Archive for the ‘Hand Held CB Radios’ Category
Hand held CB would be a great ice fishing buddy!
Imagine – the day is cold, the wind is howling, but you are heading across a frozen lake to drill a hole at your favorite fishing spot to hopefully bag a meal of fish! Now – as crazy as that sounds, there’s a lot of guys (and gals) that do just that at least once a week in the north land. I can remember having a can of pot burst and run down my leg that I had stored on the INSIDE of my snowmobile suit. Now – was it cold that day? You bet. Somehow it seemed like we were having fun , but the older I get, the more I have to wonder if we all had a few screws loose to even have attempted it on a day like that. The temp was -18 degrees F with a 20+ mph wind blowing across the open, baron spans of ice they call a lake in the summertime. Then – sometimes after all that, we possible came home empty handed. UGH. It’s really nice to have someone to talk to when out there. That’s why it’s nice to take a hand held CB radio with you. It’s small enough to fit right into your pocket and if nothing else, it will provide you with a peace of mind that you can reach those back at the base camp (or house) to let them know when you’re planning to get back home for supper! Who knows – they may be calling you wondering if they will have fish for supper! That communication link is very nice to have if you needed it. You could have medical issues, or mechanical issues with your snowmobile or just about anything! Keep yourself out of harm’s way and plan ahead with a CB radio. Happy Boater.
Road hazards don’t have to be so “dreaded”…
It’s never fun when things just don’t work out the way you intended them to go. For example, today my wife went to get her car out of the garage after I had already left the house and found that her battery chose today to drop dead. Nice way to start the morning – right? Anyway, to make a long story short, she didn’t have a CB Radio in her car to reach me and ended up getting hold of another family member who pulled a rabbit out of a hat and provided transportation for her to get to work. Now – she was lucky – her car was in a garage when it went “ka-put”, but what if she had been out on the road? Sure would be nice then to be able to reach someone for assistance. To be perfectly honest, the battery in this case was soooooo dead that even if she did have a CB Radio on board (unless it was a hand held unit), she wouldn’t have been able to reach me anyway… but even so, it’s a poor excuse to not plan for situations like this. CB Radios are so affordable nowadays and the correct choice for her this fine morning would have been the hand held CB Radio as it holds its own power source. Always plan for the worst – that way you never will be left unassisted when needed. Happy Boater.
Two way communication all over the place today…
Wow – this has sure been a white winter! Even the snow banks on the sides of the road don’t even get a chance to get dirty and sloppy looking before we are dumped on with a new blanket of snow. I plowed snow yesterday and today woke up to another 5-6 inches on the ground. I drove school bus today (yes – our district has school on Martin Luther King day) and found just about every plow in the county out in force. School buses were running late and a lot of bus substituting was going on trying to help other buses that were running later. Through all this, it seemed like just about everyone was on the radio communicating road conditions as well as informing of pick ups. I can imagine the county employees were busy on their radios as well. What would we do without some kind of communication device to keep us in touch? For most of us, a CB Radio would fill the bill – providing us with the needed communication needed to effectively do our jobs. Phones are nice, but it’s sure nice to be able to pick up a microphone, press a button, and be able to talk instantly. Phones have come a long way, but they can’t do that yet! A good CB Radio hooked up through a good speaker system makes a winning combination. Marine speakers make a great choice when installing speakers – no matter where you are installing the speakers – as they have a great tone quality, they’re waterproof, and durable. Happy Boater.
It doesn’t do any good to have a radio if you don’t turn it on…
Yep – it happened to me. Some things you really don’t want to admit to anyone, but I guess a little humble pie is good for us once in a while. I was taking a run for the local school district. It was a nice morning – good roads – light traffic – and and I was right on schedule – enjoying a very quiet ride. When I returned, I realized just why I had such a quiet ride. My radio had been shut off and I didn’t see that it wasn’t functioning. No wonder it was quiet!! I found out they had been trying to reach me and couldn’t get through on the radio system they are using which is very much like a CB Radio with only 2 channels. All ended well, but I’ll check the radio from now on to make sure it’s indeed ready to operate and in the “on” position. It doesn’t do much good to have a radio and then have it turned off!!! Go figure!!! Although, I have to admit, it sure was a peaceful morning! Happy Boater.
CB could stand for “Christmas Blizzard”
I don’t know what it was like where you live, but we got about 16 inches of snow on the Wednesday before Christmas. This did 2 things….it insured our receipt of a “WHITE” Christmas, and it made travel very difficult for families coming home. It’s times like these that folks sure feel that little added comfort level when they have a hand held CB Radio with them – if only for security. With many, many cars slipping into the ditch in Minnesota, there was great opportunity to use them to call for help. Cell phones were widely used also, however, there are a lot of spots in Minnesota where a cell phone is entirely useless! (Sometimes that’s a blessing!! …they can’t find you!!!) All kidding aside, for the small cost of a hand held CB Radio or even a mounted CB, you can gain a large sense of security when traveling. …and it can be fun, too! Many times I’ve met others on the CB who just by chance were headed in the same direction and found we had a lot in common. There really are a lot of nice people out there. My mother used to say that a stranger is just a friend she hasn’t met yet. What a great way to look at it. Happy Boater.
You dont’ have to be professional announcer to use a CB!
Everyone (or should I say almost everyone) seems to get a bit of “stage fright” when they get a microphone in their hand. You can have your speech planned right down to the last syllable and when you push that transmit button on the side of the microphone something happens – the whole world goes blank. Why is that?? Nobody can explain it, but it just happens and there’s a whole lot of us out there that have experienced it. When that fleeting moment passes and you finally utter your first words over the airwaves, the fear passes. Then when you get a response to your transmission the fear is over and the fun begins. Besides being a safety item, a CB radio can be just plain fun! Some folks sit in the malls and just watch people walk by and say it’s fun. …and it is!! People are fun to watch. I know a person can have a lot of fun also just listening to others chat as you’re cruising down the freeways of our country. CB’s cost nothing to operate so the price is right!! Who knows – maybe you’ll catch a radio transmission from someone in need and you may be their link to a timely rescue! Wouldn’t that start your year off right. Happy Boater.
It’s the eve of Christmas eve…
Probably not a great way to describe this day, but it is the day before Christmas eve and I can’t hardly believe that another year has come and gone. How did this happen and we didn’t get any older??? ha-ha!! If you’re a shopper, you have only 2 days left including today to shop before Christmas! (no pressure, of course…) If you’re done shopping, congratulations – you can sit back and enjoy the ride. I saw a couple of shoppers attacking their shopping task with fury just a couple of weeks ago. They had hand held CB Radios and were running from store to store comparing prices and teaming up to complete their shopping list. I really was pretty impressed!! They had their list (which they had prepared before hand) and they were checking off items and comparing notes so they wouldn’t duplicate any items and they pulled it off just like finely lubricated machinery. I thought – what a way to go – purchase a couple of hand held CB radios and with the price savings they ended up getting, they paid for their initial investment as well and shortened up their shopping time by a large degree. We should all be so clever!! My hat is off to them! Happy Boater.
Winter storm “comfort pill”
Now, this may sound like a funny title for an article, but if you really think about it, that’s just about what a CB radio offers the driver – especially during a storm like what just went through the mid section of the United States in mid December. I was driving a bus southward through the center of Minnesota on Interstate 35W where the speed limit is 70 mph. I was only able to maintain 45-50 mph in order to be safe, but there’s always those goofs on the road that had to pass me and one by one, I drove past them sitting in the median of the freeway, having spun around after loosing traction on the road. Did they have a CB radio with them? I don’t know. It would have to have been a hand held CB radio because I saw no antenna on any of the vehicles as they sat helpless in the median, but I’ll be willing to bet that they were wishing they did have one! Maybe if they had had one, they wouldn’t have been in the predicament they found themselves in because they would have been listening to the truckers and would have found out about the road conditions BEFORE they decided to head down the freeway like there were dry roads beneath them. Happy Boater.
Winter isn’t even officially here and all I see is snow!
It’s definitely one of those years!! I remember Halloween night 1991 when we went to bed with no snow on the ground, and woke up to over 3 feet of new snow on the ground. I can remember the snowplow stuck in the middle of the street trying to break through a drift which exceeded 5 feet covering the entire street for approximately 20 feet down the road. We couldn’t walk on the top of the snow drifts, but we could crawl. My folks lived about a block away and they needed to get out so I literally crawled to their house on my hands and knees — all the time staying on top of the crests of snow. Well – this year isn’t that dramatic, but none-the-less we have snow, snow everywhere. We have about 8 inches in my yard and of course where the plow has pushed it , we have banks over 4 feet already…..and winter doesn’t even officially start until the 21st of December!! Sure makes for a nice long winter. Not everyone is unhappy about the early snow – the ski resorts are thrilled – opening up the day after Thanksgiving this year! Snowmobilers are ready to hit the many miles of trails available to them and retailers that deal in any of these areas are excited also. Don’t get caught short in the event of an emergency. Why not carry at least a hand held CB Radio to aid in areas where signal for your cellular phones isn’t available (and in northern MN, there’s a lot of those spots – no matter what the commercials say). Communication is your best link when it comes to safety. Happy Boater.
Plan worked well…
A couple of weeks ago, I indicated that I was planning to use my portable hand held CB Radio set to help communicate information to the person I was working with so he could cut the correct pieces for me as I was stuck under the cabin trying to insulate and isolate a portion of the plumbing to protect it from the coming frigid temperatures. I’m here to tell you that this plan worked better than good! Not only did it work great, but it went nearly three times as fast as I could have done it myself. There was barely enough room to lay under the cabin so it took quite an effort to slide out from under there every time I decided to make a cut on one of my pieces. It was hard enough for me to just keep my head up under there and use the nail gun at the same time to install the framing material. I am VERY THANKFUL for friends willing the help and also for those two very small, but wonderful little CB Radios. Happy Boater.