Profile For James C.

I've got a Galaxy DX48 Big Rig series 10 meter radio myself. Good coax, antenna and swr's set right and you'll reach out and touch someone. You'll hear skips from across the country on good days. If you want to try talking on a skip, you'll want to be parked because antennas are line-of-sight. If you're moving, your signal will have moving obstacles to get around. I skipped once from Waco Texas up to Rochester NY. It was brief but pretty fun. I've sat overnight in Charlotte and picked up skips from Ireland. Couldn't transmit that far though. CB's and Ham radios are pretty fun.

I've been with Schneider since 2003. Left August of last year to take a break from trucking. Once you learn how Schneider hands out loads and how the various freight markets work, you'll find the job gets easier and you can predict where you'll be going. DBL's don't assign loads. Area Planners do and they do it based on who is in their area, how much time the driver has left on his clock and how far the load is going. If you're getting close to making your delivery and it's been a long week or you just want a few extra hours of sleep, push you next available time out a bit. But make sure you push that time out as soon as you decide you want to do that otherwise while you're rolling to your destination, that qualcomm may start beeping with a new assignment to perform as soon as you get done with your current delivery when you had your heart set on a nice hot shower and early bed time.

As far as freight markets go, some areas are hot and the following week they're not. There will be many times when you get routed to an area for delivery and there just isn't squat to pick up right away and it's likely that if you could get something right away, you could get rolling again and make it home for a few days off. But as it is, Area Planners have to deadhead you out of there to pick up a load to get you home and the load isn't scheduled to be ready until the next day. Don't get mad or discouraged. It's just the way trucking is sometimes. If you can be prepared and expect that occasionally that'll happen, you'll save yourself a lot of stress and heartache.

Like I said, once you figure out Schneider's system of running and assigning loads, you'll find it's a pretty nice company.

I drive on that Walmart Wintersville account when if first opened in June of 2003. Drove out of the Bedford, PA Walmart for a few months until Wintersville was ready. I eventually moved on to other divisions in Schneider and stayed with them until August of last year. Took a year off from driving and about to start back at it next week. But I digress. I didn't make a whole lot of money on that account but it was easy driving. The stores unload their pallets. All you had to do was make sure they took the right ones and move on to the next store. Considering where Wintersville is located, some of the Walmart store you had to deliver to where in interesting places in the hills of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.