Lipstick on a Pig: The 10 Don'ts of Vehicle Modifications

[DaveInDenver]

HAM simply isn't practical for most casual off-road outings. It's nice if 1 or 2 people in the group have it in case of emergency, but for transmissions like "Hey dude, I have to take a leak - let's pull over a second...", FRS/GMRS or CB is probably the better choice.

The only operational difference between FRS and an amateur UHF HT is that you have to remember to say your call sign once in a while (every 10 minutes and when you sign off). You use people's names and talk conversationally otherwise. There are some non trivial technical differences, I don't mean to minimize that. But if you take the time to understand and program your radios, it's not much different in actual use. OTOH, accepting the relative complexity of ham allows a lot more flexibility in radio choice. But with a club member or friend who is a ham you can lean on him/her to set up your radios and there's not much more to it. That's like any agency or business, there is generally a radio maintainer who programs them and all the users just know which channel to use.

CB works alright for what we do with it, the problem with perpetuating its use is that there are better options. Antennas are bigger than they need to be for local simplex, it uses full carrier AM, the radios are by and large the same designs as decades ago. No one advocates that we should still be using rotary land lines because cell phones are better. It's a critical mass question, when enough people realize traditional CB stinks comparatively then we can maybe let it go.

That said I do think pushing ham licenses on everyone has been a major mistake. The OHV community should have adopted GMRS, which really is the 27MHz CB evolved for modern VHF commercial and ham radio technology. Getting people to switch yet again would be tough, though. Plus all the ancillary things, APRS for example, can only be done with ham, so it's clearly carved out its niche.

 

[daddyusmaximus]

HAM simply isn't practical for most casual off-road outings. It's nice if 1 or 2 people in the group have it in case of emergency, but for transmissions like "Hey dude, I have to take a leak - let's pull over a second...", FRS/GMRS or CB is probably the better choice.

My loosely-related item to add to the list? I'm not sure how to word it. But here it is: when I see a truck with a ton of aftermarket parts, some stickers, etc - you know, the kind that looks like a serious off road enthusiast - the first thing I look at is the undercarriage and frame rails. If it's spotless, I roll my eyes and giggle.

...don't be that guy.

I call those vehicles "mall crawlers". Tons of light, high lift, multiple shocks, low profile mud tires on 22" rims. Why the hell do they even make low profile mud tires?

I don't have ham yet, but want for the future. Heard great things about ham for longer distance commo. I still like my CB. They may be short range, but they're cheep, and easy, with no license requirements. Truckers don't use ham, and some times info from a CB can be the difference between getting stuck on the highway behind a crash, and exiting here for a nice sit down meal while they clean up the mess. I know, I'm just impatient, but I hate sitting in traffic. The gov is putting up those cable guardrails in the median around here. Gone are the old days of turning around and heading for the last exit.

 

[nwoods]

I call those vehicles "mall crawlers". Tons of lights, high lift, multiple shocks, low profile mud tires on 22" rims. Why the hell do they even make low profile mud tires?

I live in SoCal, there are so many of those rigs around here, its ridiculous. Especially the multiple Fox shock thing. Guys are in 3500HD Duramax trucks that go about 15 mph in the dirt towing an RV bigger than my house, and they need remote reseviors and 12 shocks to protect against cavitation and shock fade? Seriously? LOL


DavidInDenver, I think your comments about radios is really well stated, and even more relevant now that you can get HAM radio HT's for LESS money than a CB these days.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Mall Terrain Vehicles or trucks for guys with small winkies.

 

[Rexsname]

I have looked and looked and can't find the other article......10 best modifications or something like that


Help?



REX

 

[SoCalMonty]

I totally understand your point about the driveway queens with the spotless undersides, but I kinda look at non-HAM's the same way. If you were serious about off road adventuring, you would be a HAM.

I think it's nice to have in an emergency. So as long as someone in the group has it, I don't see the need for everyone to have it, just because it's gotten a lot more popular in the last 10 years or so since Chinese radios have flooded the market. I mean...what did off road adventurers do before affordable HAM radios? Were they not serious because they didn't have them? I might think the opposite to be true - hardcore adventure seekers would look at people with all of that gear and think them "softies", "city folk" or "flatlanders."

Now I see little econoboxes with HAM antennas on the freeway...lol. It's certainly not synonymous to off-roading alone! They're everywhere now. But they sure weren't 10-15 years ago, they were a lot more exclusive (probably because of cost).

Nice to have, sure...but definitely not a requirement to have an adventure. Shackleton didn't need a HAM, and I'd say he was pretty serious when it came to adventuring.

 

[3 DOGS]

For the love of all that is Holy, CB and HAM - would one of you moderators PLEASE remove all the CB vs HAM banter and put it in it's own blow hard thread?? PLEASE!! This thread was probably intended to poke fun at some of the most obnoxious and silly mods we've all seen - as noted by the pics at the begining of this 40+ page thread - but it quickly went south.
Sadly I too got sucked in to reading the ENTIRE f-ing thread (although I did quit actually reading and just skipped past the chest pounding, lipstick smearing on the mic banter of CB vs HAM) and found quite a few entertaining posts - which again is what I think the origninal intent was for the thread.
Yes we all should have our vehicles equipped to get us and/or even others out of trouble. We should know how to use everything too. But for crying out loud if you want a cell phone, CB, Spot, HAM, smoke signals or carrier pigeon then go for which ever one you want. They all have good and bad points - covered OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!
Can we please just make a thread for these folks who are doing nothing more than confusing the heck out of the rest of us with all the tech jargin and doing nothing more than leaving lipstick smears on their mics!?!?!
Scott I hope you get a boil on your bung for starting this mess!!! LOL!

 

[DaveInDenver]

Now I see little econoboxes with HAM antennas on the freeway...lol. It's certainly not synonymous to off-roading alone! They're everywhere now. But they sure weren't 10-15 years ago, they were a lot more exclusive (probably because of cost).

There are around 750,000 amateurs in the U.S., you are bound to come across a few when one-in-400 people have their ticket. They've been there all along but you just notice now that you are looking for them. Back in the 80s and 90s hams would strap those big radios down to the passenger seat and go mobile. Part of the reason it's maybe more common now is, as you say, radios are smaller and cheaper, but also the rules are relaxed with respect to identifying yourself as not at your home station and logging your transmissions. Used to be the FCC could inspect your station anytime it wished and would need to see logs, which is pretty uncommon now.

 

[4x4junkie]

Yes we all should have our vehicles equipped to get us and/or even others out of trouble. We should know how to use everything too. But for crying out loud if you want a cell phone, CB, Spot, HAM, smoke signals or carrier pigeon then go for which ever one you want. They all have good and bad points - covered OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!

I totally 100% completely agree. It's unfortunate there are some in the HAM radio community that don't (and is why we have a thread like this).

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I totally 100% completely agree. It's unfortunate there are some in the HAM radio community that don't (and is why we have a thread like this).

Sometimes the best opinion, is the one you don't want to hear. Nobody is forcing you two to keep reading this thread, let along read all of this thread. If you don't like he opinions of others don't read, nothing unfortunate about that

 

[southpier]

how would one know he didn't like an opinion if it's not read?

 

[noJeepshere]

For the love of all that is Holy, CB and HAM - would one of you moderators PLEASE remove all the CB vs HAM banter and put it in it's own blow hard thread?? PLEASE!! This thread was probably intended to poke fun at some of the most obnoxious and silly mods we've all seen - as noted by the pics at the begining of this 40+ page thread - but it quickly went south.
Sadly I too got sucked in to reading the ENTIRE f-ing thread (although I did quit actually reading and just skipped past the chest pounding, lipstick smearing on the mic banter of CB vs HAM) and found quite a few entertaining posts - which again is what I think the origninal intent was for the thread.
Yes we all should have our vehicles equipped to get us and/or even others out of trouble. We should know how to use everything too. But for crying out loud if you want a cell phone, CB, Spot, HAM, smoke signals or carrier pigeon then go for which ever one you want. They all have good and bad points - covered OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!
Can we please just make a thread for these folks who are doing nothing more than confusing the heck out of the rest of us with all the tech jargin and doing nothing more than leaving lipstick smears on their mics!?!?!
Scott I hope you get a boil on your bung for starting this mess!!! LOL!

This x2^2.



cent frum a smaert fone

 

[southpier]

any chance we could get the "original 10" list reprinted?

 

[cruiseroutfit]

any chance we could get the "original 10" list reprinted?

http://www.expeditionportal.com/res...0-donts-of-overland-vehicle-modification.html

 

[4x4junkie]

Sometimes the best opinion, is the one you don't want to hear. Nobody is forcing you two to keep reading this thread, let along read all of this thread. If you don't like he opinions of others don't read, nothing unfortunate about that

Well, the same thing certainly could be said for you too.

There are several facts that have been ignored by many here, and facts are not variable like opinions can be.

One is the plain & simple fact that CB radios do infact work for numerous people, and they work quite very well IF they are set up properly (more on this below).

Another is dealing with the HAM license exam. Several here have already pointed out many people are not going to sit down and spend a week or longer with their heads stuffed into a technical book for a friggin radio license just to be able to talk to the guy in the next vehicle over.

I have a HAM license myself (well, used to) so I know all about amateur radio and the license exams. The way I got it was by already having an interest in radio as a hobby (which like for a great many HAMs, did infact start with CBs).
As a reminder to other HAMs here, the entry-level Tech class license does require (just to scratch the surface) knowledge about technical terms and legal definitions, basic Ohm's Law, component parts (resistors, capacitors, diodes, chips, etc.) and how they work and their construction, their schematic symbols (and how to read & interpret them), technical details about modes of operation (including non-voice and digital), and of course basic stuff like knowing what frequencies (bands) you can and can't transmit on.
All of this technical mumbo-jumble is elementary to (or at least easily understood by) someone already possessing some intimate radio knowledge or interests (making it easy to minimize), yet it is totally foreign to someone without, and they usually are quickly overwhelmed by it. So the obvious alternative is a simple license-free CB, which all one has to do is go to a retail store, buy a radio and an antenna, bring it home and hook it up in their vehicle, and be on the air.

Now here is where many purchasing CBs make their mistakes (and you cannot fault them for it directly because they simply don't know or realize what exactly it is they need to get, there is a lot of cleverly-marketed garbage out there one can buy unwittingly).
27MHz CB radio requires a decent length antenna (5 feet or longer), and that it be mounted so that 60% or more of it's length is in the clear if it is to work well (this is due to the longer 11M wavelength of 27 MHz vs. 146 MHz, or 2M ham). People make the mistake of buying really short helical-wound thing-a-ma-bobs and mounting them in places like their spare tire carrier or a tail light bracket which means almost the entire (if not the entire) antenna is blocked by the vehicle's roof. That right there is why a radio might have only a mile range, if that. If people are compromising on antennas because of concerns about trees messing up a longer one, all one needs to do is put a flex spring where it screws onto it's mount so that it can spring out of the way should a branch sweep over it.
A 2nd place people make mistakes is buying the cheapest CB unit they can, which only results in sounding muffled and/or distorted over the air (poor quality microphone/low-quality circuits in the radio), and receiving more noise because the unit lacks a good receive filter and/or lacks any noise suppression circuits. Excepting for the Uniden PRO-510XL & 520XL, most units priced less than $75 retail (and small handheld units) have a high probability to disappoint ($80-100 will get you a very nice CB unit if you shop around).

CB frequencies do tend to be noisier than those of 2M HAM, no doubt. This makes a good antenna mounted in the clear (and a radio with good sound quality & receiver) that much more important so that your transmission can be heard above any noise.
I run a 5½-foot Francis whip atop the cab of my vehicle. Under AVERAGE conditions I can talk 10 miles to another vehicle similarly equipped (under ideal conditions 50 or more miles is easily possible). This is using legal output power levels too, no amps. It is very rare that I have a problem hearing someone in the group I'm with on the CB unless their installation is particularly subpar. If more people had better installations (antennas primarily), I don't think we'd see near as many issues with range that people have.

So maybe instead of all the berating of CBs and the people who use them (and pushing people toward alternatives that are not always practical), how about instead helping them get the right equipment so that they can effectively use it??



For example, here's what one needs to get started on the right foot into CB:
Two decent radios covering two price points:
http://www.walcottcb.com/uniden-pro510xl-cb-radio-p-533.html?cPath=377_502_379
http://www.walcottcb.com/uniden-pc68xl-classic-cb-radio-p-529.html?cPath=377_502_379

Antennas:
http://www.walcottcb.com/francis-fiberglass-cb-antennas-55-foot-cb26-p-551.html?cPath=377_352_412
http://www.walcottcb.com/wilson-fgt...s-antenna-black-p-2430.html?cPath=377_352_412

Antenna mounts:
(so many options here, so I'll just give a link to all mounts)
http://www.walcottcb.com/cb-radio-products-cb-antenna-mounts-c-377_28.html

Antenna spring:
http://www.walcottcb.com/firestik-ss3h-stainless-steel-spring-p-585.html?cPath=377_28_444

Magnet mount antenna (that won't just fall off):
http://www.walcottcb.com/wilson-1000-magnet-mount-antenna-900800-p-415.html?cPath=377_352_421

SWR meter to verify the antenna is actually working:
http://www.walcottcb.com/swr2t-swr-meter-for-cb-radio-frequencies-p-2478.html?cPath=377_30

Shopping around should find you even better deals than those.