Citizen's Band

I have a CB in each of the cars so I can be a little more aware of road conditions, traffic problems, etc.

A couple of years ago I bought a short CB antenna to put on top of my PT Cruiser, because the one I had was too long to go in the garage without hitting the garage door and overhead lights.

I never could get the new shortie to tune up, and in disgust I left it in place, but stopped worrying about it.

With this road trip in the offing, I decided to tune the antenna.

Nothing I could do, shortening or lengthening the aerial, making sure the loading coil was good, etc., would get this thing close to a decent VSWR reading.

As a last resort, I took a length of coat hanger wire and installed it in the antenna. Within 15 minutes of adjustments, I had the VSWR down to a shade over 2:1. I'd had some concerns about using ferrous material and inserting it into the core of the coil, but after I cut myself a piece of copper to similar length, I proved to myself that steel wasn't an issue.

I took the ball off the end of the aerial supplied with the antenna, super-glued it to the coat hanger wire, sprayed the thing black, and installed it. It has performed well all the way down here (South Carolina from MD).

Ya sometimes gotta experiment with them. I've had CB's in every vehicle except for this last one. But yea, all except for the fiberglass whip on my jeep, were a PITA to tune.

Ponytail said:

Ya sometimes gotta experiment with them. I've had CB's in every vehicle except for this last one. But yea, all except for the fiberglass whip on my jeep, were a PITA to tune.

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I believe it! I have a fiberglass whip on my Miata (it's a short whip, magnet-mounted to the trunk lid). It was MUCH easier to tune, and yields VSWR readings close to 1:1. I have another loading coil-style antenna that's longer than the shortie I wrote about, and it was indeed more difficult to tune than the whip, although it also yields good VSWR (don't recall exactly, but I believe it was less than 2:1).

Hey RR there is a cb shop in SOMD. do a search for nonameamps I used to have my truck set up with 2 time machine coiled ant.that stood 14' 8" from ground to top of ant. JC Whitney has saome small ant. not sure how good they work. The best Mag mount I have found is a wilson 1000. I know they make a lil wil, which is about 3 or 4 feet tall total.

Magnum said:

Hey RR there is a cb shop in SOMD. do a search for nonameamps I used to have my truck set up with 2 time machine coiled ant.that stood 14' 8" from ground to top of ant. JC Whitney has saome small ant. not sure how good they work. The best Mag mount I have found is a wilson 1000. I know they make a lil wil, which is about 3 or 4 feet tall total.

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He's back!! We've missed you youngblood!

bresamil said:

He's back!! We've missed you youngblood!

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Hello... Not back all the way. Still out here in the field. They gave me a laptop with wireless internet so I can work anywhere anytime... Oh the joy. Still too busy out here to play on the computer all day like before. Well got to run.