Cb & PA

At the risk of sounding obtuse, best for *what*? F'r instance, what do you want to use the PA for, and is the CB going to be for yard use, or SSB DXing, or ?? Without some specifics of what you're asking, I'm afraid your question is somewhat akin to "How long is a piece of string?"

73,
Handlebar

 

I don't know if there is a such thing as the "best PA". Every PA horn I've been around are really not that loud. Then again I've used the truck stop Bar-junk stuff so maybe that's it. Heck I like the look and (what seems to be) robustness of their gold metal horns.

Try Radio Shack, last I checked they had PA horns, some amplified I think.

The truck stop PA horns can't handle much power (about 10 watts IIRC) and aren't very loud when used in a vehicle on a CB. In fact they're good for ##### and giggles if you have a CB like a Uniden PC68LTW that lets you broadcast the weather over the PA.

As for "what's the best CB", that's a loaded question....depends on what you want....all CB's are designed to do one thing....transmit and receive. The next question is "Do I need a single sideband radio?/Do any of my other drivers use single sideband?" or "Do I just want to talk on channel 19 only?" You also need to ask yourself "Do I want to piss off people by buying a CB with echo and roger beep built in?"

For the new trucker, I always recommend my two picks for CB....a Cobra 25 or a Uniden PC 68. IMO either of these have everything you could want/need for a CB.

I personally think the Unidens are built better but the Cobras are ok. The older Cobras were really good, as they had Uniden boards in them.

 

My experience with consumer grade PA stuff is similar to Turbo's. There's really just not a very big audio power amp in a CB to start with, and most small horns are rated at less than 20 watts *peak*.
I'm retired from a career where a 90- or 100-watt PA was coupled to a 100-ish-watt siren, with one or two speakers mounted on either the roof or behind the grill. Years ago it was popular to attempt to use the PA during a pursuit to suggest that either the object of our activity, or the clowns immediately in front of us, pay attention to their mirrors and find another lane for a few moments. Similar thing was happening with the EMS guys, although obviously they weren't trying to stop cars.
We learned that voices coming out of the PA of a moving vehicle gets compressed somewhat by the Doppler effect, and also does not project out as far ahead as would seem intuitive. The PA was best used to get information to people we were alongside, or when stopped and attempting to make contact with someone who either could not or would not help us find them, like in a building or a field, etc.
These days, I'm probably no more sedate than I used to be, so it's a good thing I *don't* have a good PA available. I can easily imagine finally coming alongside some miscreant who'd cut me off a few times or was playing Pong on his Android phone in the hammer lane, yelling "Moron!" at him, then getting blue-lighted by him moments later.
<sigh>
The small ones might be OK for communicating with someone who's outside his cab and not standing right next to a running truck, but for on-road or busy yard yelling at some goof who's tying up the fuel island while he's washing his feet, it might not work unless he's shut down.
eekBay frequently has surplus Federal and Whelan siren heads and speakers for under $200, but if it's a head that got operated into either an open or shorted speaker circuit for just a second or two, the cost of repair might exceed the purchase cost. But one that's working right would sure be cool if there were an easy place to conceal one of the low profile speakers.
73,
Handlebar

 

I have yet to see a CB Radio that had a PA system that was worth a crap...Almost every CB made has a PA function...Never really understood why tho, because the CB itself just isn't powerful enough to make a PA very loud...If you want something like the Police use, your going to have to look at separate Mobil PA system by itself...

Something like this...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-Loud-Ho...ideo&hash=item43b2939d8a&vxp=mtr#ht_50wt_1084

 

Does a linear make your PA louder???? Never tried this so don't know........... To be loud you will need about a 100 watt PA system. A stock CB PA would probably only be heard at a stop light with the windows down.

 

no...different circuit...

 

Yep, linear amps don't work with PA set ups. However it might be possible to take an actual car stereo amp, like a mono amp, and run the PA from the CB into it, then get you two 8 ohm PA horns and run them in parallel as to make a 4 ohm load that would be suitable for the amp.