Just bought this bad boy

[OwlHoot]

On a whim, well with one eye on prepping, I just blew £250 on a WOUXUN KG-UV950P 50 Watt Quad-Bander, Un-Blocked

I don't know the first thing about CB Radio, and I suspect not all of the bands are legal in the UK. So before using it I plan to attend CB Radio courses to clue myself up. May even learn morse code!

I wonder if one can buy transceivers for longer wavelengths, perhaps with a range of hundreds of miles, as these might be useful for communicating with fellow preppers after a major SHTF event, just to find out what happened and its extent.

[Appin]

The Quad bands referred to are Amateur Bands not CB.

The bands on the Wouxun are the 10m 6m 2m and 70cm amateur bands.

The CB frequency range is from 27.60125 MHz to 27.99125 MHz.

As such the bands covered by the Wouxun are all legal in the UK BUT only if you have a radio ham licence. The Radio Amateur exam has been discussed several times in this section. It is straight forward. Go on to these bands and call "breaker breaker" in CB style and you will have problems.

Check the RSGB website for a local course to get your basic ( M6) amateur licence.

Appin

[Deeps]

On a whim, well with one eye on prepping, I just blew £250 on a WOUXUN KG-UV950P 50 Watt Quad-Bander, Un-Blocked

I don't know the first thing about CB Radio, and I suspect not all of the bands are legal in the UK. So before using it I plan to attend CB Radio courses to clue myself up. May even learn morse code!

I wonder if one can buy transceivers for longer wavelengths, perhaps with a range of hundreds of miles, as these might be useful for communicating with fellow preppers after a major SHTF event, just to find out what happened and its extent.

Welcome to the forum, can you post an intro in the 'New Members Start Here' section. Cheers.

[Chunk]

Appin is 100% on that mate. To add to that, going for the license isn’t that hard! Ham frequencies are far superior than CB. I was up a local hill with a hand held on 2m and got 96 miles (simplex)

For anyone who’s not not a ham some of what’s being said may sound confusing. Basically I stated that I was up a hill with a hand held radio and was using a VHF frequency and reached someone 96 miles away only using 5w of power! Simplex meaning I wasn’t using a reapeater which would of made the jump probably a lot further.

[Appin]

The Foundation licence course run for Cheshire Lancashire and surrounding areas by Dave Wilson and company covers everything in one weekend. Intermediate takes 2 and a half weekends.

Pass rate superb. Trust me the Foundation licence is straightforward. Dave told me there youngest candidate was 8 and their oldest 81 both passed first time.

[Stu_2E0BBN]

Another one to recommend the foundation license. I did mine years ago when you had to pay every year to renew it but now it's a single payment and you just inform them you want to keep the callsign every 5 years.