SSB is.

Single sideband is not a band! It is not a frequency! It is not a portion of a band! 
It is not a rock group! It is not.......what you may have thought!

Single sideband is more properly called a mode. 
It is a very efficient method of superimposing your voice or other information on a radio wave and the transmission of that radio wave.

The method by which audio, (information), is impressed on a radio signal is called modulation. To modulate a radio wave is to add information to it that can be received on a receiver for some useful purpose. 

There are two types of modulation that most people are familiar with, AM (amplitude modulation), and FM, (frequency modulation), for which the AM and FM broadcast bands were named. You have used FM modulation on the 2 meter ham band and most likely used AM modulation when you were a kid using toy walkie talkies. You may also have used single sideband on other occasions also, but since you are reading this, you want to know more.

When you are in the AM mode, your voice modulates, (is superimposed), on a carrier wave at a certain frequency in your transmitter and is transmitted over the air waves.

The carrier wave is used to "carry" the audio information to the AM receiver where it is detected and transformed back to an audio signal that we can hear representing the original information (voice) that was spoken into the microphone.

In an AM modulated radio signal, the carrier, is continuously transmitted. Due to the nature of the way AM is produced in the transmitter, two identical modulating signals are attached to the carrier wave, these are called the sidebands. They are a mirror image of each other, identical in every way.

Any audio that you hear on an AM receiver is from the two sidebands. When the radio transmitter you are tuned to is not transmitting any sound, you can still hear from the speaker and see on your S meter that a signal is present due to the background noise being quieter than either side of that frequency. This is the carrier you are detecting being detected by your receiver. 

These two modulating (audio) sidebands are located on either side of the carrier wave, one just above it and the other just below. As a result, the sideband located just above the carrier frequency is called the upper sideband and that which is located just below the carrier frequency is called the lower sideband. 

The audio sidebands that form an AM broadcast signal are quite important. They contain the "information or audio" intended for the receive station. Although AM signals were transmitted almost exclusively for decades, it was discovered with experimentation that the AM signal could be modified yielding much better results!

Many methods were experimented with and ham radio operators often used both sidebands without the carrier using special circuits in the transmitter to eliminate the carrier wave while still leaving the modulation to be transmitted. 

This is known as double sideband (DSB) without the carrier. DSB was typically used in the earlier experiments because it was much easier to filter out just the carrier than to filter out the carrier and one of the sidebands. Soon the experimenters were able to filter out the carrier and either of the sidebands to yield what we now know and use as Single Sideband! So we are using a single side band....meaning one side band.

Using special circuits and filters, single sideband transmissions can consist of either the lower sideband (LSB) or the upper sideband (USB). If you listen to an SSB signal on an AM receiver, the voices are altered and sound very muffled, garbled and distorted. Some people even say "Donal Duck" sounding when tuned improperly in the sideband mode.

Enter the SSB receiver. 

Since the receiver still needs the original carrier to “demodulate” or decode the signal, you must have a special SSB receiver to listen to these transmissions. This is accomplished in the SSB receiver by circuits that re-insert a very low level carrier wave back with the lower or upper sideband signal and magically, the audio that was transmitted is restored in the receiver with almost identical reproduction of the original voice. Tuning the SSB receiver is very touchy and critical to make the voices sound natural. If you are tuned off of the transmitter frequency, depending on which way you go, the voices will be higher or lower pitched, resulting in that "Donald Duck" sound. You will tune with ease with some practice.

Your receiver MUST be in the same "mode" as the transmitted signal or the whole process does not work!
It the transmitter of the other station is in the USB mode, your receiver MUST be in the USB mode and vice versa. 

How do you know which "mode" to use?
On CB the standard or cept 40 channels we usually use LSB and on the upper 40 channels is USB, and the main calling frequency is 27.555  or 12'th channel on the upper band. On HF and by agreements worldwide, all stations transmitting SSB use LSB on 160 meters through 75 meters, USB on 60 meters, back to LSB on 40 meters and then all bands above 40 meters use USB. This agreement makes life easy when switching bands. Every one knows which modes are used on which bands.

Here is a sample audio file. At first you will hear a station in the USB mode on 20 meters properly tuned........then the receiver is switched to the AM mode with a station transmitting in the SSB mode......then back to SSB with tuning slightly off frequency and retuning to the correct frequency by "ear". You will notice how the voice pitch changes as the tuning of the receiver gets closer to the transmit frequency of the person transmitting.....Click here for the audio. Mp3, 149KB, 1:16 seconds. (I did not get a chance to "ID" the stations heard.)

Since the fidelity of the SSB voice transmission has been altered somewhat through various filters in the process of producing the sideband that is not too wide, usually only the most important portions or characteristics of the voice frequencies needed to communicate are allowed through, and this causes the lack of true AM or FM fidelity to the transmission, but the communication, (understandable), portions of the voice characteristics remain, which is all that is needed in the first place. It is a "communications" mode, not wide band HI FI commercial broadcast FM radio, CD quality mode! 
The information contained in the average human voice needed to understand the voice is contained within about the first 3000hz of the human hearing range. Frequencies of the human voice beyond this range are not needed for communication purposes and are filtered out in the modulation process. So the average bandwidth of a SSB signal is about 3000hz wide with all of the voice characteristics needed within that range to be understandable.

The Power Ratio factor

 Back to AM for a bit. When producing that AM signal we were talking about, the end result is that it was discovered that approximately half of the transmitter power is "wasted" on the carrier and the rest of the power is divided between the two sidebands. As a result, the actual audio output from a 1000 watt AM transmitter (500 watts of carrier + 250 watts on each sideband) would be the same as a 250 watt SSB transmitter in it’s effectiveness.

 

Basic Equipment for CB Radio

Basic equipment for CB Radio is combine of  a Radio (or Rig) it shelf, Power Supply Unit (PSU), Antenna and coaxial or twin lead cable.

Basic CB Radio:
Have one Band and 40 channel's, of AM (amplitude modulation) and FM (frequent modulation) modulation, and have a 1W (Wat) of output power on AM modulation and 4W on FM modulation. But this variate form country to country and theirs law (eg. in some countries you can legally only have 40 FM channels and and 12 AM from 4th to15th channel). And run on 12-13,8 volts and the amount of current hay need witch depends on the radio ti shelf, its output power, modifications and more...

Basic CB Radio

Power Supply Unit:
Depends of your CB transceiver current consumption, for basic AM FM transceiversh with maximum 4W output power you while need a 12-13,8 volts, 4A (amps) DC regulated power supply or bather. But most Radios CB ore HAM runs on 12-13,8 volts and need all kind of current from 1A or 2A all the way to 5A, 10A or 20A depends (of output power, modifications, accessories and rig it shelf). So basically you can put one in your car and run it on the 12V battery or take it in the house and run it trough a 12-13,8V PSU.
The power supply on the picture below have 13.5v of 10A, but do not get distracted if your radio need 4A he while take only 4A from PSU, not all 10A so the radio while not get fried. And the lack of 0,3v while not make differences because the radios are working in the range of 12V to 13,8V as I say before.
Just be sure to match the colors of the Radio power cables with the  color of the PSU output knobs bee sure that + (red) or -(black) are not mixed because that can fry the radio.

The Antenna:
First the frequency of CB Radio is 27Mhz or 11m wave length. There is all kind of size, shapes and types of antennas. Size variate from 1/4 to 5/8 and full wave length of 11m. Types are mobile(on cars and trucks), vertical, horizontal (or dipole), and yagi (pointed vertical or horizontal or bout).

Mobile Antennas

 

Are use on Truck, Automobile, Motorcycles, Bicycles and pretty much on everything that moves. As you can see they comes in every shapes and sizes.

Vertical Antennas

Vertical antenna also comes in all shapes and sizes, but the most popular are 5/8 GP (Ground Plane or antenna with radials) or single rod. 5/8 means that you have antenna that is 5/8 of a wave length (11m or 36.0892 foot). On the image below you can see Vertical Rod and GP or Ground Plane antennas, the closer one is a GP Antenna and their are bout 5/8 of wave length. GP antenna can have 3 or 4 radials.

The good old dipole can be a simple wire or aluminum tube and of course it can be vertical ore horizontal mounted. And it is the simplest antenna for homemade production fore the beginners, but it can also and not to often use by lets call them pro CB'ers. 

Horizontal Dipole

Vertical Dipole

The Yagi Beam Antennas work and have same principles as the others antennas bud do to the element allows you to point your antenna at the specified part of the lets say world.

3 element horizontal yagi

Left  element vertical and Right 6 element horizontal and vertical yagi

                     

Let us get started

But First The History of CB radio.....

It is a form of shot-distance communication between individuals on the 27-Mhz or 11meter band frequency, on selection of 40 channels. But the channels and the law of using a CB radio variate from country to country. In many country's CB operation dose not require a license, unlike Amateur Radio where you have to pass the test to be able to operate . It may be use fore business or personal communications, like many other two-way radio services. CB channels are shared with many other users and it can be fun to talk or just listen to them.

Old Vacuum Tube CB Radio

 CB radio or CB Radio service originated in the United States as one of several personal radio services regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These services began in 1945 to permit citizens a radio band for personal communication fore family and business communications and radio-controlled model airplanes (actually some of today's toys steal use a 27-Mhz transmitters an receivers to control RC vehicles). 

Old Vacuum Tube CB Radio

                                  

In 1948, the original CB Radios were designed for operation on the 460–470 Megacycle UHF band. There were two classes of CB radio: A and B. Class B radios had simpler technical requirements, and were limited to a smaller frequency range. Al Gross established the Citizens' Radio Corporation during the late 1940s to manufacture Class B handhelds for the general public.

On September 11, 1958 the Class D CB service was created on 27 MHz, and this band became what is popularly known today as CB. Back in the day's there were only 23 channels at the time; the first 22 were taken from the former Amateur Radio Service 11-meter band, and channel 23 was shared with radio-controlled devices.Some hobbyists continue to use the designation "11 meters" to refer to the Citizens' Band and adjoining frequencies. Part 95 of the Code of Federal Regulations regulates the Class D CB service, on the 27 MHz band, since the 1970s and continuing today...

1970s CB Radio

During the 1960s, the service was popular among small businesses truck drivers and radio hobbyists. By the late 1960s advances in solid-state electronics allowed the weight, size, and cost of the radios to fall, giving the public access to a communications medium previously only available to specialists.CB clubs were formed; a CB slang, language evolved alongside 10-codes, similar to those used in emergency services.

CB has lost much of its original appeal due to development of mobile phones, the internet and the Family Radio Service. Changing radio propagation for long-distance communications due to the 11-year sunspot cycle is a factor at these frequencies. In addition, CB may have become a victim of its own popularity; with millions of users on a finite number of frequencies during the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, channels often were noisy and communication difficult. This caused a waning of interest among hobbyists.The advantages of fewer users sharing a frequency, greater authorized output power, clarity of FM transmission, lack of interference by distant stations due to "skip" propagation, and consistent communications made the VHF (Very High Frequency) radio an attractive alternative to the overcrowded CB channels.

Channel 9 is restricted by the FCC to only emergency communications and roadside assistance. Most highway travelers monitor channel 19. CB radio is still used by truck drivers, and remains an effective means of obtaining information about road construction, accidents and police radar traps.

All frequencies in the HF spectrum (3–30 MHz) can be refracted by charged ions in the ionosphere. Refracting signals off the ionosphere is called sky-wave propagation, and the operator is said to be "shooting skip". CB operators have communicated across thousands of miles and sometimes around the world. Even low-power 27 MHz signals can sometimes propagate over long distances.
The ability of the ionosphere to bounce signals back to earth is caused by solar radiation, and the amount of ionization possible is related to the 11-year sunspot cycle. In times of high sunspot activity, the band can remain open to much of the world for long periods of time. During low sunspot activity it may be impossible to use skywave at all, except during periods of sporadic electron propagation (from late spring through mid-summer). Skip contributes to noise on CB frequencies. In the United States, it is illegal to engage in (or attempt to engage in) CB communications with any station more than 250 km (160 mi) from an operator's location. This restriction exists to keep CB as a local (line-of-sight) radio service; however, in the United States the restriction is widely ignored. The legality of shooting skip is not an issue in most other countries.

Hi to all

My name is Branko.
And I am a CB'er or CB (Citizen's Band) radio operator. And I open this Blog to share or maybe even teach some one something about being a CB'er or Ham-radio operator.....