And now comes the assumed anachronism, the CB radio made famous in the ‘Smoky and the Bandit’. The Citizens Band radio is alive and well as evidenced by Wal-Mart still selling them. Wal-mart would NOT be carrying them if they were not turning a profit consistently.  I was talking with the manager of that department recently and he said that locally they were selling on average 20 a month. For under $60.00 you can be up and running with a 40 channel radio, magna-mount antenna and a cigarette lighter power plug. Or you can go to any truck stop and shop for a bunch of different radio systems. You can also get a ‘side band’ radio that splits the signal so that you effectively have 120 channels in the CB family. As a practical matter you do not need a license to use CBs.

CBs are great for chatting and passing on useful information too. They are also great for local area comms. Today you can get road info from the truckers. When you go to a new town – when you are travelling- you can get on the CB for ‘local’ info.

We are NOT going to discus the use of Marine band radios on dry land as currently it is illegal to use them that way. Business or commercial band radios are limited and you still need a license to use them. All that being said, in a true life or limb emergency the FCC says that you CAN use any form of communication to get help. [if anyone happens to be listening to that frequency is another matter]