CB Radio in A Class motorhome

[Bucephalus]

Hello all.

Over the years I have had CB's of both AM and FM mainly in the trucks we used when whitelining. Latest use was in motorsport either in the rally car, chase car or if I was a safety radio car in the forest stages for in stage positive reporting. All have been in steel shelled vehicles. Electrics are not my strong point and phrases like ground plane make my eyes spin.

Next year we are travelling to Spain for our annual get some sun in winter trip, but this time we will be joined by friends and will be travelling together. Walkie-talkies do not have the battery power to last long so CB's became the answer. We both have aluminium clad A class motorhomes and would prefer not to be drilling holes in our lovely kit. I have some magnetic adhesive material, plastic/rubber I think, which a mag mount antenna could be mounted on. Now comes the ground plane stuff. 

Would my idea work, or is further work needed.

Nigel.

[Keithl]

The usual way to add a CB aerial without drilling a panel was to use a bonnet or fender mount but I'm not sure whether this would work on an A Class 🤷‍♂️

Do you have any sort of rear ladder or roof fixing you could use? eg I have removed the round Status TV aerial from our MH and this has left a (now sealed) hole through the roof along with four fixing holes which could be used to secure a ground plane.

[MikeF]

On 11/08/2024 at 16:34, Bucephalus said:

Would my idea work, or is further work needed.

You have a problem in that UK approved CB equipment operated on a different frequency range and bands to EU equipment. UK 27.6 to 27.9 MHz, EU 26.6 to 27.4 MHz. Thus UK stuff is illegal in Spain. 

There exists special feed coax to simulate a ground plane, search for 'NGP' equipment. 

You can buy excellent PMR446 radios for short range, mobile phone for longer contacts.

[Bucephalus]

Thanks both. Do not have a ladder or a Status aerial. The only things of the roof are 2 solar panels, a bee sting aerial, a 4g booster antenna and a satellite dish.

I am getting used to things from the UK being illegal in Spain.

We will have to stick to walkie talkies and a USB charger. 

Thanks.

[onecal]

Hi 

Yes they work , make sure only your passenger is operating it .or you may get a fine especially in some E.U countries  unless hands free.

Regards

Edited August 13 by onecal

[tonyishuk]

You might get a ground plane effect if you made ground connection to the chassis, loadsa steel underneath !  still leaves a problem of mounting the aerial.  

Or use a mobile signal booster using a local (country to country) sim. That way you would have mobile signal and hotspots for other mobile devices.

Maybe ?

[Geeco]

I use a 5watt hand held CB & found it has been a useful device. I would expect that a unit would be available to suit both EU & UK channels. In the outback a CB is very necessary to communicate with wide loads & road trains. Cheers,

Edited August 30 by Geeco

[Keithl]

6 hours ago, Geeco said:

I would expect that a unit would be available to suit both EU & UK channels. 

Unfortunately not!

UK law expressly prohibits the ownership of any device which can transmit on any frequency other than those allowed under the UK license. So owning a device in the UK which transmits on EU frequencies is illegal.

As MikeF said earlier PMR446 radios are the only legal route I know of (assuming they are legal in the EU).

Keith.