I used to fool around and trying to make a living with electronics so I managed to get some tools to start some repairs. I got lots of tools but a spectrum analyzer it’s something that was missing.
So I managed to know about the RTLSDR and found it pretty useful to test RF remotes but it was also a very interesting radio device for listening a pretty large amount of frequencies. So I started listening lots of frequencies completely ignoring the existence of the band plans.
Everything began in 2017 when I was listening hams on 70cm repeaters with a RTLSDR attached to the TV antenna that the state finally abolished papers for the CB. Very interesting… So, I felt that was time to get one. But which one? I knew nobody I could trust with getting a used one…
So, after extensive internet browsing, I finally bought a brand new President McKinley (TXPR600) and managed to attach it to a piece of wire on the window. Worst choice for a CB antenna except for swling maybe.
Luckily for me that radio is pretty tolerant with messing with antenna SWR so I didn’t managed to damage it while messing with grounding, wire length and nearby metal objects in antenna’s near zone (all concept that were unknown to me at the time).
To add the overall sadness to the situation the QTH is at the bottom floor of one of the lowest places in town. Very few stations could hear my signal so my activity was pretty limited.
One day while scanning the band searching for some random chattering where to eventually break I heard a something whistling. Something vaguely reminiscent of the FT8 digital mode but starting WSJTX didn’t managed to decode a thing…
Searching the internet I found JS8Call that uses very same modulation but different protocol to implement a messaging program. So after installing the program computer started to decode incoming messages… Very, very nice. Now I need to try to transmit something. I hastily attached a USB soundcard to a GX-16 connector and placed it in the radio’s MIC input.
Since the McKinley has VOX I hadn’t to add a serial port so I was quickly ready to transmit and I sent some “heartbeats” putting the radio at full power (I wasn’t aware that’s not a good practice but radio still survives) waiting for replies.
After some times, one after one, stations from outside managed to reply. That was amazing. It got a bit boring but I managed to communicate very far compared to the USB modulation.
I even managed to chat with a guy in south-east of England during a hot midnight in August. Felt kinda epic for a newbie like me.
When sadness and loneliness come hitting hard I go to the same bar drinking beer. Always hoping to chat with someone that doesn’t go down chattering about their life and their problems. It’s something I hate to do myself.
After a couple of beers, one of the friends I’ve known there just started asking what I’ve done these days and I just told him I was fooling around with the CB radio.
He started asking why… Why using a radio when there’s the internet… I told him that’s for the same reason people go farming or fishing even if supermarkets exists. But you have to try yourself to understand better.
Immediately after a guy came and told me: “Don’t know that you have rights to put a real antenna on the roof?”. I was kinda disturbed by his sudden intervention but before I could say a thing he stated he was a ham radio operator.
After we exchanged numbers, we knew each other some more, after some days I finally had a real antenna setup. And the 555 finally heard my name. :D