CB Antenna system

The Wilson will get out a lot farther than the Firestick.

 

I have a K40 trucker and it gets out five miles. I have a single antenna also.

"Do what thou wilt."

 

Anything will work. Be sure you have good SWR with a good ground.

I had good luck with Firesticks.

 

If the mirror is electrically connected to the door, and the door is electrically connected to the body of the truck, then yes, the mirror serves as the ground.

 

Than just make sure you have a good ground from the body to the frame. It would be a good idea to add more grounds from those points as well. A good ground with a good antenna is the key to getting out and being heard. All trucks are different.. Good Coax is something else you might think about too beings your at it..

 

The thing to remember when you are thinking of grounds electrically a ground could have a surface area of a needle and it would serve the purpose of allowing a light bulb to glow as long as that light bulb isn't asking for allot of current. The same applies to RF grounding, I always recommend using flat stock banding if you can I know this is not always practical so the next best is 8 gauge fine stranded cable. It's cable of delivering allot more current that even solid 8 gauge because with all the strands there is allot more actual surface area for the wire to carry current. It also is allot more surface area for diverting RF to ground and/or establishing a ground path for RF. Then next thing that is good is to break up the run of wire. What I mean by this is don't use an 10 foot lenght of wire to reach the frame break it by maybe going first to the top of a door hinge then take another length and go from the bottom of the hinge to a step bolt or something else that you can use to break up the length.

This is done so you don't end up with a ground wire that will try to become part of the antenna instead of providing an RF path to a ground plane. You can actually cause more problems with a tuned ground wire effect than no having any ground at all. It can cause all kinds of issues for the electronics now found in many modern Trucks and cars

This is all designed to break up the problem of Velocity factors by changing mass of the ground path it stops the tuned effect that can take place because the RF voltage will travel through copper wire at a different velocity than it will through the hinge of the door and so on and helps to give a true RF ground..

Just something to consider when grounding thins !!!

 

10 gauge is smaller.....i used 8 gauge from the antenna mount to a mirror bolt on the door.
Then about a 6 inch one from the door hinge bolt to the cab.....It works just fine.

I have owned many brands of antennas and the Wilson 2000 with the 10 inch shaft works very well.Easy to tune too.