Have you ever turned on the CB and heard someone hogging the channel, stomping on everyone trying to talk? There seems to be a bit of a squabble going around that someone is either illegally boosting his signal far beyond the legal limit or is very smart and is paying a network of people to repeat his CB shop advertising.
Breaker 1-9, breaker 1-9, you got your ears on
You know things are serious when the r/Truckers Reddit chat builds out a mega-thread on a subject of interest. Seems like someone in the Arizona desert is really angering the trucking community, using an extremely beefy CB radio setup to push his signal all the way to Maine, and beyond.
How “walking on” others can get you in legal trouble
It’s rare for the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to track someone down and fine them, but it has happened. John Hays was fined $15,000 for running a CB rig far above the four watt limit.
The first time the FCC came a knockin, it was a 750-watt linear that got Hays into trouble. The regulatory agency made him destroy the rig and fined him $10,000. But Hays would not have life without a screaming CB.
He built another rig, this time pushing 75 watts. And again the FCC sniffed him out and added another $5,000 to his fine.
Why CBs are regulated
Now I’m not a CB radio expert, but the FCC limits the power output to four watts. Most properly “peak and tuned” radios have a range between five and 10 miles. My Galaxy 959 could hit 15 miles on I-80 on the flat land during proper weather conditions, using “ionospheric skip” to get a little more distance.
But to reach across the United States, you’d need a very big radio. I’m talking about commercial radio equipment with tens to hundreds of thousands of watts of power that is far beyond the limits set by the FCC.
Equipment of that caliber requires a license from the FCC to use. Individual CB band licenses are not given out anymore. Overpowered CBs have a history of overpowering over-the-air TV signals, motion lights, and McDonald’s drive-through headsets.
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