You know, CB radio still works really well for regional communications. It's cheaper - by a lot - than ham radio, and with even a modest setup, you can easily get 8 to 10 miles range without resorting to illegal amplifiers.

Anyone here finding their interest in CB picking up again?

I added a CB to my vehicle about four years ago to tap into the useful chatter from truckers as I drive around Houston. It’s great for finding out what’s causing a traffic jam and where it is. It was also useful for knowing where the few protests in Houston were taking place last summer.
-Blast

I picked up a handheld CB transceiver. Sometimes it´s useful to avoid traffic jams or decide whether it´s worth to try and go around. There are just not enough CB users on the waves.
Gators are a bit of a problem. They tend to complain that noone answers when they use ";) range extenders" and ignore the advice to get a better antenna instead of a cheap amplifier that makes 100W when 4 W would be the legal limit. The gators occassionally get shut down when the harmonics of their amplifier interferes with traffic of entities who lack a sense of humor.

Yup... not a "bad" idea. I had a CB way back in the day (KZW1282) and dropped it when the airwaves got crazy and I wasn't on the road as much. Fast forward to this century and I put one in our RV (when we had one) and it was really useful on the highway to have an idea of what was going on around you. CB radio then seemed to fade away.

Haven't had an RV for 15 years now and never saw it worth while to put a radio in the car what with cell phones being universal. However when I retired a couple of years ago I got into Ham radio and have added GMRS, FRS along with a CB radio to my 'tools' for communication. For what each one of those types of radio and with the phone I've got several ways to "keep in touch" when necessary and to hear what is going on around me.

Generally speaking ham radio VHF and UHF work at around half of that or less for simplex (much further is possible when using repeaters or HF). Many years ago I gave up on CB due to having too little useful signal for the amount of activity. Thanks for this reminder -- I can listen to CB without investing in new equipment and use that to assess if I should get a CB radio.

I got my entire CB radio rig - radio, antenna, and Coax - for $6.00 at a yard sale. It took almost no effort to get it cleaned up, hooked up and working perfectly.

It's not that "noisy" around here, but you do hear the truckers with the bazillion watt illegal amplifiers shouting from the interstate - a 7 mile "as the crow flies" distance at its closest to my house. Based on the chatter I hear from noisy truckers the most, it's actually yammering from the OTHER interstate that's about 27 miles away.

For local channels, it's quiet and I've been able to reach others 5 miles away consistently with just 5 watts via 2 mobile rigs with ordinary everything, and with GREAT propagation into a valley - where the VHF FM simplex stuff just can not reach.

CB is still useful for vehicle convoys such as 4WD trips where everyone is line of sight.

I find a real police scanner used to be more useful to find out what's happening out there. But widespread encryption has negated much of that in the last 5 years around here.

I prefer ham radio if I were to want to talk to someone or needed help. Wider coverage and fewer idiots.

I used to get a solid 10mi connection base station to base station with a Shakespeare Big Stick 1/2 wave vertical, on a short 20' mast... almost 1 to 1 SWR and I think that having a 4' ground rod connected to the mast was a big part of the success... the radio was just a Cobra 21 with a Radio Shack 12v power supply (a variable would have given a couple of more volts)

I want to want Ham radio. But for normal people, it's just too complex.

It's actually not, especially since there's no longer a morse code requirement and you can pick up a shortwave transmitter/receiver for under $30. A smart guy like you wouldn't have any problems getting a license.
To better understand ham radio check out Blast's (Merriwether's) Intro to Ham Radio Video
-Blast