Where to start?

General Chat - one nine for a roger!
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cdaw
Good Buddy
Good Buddy
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:51 pm
Location: West Drayton, UB7

Can anyone tell me how many users there are in England (or UK) using CB and HAM? I understand from previous postings that CB'ers have declined but having never been interested in CB and HAM I have no clue how many there were in the past and how many there are now and there's no data on the internet with figures (that I can find).

I'm interested in getting a radio, but do I choose CB to start or do the test and go on amateur radio. I have a scanner (GRE PSR-290) and have picked up amateur users around 143Mhz and 433Mhz but no CB'ers - this is from my house in UB7 and also on the road whilst driving home from GU21 via the M25 then off at J14 and going around LHR.

Also, is PMR446 along a similar line to CB and HAM?

I'm keen to get a handheld, get an antenna on my car and one at home an get chatting to people all over (I only starting with a scanner this year and also doing some plane spotting with a new camera).
Amateur call sign: M6UCW
Uniden USC230 , Baofeng UV-5R , Yaesu FT-7900 , Icom IC-207H , CS700
Find me on GB3AL, GB3HR & GB7NS (DMR) and scanning many others
Also scanning VHF, UHF & DMR simplex frequencies
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stampman
- - -> CB God <- - -
- - -> CB God <- - -
Posts: 6090
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:36 pm
Location: lancaster

all radios work by the same system ham radio gets then farthest by useing repeaters cb radio is the next with pmr bringing up the rear with poor range because the have the lowest power out put so i would go for the ham radio test and take that route if you only want 10-15 mile range then cb is for you or if you just want to direct the wife when she is mowing the lawn then pmr hope this helps


*King* *King* *King* *King*
if it anit broke dont fix it
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andy@thunderpole.co.uk
Site Admin
Posts: 1122
Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:53 pm
Location: Northampton
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You can also take a look at our CB user map to see if there are many local CB users to you...

http://www.thunderpole.co.uk/cb-radio-user-map.html

Andy :wink:
Dragonfly
Motor Mouth!
Motor Mouth!
Posts: 436
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:11 pm

Think I read somewhere that there are 80.000 registered amaters in the UK and the number of new registrations has increased over the last few years , Its estimated that there is Around the same number of CB users as amaters .
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AppleTree
Chatter Box
Chatter Box
Posts: 217
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:39 pm
CB Handle: Uncle Bulgaria
Location: Stanford-Le-Hope, Essex

Well there is a fair few around here (Essex)
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