CB and HAM Setup Help

[The_Paper_Cut]

I'm just starting to get into offroad and my local club requires CB and HAM radios. They don't require a HAM license, they just use HAM to talk you through the trails and pass important info so all you have to do is listen, not transmit. I'm working on getting my HAM Technician License anyway because I think it'd be a good thing to have, and if I decide to go wheeling without that group and with other people it'd be good to have a more reliable way of communicating than CB. That being said, how should I go about getting these two? Should I be looking at hardwire/box options for both? Handheld for both? One or the other? Would their antenna's interfere with each other? I know CB doesn't have great range, and it's somewhat awkward and difficult to use a handheld while driving. Do they make a CB/HAM combination hardwire box that I could get? Any ideas on how to get this done/setup or what you've done that works? Thanks!

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[SteveSRT]

For now I would just get a hand held for your ham radio to listen on. The very popular Baofeng UV-5r can be had on amazon for like 25 dollars. After you get your license they aren't too terrible to transmit on either if you upgrade the antenna. You won't find a combination radio that does both because CB radios are limited to 4 watts max on specific frequencies they call channels. Ham radio you have a pretty wide range of frequencies you'll be able to use. Someone in your local group can probably help you easily program some common frequencies into your hand held radio too if you ask them. It will make it easier to follow along on trail runs. Also a heads up for when you're around some of the older radio guys, ham radio isn't capitalized as its not an acronym.

 

[The_Paper_Cut]

For now I would just get a hand held for your ham radio to listen on. The very popular Baofeng UV-5r can be had on amazon for like 25 dollars. After you get your license they aren't too terrible to transmit on either if you upgrade the antenna. You won't find a combination radio that does both because CB radios are limited to 4 watts max on specific frequencies they call channels. Ham radio you have a pretty wide range of frequencies you'll be able to use. Someone in your local group can probably help you easily program some common frequencies into your hand held radio too if you ask them. It will make it easier to follow along on trail runs. Also a heads up for when you're around some of the older radio guys, ham radio isn't capitalized as its not an acronym.

I've seen the UV5R referenced a lot, it seems pretty popular so I think I'll go with that. Thanks. and oops, thought it was an acronym, I'll keep that in mind going forward!

 

[SteveSRT]

It's not the greatest radio, but the UV5R is hard to beat for a first time radio because its a dual band dual display and comes with a lithium battery. Also if something happens and you run it over or forget it somewhere at least you're only out 25 bucks! Once you get licensed you'll probably want something hard mounted in your jeep and there's lots of options there depending on what features you want. Most of them have detachable displays now a days too which makes finding a spot to mount them so much easier. Most of the CB stuff is similar so I wouldn't spend a ton on that radio since all of them are limited to a max 4 watt. A good CB antenna will make a difference however. There's a few companies like Cooltech that make a nice mount for one and include the coax in the kit with the right amount of length for the job too. You can always connect a hand held ham radio to an external antenna and gain some range for it too. The Baofeng UV-5r will have a backwards thread from most handhelds and need an adapter to hook up to most coax cables for an external antenna though.

 

[Bryce]

Right now, stock of Baofeng tranceivers is low and prices are high. The Chinese Lunar New Year is slowing production and shipping. There was also allegedly a run on them recently by preppers/rioters/nut cases of assorted varieties. A month ago. You could get a UV-5R on ebay for $20 and gave it in a few days from a US seller. Right now they are $30+ and a few weeks out.

They aren't bad radios. I was hitting my local repeater 10miles away with full quieting on the stock antenna the other day. I prefer my 20yo Yaesu tri-band HT for durability and features.

I'm pulling the Cobra 75 st wx out of my Jeep this weekend and putting my Yaesu 2m 50w tranceiver. CB is dead near me. 2m ham is not thst active either though.

My 4x4 club uses FRS/GMRS. I've got some little FRS HTs for trail coms. Ya, the UV-5r can techinally transmit/receive on the frequencies, but its not technically legal either.

 

[Sta Nisia]

Right now, stock of Baofeng tranceivers is low and prices are high. The Chinese Lunar New Year is slowing production and shipping. There was also allegedly a run on them recently by preppers/rioters/nut cases of assorted varieties. A month ago. You could get a UV-5R on ebay for $20 and gave it in a few days from a US seller. Right now they are $30+ and a few weeks out.

If you plug the UPC into camcamelcamel amazon price tracker you can see over the past seven years all kinds of random, often gigantic, couple of week to couple of month spikes in uv-5r prices. They are not at any particular time of year. The current "normal" $25 price, with dips to the $20 range on these reflects such low margins, and when there is a slight glut you have a number of sellers able to sell them at $1 profit, and then at any perturbation of supply, for any reason, you get these regular temporary price spikes. Certainly upcoming mid February CNY (Chinese New Year) probably has some effect. As far as summer long rioting and looting or winter one-off, I doubt that is related since prices fluctuated widely this year in general and most recently prices started to rise before Jan. event.

My off road club was working on a group buy from a distributor of a few hundred for $22 each and the guys just gave up as the price fell in December. I bought eight on Jan 3 for or $18.60 or so. and that is sold and shipped by Amazon itself so excellent buyer protection. A couple of them came fairly quickly, but six came just yesterday, a month later, but at the $18.60. Now I can't say I have a method to buy at the low and sell at the highs in the stock market, I wish I did, but there are tools to use on amazon that really help hitting lows on retail items.
So I think Amazon pricing them at $18.60 or so caused a gigantic spike in sales, likely hundreds of thousands of purchases or more sucking out everything in inventory, and for that matter projected inventory for some time.

Why buy a bunch if you already have one? Because if you bought one or two last year or the year before you probably have invested in programming cable, some accessories, and much more time value on learning how to set it up, set up chirp, program the thing, get used to using it, teach the wife and kids. having a bunch more means you have a lot of spare batteries, and It means you can manhandle the uv-5rs you already have since you have a few more around. In fact half your cost at 18.60 is recovered just keeping the included battery as a spare. All your time costs from your first one get divided as well.

This in my opinion is why there is a shortage in normal sales channels and inventory, and therefore some sellers charging a market price of $36 (some authorized sellers) or $41 (amazon), prices started spike trend Jan 4.

If you want a baofeng, set up a camel account or one of a few other amazon price monitors, and buy it when it hits $25. I would then set up for a notification at some amount lower, say $22 or $20 and you can get spares, for spare parts, or so you can throw a couple in each vehicle.

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