CB With SSB or Mobile CB plus Scanner or Off Road CB?

Overthinking things as usual and thought I'd shake the tree for thoughts, opinions and other ideas.

I'm looking over a couple of different CB options and would like your thoughts on the added functionality of a scanner outweighs Single Side Band capabilities from a preparedness perspective. IMO CB is still an area you want to cover because there are still a ton of them out there and if we lose cell towers and other commercial available communications systems all those old units will likely come back in service. CB also has added utility if you need to bug out or get back home since it is still used heavily by the trucking community.

I have room in my vehicle for one more communications device and have been mulling over the following:

1. An "offroad" style CB with all controls (in fact the entire transceiver) in the mike that would let me mount a small connector box under the dash or other hidden location. You can get extra connector boxes to make it easy to move it from vehicle to vehicle. The main drawback is that none of these have SSB. Here is the Cobra C75 WX ST
   
2. Full size SSB CB like the Uniden Bearcat 980. The only drawback is size since I'm already mounting the control heads for my Kenwood HF and VHF/UHF transceivers in the console area of the dash so it will need to go in a "hump mount" on the floor. If SSB is of marginal value, then the Cobra above would work better. Here is the Bearcat 980:
   
   
3. The last choice is very intriguing: The Uniden BearTracker 885. It combines a CB (alas no SSB) with a scanner and weather information. It has a GPS that it uses to reference an onboard updatable database so it automatically knows what channels to scan. It does analog, several flavors of digital, trunking, etc. and has a feature that will alert you to emergency comms nearby to you can heighten your awareness and also start scanning if you aren't already doing so.To me these features make up for having to hump mount it. Here is a YT video going over its features:
   

 

Yeah, you are overthinking this.

Hardy anyone uses CB, and even fewer use SSB. So SSB capability is kind of waste of time and money unless you're using it as part of an agreed-upon group comms system. Even then, why?

I don't like all-in-the-mic CBs but if you don't have much space then the decision is kind of made for you. They work as good as anything else, I just don't like the style.

CB/scanner combos sound like a gimmick even if they do save space. No.

And @BTPost is 100% right...the FCC has few cops on the beat so they have to be very selective about who they bust. They've got bigger fish to fry than chasing 11 meter Bubbas. Use the Kenwood if you feel daring. They'll never notice unless you are interfering with NASA comms or something really serious.

My vote is for good old no frills AM CB. The radios are super-cheap if you buy used (nice clean ones are less than ten bucks each at swap meets). Forget SSB, and if you want a scanner and lack mounting space for a stand-alone unit, get a handheld scanner and roll with that. You'll have the added bonus of being able to take it with you outside the vehicle.

 

My vote is for full size.with ssb. Ssb will get you some extra distance if you need to talk, and is much less used. Sounds like you don't need to worry about easy mods after shtf, but others might like to be able to clip some wires.and add a few switches.to go where bubba can't, only after shtf of course. My choice was the Galaxy dx959, I am mostly happy with it, mostly.

 

I am an "other" voter.

Not that I prefer it over other radios. But, in my 1990 Jeep YJ, in addition to my ham radio equipment, I also had a Radio Shack Sports TRC-442, CB radio. It was water resistant. So, I found myself leaving it in the Jeep most of the time. I, however, always removed my ham equipment, due to those radios being quite costly.

I mainly used that little radio for trail rides, as many off-road enthusiasts I ran with were not amateur radio operators. On the odd occasion that I came across another ham off-road, we would just switch to 2 meters simplex,in order to talk.



With that said, I would just use a 10 meter rig, as has been advised, to cover 11 meters.

 

I was unaware of Galaxy before your post - that dx959 looks like an exceptional transceiver. It's also noteworthy that there looks like a lot of activity tuning and upgrading them.

 

SSB has its advantages, but that's already been covered. Got a couple from my pre-ham days...Grant xl, Washington base, PC122...but don't really need or use them. The one most recently used is an old AM unit in its own case with a mag mount collapsible antenna. If I didn't have an HF rig in the vehicle, I would have it in use.

But back to the OP's prep-oriented question...ssb can be fairly small, such as the Uniden PC122 and you'd still have room for a Homepatrol scanner for darned near everything else.

Just remember the basic premise...a cheap radio with a great antenna will beat a top end radio with a junk antenna almost every time.