CB Radio Single Side Band (SSB) Explained

What is SSB? Demonstration of term and using a radio on SSB

[nickpandolfi]

Thank you for this helpful video I am back into it after being gone for 35 years. I bought a Cobra 2000 GTL with side band I even bought a D104 made for side band.. I'm very excited Thanks. Nick

[theoldhobbit]

Sir, can I just say thank you for the simplified information surrounding SSB. I am a complete novice to SSB radio and here in the UK we run our UK FM straight 40, European 40 and SSB. I have to admit to having a radio that also offers some additions but I wont go into that on a public site :). Must of what I read and watch just adds to the confusion but information broken down in to layman's terms takes away some of the mystery. Keep up the good work.

[buzzsah]

SSB works on PEP= peck envelop power. USB / LSB legel18 watts of modulated pep power. The clarifier can be unlocked or opened so as to work on AM as well to slide between channels. The only problem with SSB is it's hard to have a 3 or 4 way conversion. Also at one time there were only a few channels that SSB could use like 35 & above do to splatter over to AM. It was a gentleman's agreement between AM'ers & SSB'ers the AM'ers would not use 35 & above for the same reason..

[danwinkler]

Wow flash from the past. My dad had a corbra like that in the 70's.We had a beam antenna and used to talk all over the country..too cool to see one now. many thanks!

[henryjoly]

I also have an old 142. I think this is one of the clearest talking SSB radios with a D104 hooked up to it. I love it!!! Great vid and thanks for the info.

[poikaa]

Single Side Band mode is lots of fun and more efficient in frequency usage than AM mode. A few AM signals on the same channel (frequency) will create many hetrodynes or tones (noise and whistles) of the carriers 'beating' on each other. Several SSB stations will not make this noise and the plus is than the range is increased. I can easily 'talk' 75 to 125 miles with no skip, whereas AM is reduced to 5 to 30 miles. AM is like a dull knife (wide bandwidth) where SSB is sharp (narrow bandwidth) and 'cuts' farther!
  The Voice Lock or clarifier is a BFO that re-creates the base carrier that is missing  in SSB mode, tuning this BFO (zero beat) changes the pitch of the SSB signal so that it sounds near normal. Not all transmitters are the same so one would have to re-tune the BFO for each, but close is good enough!

[daviator]

Thank you good explanation for the beginner with SSB

[quaxk]

there's no speeding up or slowing down, I don't know where you got that, it's just the pitch that change

[Centar]

SSB is just AM with the carrier and one of the resulting sidebands filtered out ...on AM the radio outputs 4 watts carrier and 4 watts in both the upper and lower sidebands with 100% modulation resulting in 12 watts total but spread out, On SSB the power can be increased 3 times (12 watts) without overheating the final output transistor and giving a little over 1 db boost in your signal using less bandwidth but the carrier must be reinserted on the receiving side (clarifier) and finely adjusted to match the transmitters frequency exactly or the pitch of the sound will be off. There is also DSB, double side band...or carrier suppressed AM.  FYI, sidebands are created from the modulation and is where the information is in the signal on AM SSB or DSB.

[Hilander]

SSB totally legal. No license needed. You pick your own call numbers.

[pavelavietor]

hello, my understanding is it splits in 3, the carrier and one band power is utilized on a single side band. 🎉 great video thanks for promoting citizen Band Radio. saludos

[Hilander]

Thanks for the very informative info. Do appreciate all constructive additions. Thanks for watching

[peterbrown]

In layman terms: THANK YOU. President Grant II from LONDON UK

[UpcomingJedi]

So they put a speed up / slow down control? Which radio has a button that i can push to shock everyone else when i want them to shut up or get off of MY channel so i can use my radio? Lots of people say there is no such thing but there HAS to be.

[juanperez-sbwo]

When I 1st started driving I had 2 of those 20, 000 watts helical antennas and just a regular cobra 29 lx, I was in mississippi and could hear someone from Texas, Virginia, and few times from California

[clintoncann]

My Call sign is VB31 if you ever hear skip from western australia on channel 27.35.50mhz LSB

[lochinvar]

A bit of modulation theory would help here. AM is a carrier which when modulated generates sidebands above and below it in proportion to the frequency being modulated. IE: a 1 Khz audio on a carrier of 27Mhz will result in 27Mhz(the carrier), 26.999Mhz(the lower sideband), and 27.001Mhz(the4 upper sideband). What SSB does is eliminate the carrier and one of the sidebands. The carrier has to be re-injected with the received sideband for it to re-create the original audio at the proper frequency(to match the transmitter) for it to sound right. An SSB signal broadcasting a tone, would be as a dead carrier on AM and would seem to be that.
Theoretically, two conversations could take place on an SSB channel, one USB the other LSB. In practice not only is that true, but sometimes two or three conversations can take place on the same sideband if they are separated in frequency. One would hear unintelligible garble but this is usually easy to ignore on a good radio because it is greatly suppressed by good filters.

[anthonyglaser]

this is a very helpful video. Thanks for posting.

[tonypenachio]

Love that Cobra base..had them 4 yrs & still

[ZS]

thanks for the info, it's weird cuz this is the radio I plan on buying too lol