A lack of cb radio owners.

Until that stock radio gets its duck lips cut off. 4 watts ain’t getting it done for long.

 

The most frequent use I find for my cb is to tell the ungoverned trucks behind me on a two lane hwy that I'll get off the throttle anytime they want to get around me. They don't have to guess whether I know what's what and i wont leave them hanging in the left lane longer than they need to be. Seems to be well received.

 

Doubt it.

 

Maybe on a 100 foot tower, not on a mobile. Four watts, usually garbage antenna system on a plastic truck. Two to three miles and they are finished.

 

4 watts on a great base antenna— yes. The RF energy will be concentrated on the channel and radiate efficiently. Splatter boxes are too wide to matter. The energy goes elsewhere. Also consider wattage in relation to dB. It’s not a linear function.

 

Two to three miles? On 4 watts? How? I can't get more than a mile and I have a little "helper" hooked up. My antenna is brand new, 1:1 swr, mounted high up on the top of the door, not on the mirror. It's a NGP antenna meaning I know it won't get as good as a great ground plane antenna, but dang.

I got about 5 miles one time talking to that CB shop in West Memphis. I held onto them out until I got on 240 in Tennessee. I think that was about 5 miles.

 

I can hear the channel 5 cb shop in Millington on Hwy 51 and in Olive Branch on 78. You need to get the Wilson heavy duty 2017 Cascadia mount and a 6 foot skip shooter on the driver door, titled about 20 degrees. 3/4 inch PVC pipe on the bottom foot or so to keep it from flexing too far back and you will outperform that NGP easily. All of that is available at Ray’s in West Memphis by Petro.

 

My problem is the grounding. These #### plastic trucks offer no ground. My SWR with a nice 6' antenna before was 3:1. It would go up from there if I adjusted it. I still have the nice 6' antenna, collecting dust at the house.

 

Gotta use this style mount. Remove front two mirror bolts and replace with these Allen heads. Top load antenna like the skipshooter works well.
1.2 to 1. With power on less than one percent reflect. I talk 70 miles some days to local base stations.

 

Off subject slightly, but I just moved into my new home that we own, and not rent. Wife wont let me have radios in the house, so I'm gonna build a new ham shack outside, next summer. Golly, I cant wait! And of course itll have probably every CB I own in there! I'm almost wetting the bed typing this!