Well, I can see not too many people on this site are into CB's, but I thought I'd share this anyway.

Been waiting for a long time to hear from the guy who's supposed to paint my truck and still haven't heard from him, so I bought a new toy...Enter the New RCI-63FFC4:



One hell of a switch from my Radio Shack rig. I can't wait to power this thing on and hammer down.

This is one SERIOUS radio. 400w PEP 200w RMS. Just wonder if my little stock truck is going to be able to handle this bad boy.

 

freakin sweet man. Where at and how much? Guessing channel mod too?

 

Nice! I got a donor CB for free from my cousin

But ya i dont see a problem running it, it would help if u had a volt gauge to see tho. My cousin is running both an electric fan, tuned CB, and amp for the CB and a powerful sound system and his truck does fine (Its an 88 btw). I would jus recommend getting maybe a bigger battery jus in case. And a really good antenna so u can use it efficiantly IMO.

 

oh yeah if I was running that kind of radio, I would run one of these: http://www.monkeymade.com/ . Heck I should be running mine with my Shooting Star.

 

^^ Dam that looks freakin legit! Never seen something like that

 

no mobile antenna in the world except for maayyyybe a 102" whip can beat that monkeymade. And a 102" whip isn't gonna support 30,000 watts of power though it. IMO making the monkeymade antennas the worlds best mobile antenna.

SO next time your on the highway and see a rig running these antennas you know for a fact he's running some power in his radio. You just don't spend the cash for one of these things with a dinky 4W radio.

 

Well, I ordered it from these guys: http://www.starelectronicsandcommuni...nications.aspx


A little more expensive than some other places but they do the freq conversion and a tune so I don't have to mess with it. Not only that, finding accurate instructions for the conversion is a little hard to come by, although I've heard that Ranger is somewhat loose when responding to questions of that nature.

And I just HAD to buy this. The parts for this radio are so expensive and hard to come by, that Ranger discontinued this model.

 

Not too sure but I think radios that put out 30,000 watts of power aren't made. Not to mention the amount of power needed just to properly run that much. But I'm sure you were just exaggerating....

102" steel whips come in different power ratings, up to 500 watts. Any more power than that is really just overkill. Even 400 is a little much.

 

Yeah ranger is kinda loose on them too. I have a Superstar radio that has been channel converted as well. They are also made by ranger. then there is my 200W Shooting Star. Basically a palomar copy.

 

Nope not exaggerating, that's what they are rated for 30,000 watts.

3,000-4000 watts is easy. http://redmancb.com/Fatboy.html

 

oh and your right they aren't made, they are almost all home made: 10,000watt : http://5-19lamia.blogspot.com/

 

Holy crap..."Oh, that thing officer? That's uh....uh..."

That's gotta be for an AM radio station or something. Even though CB is AM, this would be the wrong application. As for the radio, I should've said "Commercially Available"

 

there's actually a couple of companies that make open-coil ants, usually aluminum.

monkeymade and predator are probably some of the more common ones, but the real hardcore keydown competitors also run davemade ants (rod of god) or fighting sticks (hot and reflector).

mr coily also has coil ants, and some other brands too but i just can't remember them now.

for daily use, we run the 102" whips or 7' skipshooters off the bumper.

for dx, we run MM ants in a "poof the roof" setup.

 

a decent whip can take well over 500w - i used to run 500-600w through my 25 year old whip, no problems. i've seen up to 2kw run through a stock 102" whip without any negative effects (other than the thing heating up enough to light a cigarette at the tip and turning on flourescent tubes nearby).

 

technically, you are correct - it's not the radio, per se, that puts out that much power. it's the amps it's connected to.

10kW is almost the min it would take to enter a "sky's the limit" keydown. i'm sure many competitors run at least 30kW, if not more, sometimes runnng tube amps and a/c (from a generator underhood, hooked up to the engine).

most of the sky's the limit competitors come up to the line w/ longnose suburbans with BBC motors and multiple alts (like a rack of 4 or more leece-neville or ohio generator alts) or even an a/c generator if they're running a/c tubes.

they put out enough RFI to mess up videocameras filming the events from a distance - forget about the parlor tricks of lighting up flourescent tubes.

 

Ok now that's just ridiculous. 30kW? I was wrong...that's overkill! I bet you could talk to just about anyone in the world with that kind of power...shut down cars..

Now that I think about it...where's the sport in that? I think we should draw the line somewhere...just my 2 cents.

 

remember these things are also designed with hammies in mind not just the 11 meter CB bands, then you got the 10 meter, 80 meter, etc etc.

30, 40 50 kw power is also used in alot of military communications as well.

 

i run a 400 watt palomar, run by a old cobra 148 (with channel kit) in my work truck
and then i have a 200 watt palomar for in the 4runner, now that its mine

i've had good luck with wilson ant.

 

it's not so much for talking all over the world when you get to that level - it's about walking on your opponent at a keydown. basically, purpose built rigs and vehicles for one purpose - maximizing output in a single direction (that's why you see some rigs with five antennas in a reflector array, big block motors with nitrous just to spin up a bank of alternators and charge a trunk full of batteries, etc...).

kind of like soundoff/db drag vehicles. totally impractical, definitely overkill, but that's what their owners are into.

i guess the sport is that anyone has a chance to win - vehicles with a simple rod of god or backdoor setup have come in and walked all over vehicles with more power and multiple antenna setups.

 

guess what all, my shooting star 225 is pretty much dead, been trying to battle a squeel issue and redid my mount etc etc, SWR good a little higher on 40 then 1 but still under 1.5. Took the unit out of the loop and no squeel. Guess 40W pep is gonna have to do haha.