Ham has WAY more range than CB. CB is restricted to 5 watts output, VHF (aka 2m) ham is up to 50 watts. So right there you get 10 times the range (roughly).
In the 2m and 440 cm bands, many ham clubs put up repeaters*, so you get way more range.
For example, if you know Calgary area at all, one of the primary repeaters is on the top of Nose Hill in the centre of town. As a result, with the mobile radio in the car, you can talk to anyone roughly in the area of Banff Park gates in the west to Bassano in the east, Nanton in the south to Airdrie in the north (Nose Hill shadows it to the N and NW).
Also, repeaters can and are often linked. The Foothills Amateur Radio Society has linked repeaters, so that from Calgary all the way down to the Crowsnest Pass and Lethbridge is all connected.
Furthermore, the repeaters can and are linked to the Internet, called IRLP. With that, you can link a repeater to any other IRLP repeater in the world. So if a ham in Bristol was with Mystery Machine, I could sit in my back yard with a little handheld radio, and talk to Bruce.
Can't do that kinda stuff with CB. (Ignoring illegal high-power amps)
And using the High Frequency bands (HF), you can talk directly around the world.
Of course, all of this needs:
a) a licence, which requires some knowledge and passing a test. Not too hard if you are electronically minded.
b) money
c) knowledge of how all these systems work, and the frequencies they work on.
With CB on the highway, turn it to Ch 19 and you are done.
In the Edmonton area, the
Strathcona Radio Volunteers are a ham and CB club that do lots of cool stuff. Their website isn't much, but contact James, I'm sure he'll give you more "scoop", and help you with getting a licence if you go that route.
Reinhold wrote:What equipment is required for a mobile Ham radio setup? I just picture the whole back of the van loaded with radio equipment and a spinning dish on the roof.
Need? I started with a handheld radio plugged into cigarette lighter outlet.
Ended up with ... check page 2 of this thread
on volkswagons to see where I ended up -- not that it looked like that all the time.
* repeater: a radio that is mounted on a high spot (mountain top, communications tower, highrise, etc.). It listens to one frequency, and re-transmits immediately everything it hears. Everyone listens on the repeater's frequency, but when you transmit you use the frequency the repeater is listening to. That way everyone is hearing from you, but via the transmitter located on the high point. Sounds complicated, but the radios are designed to do this automatically, so it isn't that bad.