Handhelds

[DAYDREAMER]

What's the best range one could expect from a handheld CB? Any mods that can be done to improve? What's a good make/model to look at?

[darkhorse]

I had a handheld a long time ago on a magnet mount antenna. The best I had ever reached was about 3-4 miles and that was from my driveway in the middle of a neighborhood, lots of trees and other houses to go through. This guy was in an industrial park and was able to hear me fairly well. Better than the usual mile or two I got. And he was next to the interstate. Now, if you are talking about just using the little factory ruber antenna, good luck. Mine took 12 AA batteries, or a cig lighter adaptor. On AA's you could also drop the wattage to 2 watts to save power. Don't ask about mods though, I haven't the slightest.

[Phaze91460]

I think there was a lot of diffenece in power on models as well. You could buy some with only 1 watt up to 4 watts. Cheep ones could barely get from car to car. Some didnt have a place to run a ext antenna. I would research a lot before looking for one.

[darkhorse]

Some didnt have a place to run a ext antenna.

Mine was sort of like that. It had a twist lock type connector for the regular antenna. I had to buy an adaptor to a standard CB coax connector. Don't know the name of the connections used, but I found it at radio shack.

[Guest]

as a kid my dad had a hand held it was a good size he use to talk skip on

[jcollins]

bnc connector

[darkhorse]

BINGO!

[SmallTruckBigRadio]

What's the best range one could expect from a handheld CB? Any mods that can be done to improve? What's a good make/model to look at?

I'd guess a handheld CB could do a couple of miles line of sight, and just a few feet from inside a moving car (don't ask how I know that).

External antenna is the only good thing I can think of, except for not doing a handheld CB. There are many better ways of communicate besides handheld CB.

Care to let us know what your planning to do?

[HI-TECH]

i remeber a guy here put a 1446 transistor in one and got about 60watts on it but it ate baterys like no other...but it got out really well and didnt have jack for a recive.. thers hardly mods for newer handheldsbut there out there and if you like tinkering with things you can tune one up if you know what your looking for. best bet when useing it for a mobile is eather a. get a handheld magnet moble antenna (small magent with a car looking antenna on it) or b. get a bnc to pl259 conector and use a REAL mobile antenna, you can pick them up @ radio shack for under 7 bucks, anyways have fun

[DAYDREAMER]

What I have in mind is a "stealth" radio. I've got a couple of local "radio rats" I'd like to play games with. I just need something that will sound "big" at a relatively short distance without being detected.

I'm not called Daydreamer for nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!