which CB antenna would you recommend

I personaly would get a Predator 10k...and its completely rebuildable...if you mess a coil up so much you cant straighten it...order a new coil...not a whole new antenna...light weight , easy to tune , durable...and beast mode comes on when its hooked up to the radio

 

A long wire 109" into a trans-match why? 109" long wire is at 50 ohms on C-19 so why do all that mess or you just wanting us to think you are some high tech-no trucker

 

Check your spelling bubba, it's balun not balum. Now why do all that when a dipole antenna must be 17 feet in free space, kind of hard to do on top of a truck. The whip antenna whip is probably the most common and simplest antenna. These are monopoles, and the most common and practical is the quarter-wave monopole which could be considered as half of a dipole using a ground plain as the image of the other half. The commonly referred-to end-fed dipole is actually just a half-wave monopole whip antenna. I know you old truckers remember when we first started running CB's in trucks the only antenna was a 109" steel whip. Now antennas are constructed different and much shorter and some with what we call loads, Take the Francis, it's has a wire wound around it to the top and that wire is 109" but others like the K-40 has a load. I could go on about antennas but most would not understand so I'll make it simple, most of the antennas mentioned are good antennas but some have a better lobe pattern. If a K-40 is placed right it's about the best I've found. Placed right means GROUND PLAIN like the top of some cabs as the signal will reflect off the top and radiate even in all directions. You can check radiation by a field strength meter, have someone transmit and walk around your truck with a field strength meter and you can see your lobe pattern, with a truck you want the lobe pattern to be forward and backwards and that lets you talk to truck longer after they pass or reach trucks ahead of you. This could go on but I'll stop as I know some of you get the point.

 

Let’s take a closer look at antennas and SWR: The most common case for measuring and examining SWR is to install a SWR bridge to measure reflected wave. When a transmitter is connected to your antennas you must do it one at a time and get your impedance matched exactly for maximum energy transfer that's why we use 50 ohm feed line and tune our antennas to match our feed line, if we don't get the impedance to match we have reflected wave or reflected power, in simple terms 5 watts out of your radio and because of mismatch you are only transmitting like 3 watts out of your antennas so there is a loss. Your transmitted signal is electrons and you want those electrons to radiate out of your antenna into free space but because of mismatch impedance these electrons will return to your radio and this will burn out your finals. If you were to feel your transistor finals you would feel heat so this is why we must tune our antennas to match the 50 ohm feed line. With duel antennas I tune one at a time by adjusting the little wire at the top of your antenna. When your SWR bridge shows flat 1 to1 that is a match, then do the other one, I forgot to add you use one feel line to do this then when both antennas are tuned you can hook you duel feel line. One other thing:
The impedance of the antenna varies based on many factors including the antenna's resonance at the frequency being transmitted such height above ground and the base used to construct the antenna's mount or having your antenna close to metal will also detune your antennas. Those antennas are rated at 300 watts but if not tuned right and you run a amp you will burn your finals and it's off to a radio shop. Let me add this, I don't really like two antennas because of trouble tuning them. I run a k-40 Trucker with a 1,500 watt amp and my SWR is flat 1to1 so I have no reflected wave and I'm getting the full 1500 watts out and my amp finals are just fine on long conversations. The K-40 Trucker can also be run co-phased but with 1500 watts I don't need it. If you are going to run power you can't beat the K-40 Trucker co-phased or single and they are easy to mount. I use a magnet mount and place my antenna on top of my cab and it's mounted so the tip of my antenna is about 11/2" above my air dam on my T2000 KW. My radio is a Yaesu that runs 150 watts but it only takes about 50 watts to drive my amp to it's max output.

 

Well I have the two stock fiberglass external copper wound antennas that came with my Volvo from the factory. They are attached to an equally stock Cobra CB that I bought with my points at Pilot (in Montana BTW - no sales tax). The setup works just perfect - for me -, they do just fine talking to my front pilot car which is never more than a half mile in front of me and my rear pilot car which is rarely more than 100 yards behind me. Oh, and when I don't have pilot cars I don't turn the CB on so like Handlebar said, what works for one is not necessarily what works for another. I know the range of my radio is just fine for what I use it for. But, if you want to look like a goober - in my opinion - go ahead and buy some of those loud mouth, giant coil things but to be a true professional you have to tip them forward at a 55.3 degree angle then have the radio doctor do his magic so no one can understand a word you say when you try talk. And make sure it's a really "good" radio guy so that when you do talk on 19 you bleed all over all the other channels for at least a mile.

I'm sorry, went off on a tangent there. As soon as I can find a decent solution for communication with my pilots that doesn't require replacing AA batteries every day or will hold a charge for an entire day and can be used without a ham license I'll be handing my CB to the first driver who wants it and never have another one in my truck.

My point is just make sure you set it up the right way because CB's are optional for almost everyone. However 2 way communication is REQUIRED for OD drivers with pilots and just this week while trying to work a 20' wide load through a very tight situation, Bubba Goober Trucker was on 19 with his over powered, illegal and poorly modified ham radio running his mouth on 19 with his equally stupid Bubba Trucker antennas with the 55.3 degree lean bleeding all over channel 1 so bad that I couldn't hear my front or rear pilot car to get me through the aforementioned tight spot. We wound up shutting down I-16 till he got far enough down the road that we could talk again and guess what, 10 miles later we were caught back up to him and for the next 15 miles till we got past him and far enough away we had ZERO communication because of his super duper bubba radio station broadcasting on 27.185.

 

I enjoy a Delta Force, with the need to get out if I have to. Only needed it twice. Hustlers don't rust, so I use them. Cell phones are so much better. Palomar is an option if I need it. It's 1 to 1.5 . Ham is what I use most of the time. Junk radios are a thing of the past. I like Cobra, or others. You need a radio.

 

I never use 11 meters, I stay on 80 and 40 meters and that will never bother you truckers. I surly hope you feel better after that fit.

 

I work 80 and 40 meters, there is nothing going on 19 that I want to hear.