Best Antenna for Distance

was thinking about switching to twin steel whips on my 2013 386 Peterbilt. My SWR's are 1.75:1 on Channel 1 & 40. What kind of difference do you think this would make. I have the stock Antennas on here now, but I know they dont last long.Let me know what you think.

 

I am running a 2013 386 also, little over 3000 miles on it so far. Pete must have done a better job with your coax and antenna brackets. I could not get below 3:1 using any cophased setup. They did not give me any antennas so I had to use my own stock. I finally ended up just taking the mirror apart, fishing a single phased coax through the mirror post into the cab and up to the CB, drilling a hole in the antenna bracket to attach a ground strap then grounding the bracket properly. Currently running 1 single wilson 5000 through my own coax and regrounded bracket and mirror supports. SWR is about 1.5:1 with this setup. Get great distance in ALL directions even with my big trailer.

 

You wont know what you do not hear, unless you set it up to test it. 2 stock radios, same antennas, same lenght of coax (and yes it needs to be a portion of a wave lenght). You will find there are whole conversation heard on one radio and not heard on the other, because of the signal being blocked.

affectively your trailer becomes a reflector. The reason for the 2 antennas they give you two cartiod wave patterns that fill in you rcoverage area. And yes Iam a FCC licensed radio tech w/ radar endorsement, and a amature extra class and a trucker with lots of experience.

 

By the way it was the proper grounding you added to your antenna system that brought your swr down. Biggest think wrong on factory setups. Ground everything.

 

If this were true then I would loose the other drivers I run with everytime I go around a curve etc. Since this don't happen then it is not a problem.

I used to run cophased, got sick of dealing with two antennas all the time. One antenna less hassle and no issues with comunications in any position around me.

 

In a perfect world, a 102" steel whip is about best for an 11 meter radio (cb radio)

That's with a good ground plane and the whole "Best set-up".


We can sit here and piss and moan about it till the cows come home.

The idea and reality behind a co-phased antenna set-up is because like was said, that box in the back really does create some weird happenings with the radiated pattern in the antenna.

The same way that someone will have better reception to the rear if the antenna is mounted to the front bumper and visa versa if it's mounted to the rear.

It's how it's effected by the body of the vehicle ground plane as it's put together. As well as taking those radio sticks and tilting them so that they are at a 45 degree or better angle. All you're doing is changing the polarization from a horizontal to a vertical. And that creates issues when you are trying to reach out to others who leave their antenna horizontal.

And most truckers have little understanding of what the hell I am talking about.

http://www.eznec.com/
Antenna design software so that you can see what your lobes are doing for radiation depending on how and where you mount an antenna.


Jeez I am wishing I had my TS-480 in the dang truck.

 

102 and a 6 inch spring is the best setup just not practical on a big truck. There is no place to put it without it either hitting every over pass in sight. Sure you can put it behind the sleeper or cab as low as possible but then most of the antenna would be concealed or blocked by the cab and the trailer, which causes other issues.

Cophased, is fine if you want to spend the time to get both antennas tuned exactally equal. Problem is that most do not have the equipment to do this or have the time to spend doing it on a company truck. First off it would more then likely require complete replacement of the factory coax since the stock stuff sucks.

Second is that many of todays trucks run a multiplexor system were the CB antennas are also used for the AM/FM radio. The Coax runs into a splitter box inside the truck then one line goes to the CB and one line goes to the AM/FM radio. So installing your own coax means getting rid of the stock setup which means installing yet another antenna on the truck for the AM/FM radio.

You guys talk about blocked signal on not being able to hear other stations because my antenna may be blocked by my trailer. Well this does not make sense because then I would have the same problem with my am/fm since I only have one antenna for that and it is shorter then my CB antenna and is in the middle of the cab. I would not beable to hear any radio station that is behind me. Yet I can pickup my fav station no matter what direction I am traveling and can hear it for up to 90 miles.

One thing that used to bother me about cophased was the amount that had to be trimmed off the antennas when cophased. I would tune each antenna seperately then hook the cophased coax up and end up cutting more then 2 inches off each antenna to get my SWR back down to were it was when I tuned them each seperatly. Kinda goes against the length is king deal.

Myself and many others have gone to a single antenna and we are all pleased as punch with the performance of the single setup. I know that I don't notice any blockage issues due to my trailer. I was actually worried about this when I first went to single but my worries went away quickly when I noticed that there were no issues with blocked signal.

There might be some blocked signal is someone were directly off the corner of my back bumper but 1/4 mile away and further, this does not seem to be an issue.

I now only have one antenna to maintain which is a benefit when you run in the road grime etc during the late fall through winter and into early spring. I always end up pulling my antenna and stud down and cleaning the white corrosion from the mount and stud during that season. I just had to do this last spring, noticed my SWR was real high. Pulled the bracket down and pulled it apart and it was full of that white crud that was actually shorting out the antenna. Cleaned it all up and problem solved.

 

Rat,

Do you think that favorite radio station might be running a little more power and a full size antenna above a near perfect ground might have something to do with why you get the signal?

Leon
(kc0iv)

 

That RFX equiped 880 might be swinging 95 pep watts but it is only keying up less then 20 watts. Not sure what amp ypu are planning to run but most amps can't handle that kind of dead key. you mentioned a 350 watt amp, well you are still only going to be putting out 350 watts at most of that amp even comes close to doing as advertised. Also make darn sure your setup is perfect because adding 350 watts is going to bring out any hidden issues with your antenna setup. This is the main reason I went to a single setup. I had issues as soon as I flipped ony 450.