What is the future of CB radio?

Currently Citizen Band (CB) radio is alive and flourishing in communities such as SES emergency services, ‘grey nomads’, road transport, farming and mining areas just to name a few. However its future is still unclear.

According to Lawrence McKenna, senior telecommunications/ICT systems engineer at Sinclair Knight Merz, these communities are looking for a lot more from their CB radios. McKenna presented his paper, ‘Citizen Band in 2020 - Does it have a future in Australia?’ at the RadioComms Connect conference.

CB radio users want to use their devices for situational awareness, emergency communications, general social networking with other users, and some want to use it for their SCADA applications. The grey nomad group has even mentioned they would like to be able to share photos from their smartphones through the CB radio network to other users.

McKenna believes if these expectations are not met in the near future, CB radio will cease to exist after 2020. There are challenges that need to be addressed, especially when users want to use the network for emergencies. Someone has to be out there on another CB radio listening to provide a response to the situation, which cannot be guaranteed.

Only time will tell, said McKenna, if the technology will meet the demand and CB radio will retain its popularity.