What is the best CB/GMRS/HAM config?

using a GMRS on a trip last year and one of the big problems is when you get around a city, we found that there are a lot of business now using GMRS and it causes problem. We ran into a lot of others talking on the high power freqs.

 

It's never too late to share stuff like this. I've been staring at my operators manual for years now trying to decide if I want to actually get into HAM. Wheeling once a month, I freakin wish. I'm lucky if I get to go out on the easy trails a couple times a year. I have a couple

$40 UV-5R 8Watt Ham Radio Handheld Long Range UHF/VHF Radio with 2 Rechargeable Battery, Portable Radio for Adults with Earpiece, GV-771 Antenna, Programming Cable (3rd Gen)

UV-5R's. One of them I keep in the glovebox. The price on them has gone way up. You used to be able to find them for like 15 bucks.

 

Tuning a CB antenna is no more difficult than any other antenna. I just tuned a 2 meter antenna on my truck the other day, took me about the same time as tuning any CB antenna, 30 minutes or so, bottom of the 2 meter band, 1.1 SWR, top of the band, 1.1 SWR, PERFECT 1:1 in the middle!

The problems with CB, however, are MANY... CB is at the top of the HF spectrum, and suffers noise and "skip" during periods of high sunspot activity. One is technically allowed only 4 watts carrier on AM, and AM and SSB (single side band) are the only modes allowed, and very few have SSB capable CB equipment..

The antennas are inordinately long for what is typically a 3 mile range (1/4 wave, 9 feet, roughly). Worst still? There is at least one handheld CB radio I have seen, and the antenna length is SUPER SHORT and inefficient.

GMRS and FRS is what CB should have been, obviously, the technology was not available at the time to allow the inexpensive manufacture of reliable and rugged VHF/UHF handhelds and mobile radios.

Quite a few rigs still have CB, probably to facilitate communication with loading/unloading at terminals which have been using it forever... The truckers I speak to suggest that it is not nearly used to the degree today as it had been historically...

 

I have a NGP antenna I need to mount and tune. If I remember correctly, my HAM & GMRS are both really close to 1:1