Jopix PT-31 CB and local to me Bedford members

Hi All,

I hope you're keeping well and enjoying your radio interests.


I certainly am with my new Yaesu FT-710 burying myself well into some FT8 forays and finally achieving my DX100 award with my clothes line antenna.

More recently though I realised I'd been a bit amiss on the old CB front especially after some local operators joined the throngs of Charlie Tango recently. I thought the CB air waves were well and truly dead round my area but decided to check things out and rather than rely on a time-out webSDR or divert my Ham attentions away from what I'm currently enjoying I purchased a little stand alone CB radio.

Quite the bargain too at the £39:95 price mark.....

Simple, small and quite a change from the rigs from the old days that's for sure. (This thing is tiny!)

Not having a separate antenna for just CB radio I quickly knocked together a helical wound antenna thingy on an old fibreglass rod with a few wires for ground plane elements and......well, it just wasn't good enough. SWR was fine at less than 1.5 but I was barely making it into the local webSDR. So out came the tried and tested cut two lengths of wire and get the missus up in the loft to string me together an Inverted V.....Much better.  

With that and suitably screwed to a space (did I mention it's tiny?!) on my radio shelves I fired her up and set it to scan.

Not much was happening but after flicking it to EU mode plenty of signals were being heard on the Continental chatter we had with the skip today showing that everything was in working order.  (I did try a few shouts but didn't get anywhere.)

I left it on scan for the UK band in the end and quite forgot about it scrolling through the channels.

Later this evening whilst finishing up my evening meal I swore blind I could hear voices coming from the radio room so dragged my backside up there to check it out. Glad I did as I was rewarded with the sound of two very local voices on the airwaves having a chat and called in with a 'break-break'.


I got to speak to Wayne 26-CT-5262 and Peter 26-CT-7676 and although a brief chat as they were tying up for the evening it was a pleasure to catch people local on the old CB bands when I'd thought the local airwaves were dead. It honestly was a real pleasure and was informed that there were quite a few more people beside in the area so looking forward to catching some of them on air.

So thank you to Wayne and Peter plus a big thanks to Charlie Tango as I may have never known they were on air otherwise.  



It doesn't always have to big, fancy, lots of power or DX to enjoy your radio interests and I was as thrilled to catch locals on the little setup as I am far flung countries on the Ham bands.

Enjoy your radio.

All the best,
Victor

Nice one Victor, that's the experience I am looking for as I've never done any ham or CB before hoping for results like this near me and get local contacts too. CB was the quick and legal way for me to dip my toes so to speak.

Best

26-CT_5268
Stuart

Hi Stuart,

I faced pretty much what I thought was dead-air when I first came back to CB radio about five or so years ago which was quite the shock from the busy 80s/90s when I was last on air. After almost a year with only a bit of 'skip' action I decided to take my Ham exam especially as it was available online during the pandemic. 

Got pretty much wrapped up in that over the last few years and it was only recently that I decided to get another CB specifically looking for traffic in my local area after seeing some new members on CT from my neck of the woods.

Glad that I did and finally managed to gain some local contacts of which I thought I was bereft of.  

Worth sticking with it there Stuart as you just never know and may even be worth having a look at the Amateur Radio exam especially with free courses provided by Essex Ham and online examinations facilities.

In the mean time the Charlie Tango forum is a good place to hang out and pretty much what I did to start with becoming so involved that I finally joined the voluntary team here. I've made some good friends and although mainly online I've caught a few on air too which is great.


I wish you luck.

All the best,
Victor

I have just seen this photo, you bought JOPIX, i did a order today for same radio for my car during winter, i use a ANYTONE in the car, same kind of small radio unit, that set for our road service, Moose Forest radio so wanted a cb to be along side, will let you know how it does on the air Victor.

https://www.rxtx.fi/paavalikko/jopix-pt31-cb27-pieni-la-radiopuhelin-autoon-40ch/p/201009/ 

My version cost a bit more ,Finland has a 25.5 tax,

Hi Glenn,

The one I got was on sale and I had accumulated some customer reward points so the shipping was essentially free. After recently getting my Yaesu cash-back of £85 I'm still quids in.  

It's an amazingly tiny little radio that comes with a handy slide mount/bracket (so should fit pretty much anywhere) and the microphone is basically the same size as my old Icom HM-103 tear drop which is a perfect size for mobile work. (Or in my case takes less desk room. )

I'm surprised at how well it receives especially on my knocked together Inverted V and even at 4W it's fulfilling it's role for local work.

It's the same as the CRT Millennium, PNI HP 6500, Thunderpole T600 (mine is a blue/white LED model) so any modifications etc. will be the same. I've left mine as stock to be fully legal with 40 channels EU AM/FM then the UK 40 Ch. FM although I did tweak the FM modulation pot inside as it was a bit 'Ham Radio' quiet.

I've got to say I'm quite pleased with it and it has plenty of loud volume on it's little speaker (more than enough for mobile work) with the decent sized on/off volume knob being easy to use plus a great squelch that doesn't "thump" when it kicks in. 

I'd certainly recommend it from what I've experienced and I hope yours serves you well.  


All the best,
Victor

Thanks for the info Victor,,will let you know how good set up in the car

Hello Victor,

Pleased you are getting some good local contacts.

Good luck with your new radio, Glenn.

73s John.