Comments By Harvest

I’ve been to the Bronx, and other cities. I’ve had to back in places from the street, but this is by far the hardest backing I’ve ever done. I still consider myself a rookie but I feel good I was able to finally get in here, I was so close to giving up. I’m at the Heinz plant in San Diego, close to Tijuana. Only one way in and one way out here.

Only way I was able to get in was an older driver that was delivering a tanker load saw I was struggling and helped guide me in. Still took 30 minutes and I literally had to use every single inch that was available. I slid my tandems all the way forward and I am just so glad it is over. I hope I don’t have a hard back like this for a loooong long time.

https://youtu.be/YdJpj1OqDN4

Ugh, quoted the wrong part lol. Anyway, Harvest? Do you remember the procedure the officer used to determine the brakes were out of adjustment? Steve Reno brings up a point in his response that’s very interesting if the officer didn’t perform the procedure correctly.

Not sure, had me stay in the truck and told me to hold the brake pedal down and he rolled underneith my trailer on one of those creeper things.

Harvest, we were told by the company to back up the trailer and apply the brakes. Do this several times. They are self adjusting brakes.

Hopefully this is accurate advice. Can anybody confirm this?

How do you mean? Like release both brakes, back up a few feet and apply the brake pedal? Seems like it could possibly vary by trailer?

Strykers are 10 meter ham radios. You legally need a ham license. My brother has been a ham operator since 1968. W0TDH.

You can take a cobra 29 have it peaked/tuned by a good cb shop for about 30-40 bucks. It will be about 20 watts. Put a Ranger mic on it. Plenty of power for what we do.

I have dual antennas but the right on is a dummy. I ran a single coax to the left one. I have 3’ which are mostly found on dump trucks. Since I go in and out of places with low trees it works better for me.

I know it’s technically illegal, but I wonder how enforced it is. Mud Dog and Lucky star are running modified home CB setups broadcasting literally thousands of miles away, mud dog location is public since he owns a cb shop. If the FCC hasn’t taken him down yet, I wonder if they would really care about me reaching 5-10 miles.

I got my SWR down to 1.5 with now duel 4 inch firesticks. Also bought a cobra powered mic, not sure how much of a difference that makes but I like the talkback being louder.

I am just so tired of hearing others kinda far away on the cb but they can’t hear me at all. Can only have a good convo if they pretty close and lose signal pretty quick. I did notice running out west with vast emptiness I got allot further of a signal, interesting that when it was cloudy, the range was insane.

I can easily see this turning into a little hobby for me. I wish more drivers still talked in the cb, but I do find it really fun and sometimes useful. Gives me a good laugh every few days too.

Heard from multiple people on the CB that the blitz is this week. Taking it with a grain of salt but 🤷‍♂️

Pulled into a California weigh station this morning, was told to go to bay 2 on the loud speaker 😵 the guy did the entire thing, checked logs, license, paperwork, lights, rolled underneath the truck. I had 3 out of 4 trailer brakes out of adjustment.

I went into the office, was told I was just given a warning about it and needed to have it fixed before I could leave. Thankfully a road side mechanic crew was already on scene since they were pulling in sooo many people. Guy told me $135 to fix it. I called dispatch and got a 135 Tchek sent over, within 10 minutes it was fixed. Overall the entire ordeal ate 45 minutes of time, but could of been allot worse 😮‍💨

The one guy next to me in the office was told his cdl showed cancelled, and was way over on logs, with faulty equipment. Guy was from Louisiana and told he cannot drive his truck since his license is no good. I do wonder how that guy is doing right now. Doing my 34 about 20 miles away from my drop off in San Bernardino. I stopped at the TA in Ontario and they wanted $35 a night to park, just can’t do it, won’t accept ultra one credits either.

I know I SHOULD be doing a complete pretrip, putting wheel chocks down, releasing brakes and testing the slack. But do you guys really do this when you get a new trailer? Is there a simpler way of checking to make sure they are good? I know I should be doing more, but honestly my real world pre trip is checking connections, lights, leans, leaks, tire condition, and just giving a once over looking for anything out of the ordinary leaking under the trailer without actually crawling under.

I am petrified of getting under a car with Jack stands, I’ll be terrified of getting under a semi trailer even with chocks. Is this just a fear I have to get over? Any tips? I just want to have a clean cdl for as long as I can as I want this to be my career for good now. Any pointers on staying legal?

Honestly this is bad, I know all the pretrip steps, but I honestly don’t know how to check my brakes adjustment, other tha. Release brakes, chock wheels and get under trailer, I need to do more research.

Beautiful state California is though,

I almost forgot about this thread, but to update I bought another firestik. But accidentally bought a 4 foot when the one I already had was a 3ft 🙃 but surprisingly it still works really well. I had still a high swr at first. But I think I was over tightening the antenna. I instead hand tightened it and now reading 1.5 SWR when keying up on 19.

Do you think it would be worth it to get another 4ft or another 3ft antenna so they actually match? Lol. I want to someday get a Stryker radio to reach out farther, I find the cb to be really entertaining and useful (rarely) lol

I also picked up on “Mud duck” he seemingly hijacked the entirety of channel 19 when I was in Florida. I had no clue who this was, I posted on the truckers Reddit asking. And people filled me in who this was and happening to them too. He is based in New Mexico running a super powerful cb, annoying all us truckers by overpowering channel 19 making it seemingly useless.

Also ran into “Lucky star, Atlanta Georgia” same deal, runs a super powerful home setup reaching hundreds of miles. I just want a Stryker to reach out a bit further than what I can with 5 watts. But I need to do research on if the standard 12v power would even run it.

I’m pretty ignorant on this sort of thing. But couldn’t you file for unemployment when you get major hour cuts? I thought I heard allot of road pavers and construction workers do this. But I never experienced this first hand.

Was pulling into a TA early this afternoon in Louisiana. A kid was standing next to the sign at the truck entrance. My first thought was “where are this kids parents that’s not a good place to stand.” He was filming on his phone the trucks pulling in and did the horn gesture. I blew the air horn and he lit up smiling. Made my day and made me feel like my job is pretty cool :)

An Iowa news station did this segment about the driver shortage myth.

Driver Shortage Video

As we know the issue is high driver turnover due to long hours, relative low pay, and lifestyle being away from home

Also when you are new, your paychecks are never what you expected when getting into the business. I think training pay has been raised across all companies. But still in my opinion isn't much for being away from home so long and the hours that are worked. Plus these truck stops suck drivers dry, things are so priced gouged because they can.