for me. Maybe i'll dig it out and screw with it to see if I can get it to work right.