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.