Need an antennae

A good antenna that is not very tall and works good is a Wilson Little Wil mag mount,$40 to $50 and i think they are rated for 300 watts. If you just run a barefoot radio this is all you need or you can steep up to a larger Wilson mag mount that will handle more power,but they are a taller antenna and start at around $65.

 

Lil Wil is only 3 ft tall or 36 inches. Figure that to the top of your Jimmy. Realize you won't get out as far. But the absolute smallest antenna you want to run.

If you can swing a 66 inch whip, or 6'6 tall, I'd opt for the Wilson 1000. Plus it's a mag mount (as is the Lil Wil) so you can drop it over for grarge entry/exit.

BTW a "whip" such as the antennas I mentioned can actually bend a bit w/o breaking. So can a 102 whip.

 

does Francis still make the 96" fibreglass? I knew a guy that ran 4 of these on his s10 blazer mounted each side of his rear bumper. They didnt seem stick that far above his roof if i remeber right. Mount a small spring in there and it should get it and out of a garage

 

Did your friend SWR check his antennas? Seems mounting them as you have described would send his SWR's thru the roof, as I would guess most of the antennas would sit somewhere close to the metal body, causing wave reflection into the antenna. When munting a CB antenna it's always best to mount them on top of the roof as to have all the metal underneath the antenna. Also co-phased antennas on anything but a semi truck suck and are harder to tune.

Well if a mile or two is all you need the Lil Wil is perfect. I had one and it was ok, just decided I needed more range so I stepped up to the 1000.

 

The 8 foot long (96") Francis model CB 28 is no longer in production. They still make the 4 1/2 foot long model CB 25 and the 5 1/2 foot long model CB 26.
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Firestick still makes a 7 foot long model KW 7 and the fairly hard to find 6 foot long model KW 6.
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Wilson makes a silver load antenna in both 5 and 6 foot lengths.

 

I recommend a fold down mount with a 10K Predator single coil antenna, mounted behind the cab. This way you can run heat if you want to (up to 10,000 watts) and when you want to put the toy away in the garage its just a little pull up on the mount and the antenna folds down into the bed. Antenna works like a dream and mount and antenna shouldn't cost more that $175.00. Then you can run big power, talk skip and be the big dog on the CB radio!

 

I am having TERRIBLE luck w/the Francis 5.5' antenna as of late.I have gone thru 4 w/in the last 6 months.I just do not think they are made as well as they were 10 years ago.I snapped my last one thursday pulling into my driveway @a speed that was less than a crawl.Another was broken at the stud at what are my highway speeds,noticed only because my swr had shot up and I happened to pull on the shaft of the francis and it came straight off.

EXCELLENT thing that I keep my receipts and the packaging that I purchase the antennas in as I get free replacement.

Any suggestions on an antenna that is as durable as older francis' w/out the coil and manually adjusted swr tips?

man I miss the old days when an antenna was matched up almost perfectly out of the package w/18 ft of rg58u cable.
I now must search for an francis equivilent in the francis price range I reckon-