Cascadia Antenna Solutions

T

there's no battle with it or anyone on here. It's just my experience and the things I've seen and learned through playing with different options. It's definitely a trail and error for most all of us. Put it this way I kept getting a 1:7 off my readings using lmr400 ultra flex. And I know I've seen much better readings off the same coax before. I bought rg8 x for $25 off a cb shop installed it and now I'm down around 1:1 to1:2 around all forty channels... more expensive coax isn't always the answer.. to run the LmR 400 again I'll need to change both amphenol connectors to match each other. One is different from the other. One got jacked up changing trucks 3 times in a short period of time... but we all know that type of thing can happen.

 

There's sometimes a discontinuity between the theoretical and the practical. Everything in all the above posts about resonance and reactance is correct, but in the real world, it's only going to apply to an antenna at one specific frequency. In the case of CB, getting it exactly matched may keep it reasonably close over the 40 channels, but that would depend on the specific antenna. My mobile installation is an Icom IC-7100 into a Lil' Tarheel screwdriver. It's capable of giving me a 1.5 or less match on any frequency between 3.5 and 30 Mhz. I could go to the effort of trying to tune out all of the reactance on 27.185, but once I make the jump to MidCars on 7.258 or the Maritime Mobile net on 14.300, all that goes out the window. I've never taken the time to test each band for perfection, and even if I could, it would be impossible to do on the move. The best I can hope for is to tune for minimum SWR. It's perfectly possible to work the world with a random length of wire and a good antenna tuner, which does nothing but provide maximum RF output to the wire by giving the transmitter a 50-ohm load. Some of this reminds me of the "golden ear" guys in high-end HiFi, who claim to be able to hear the difference between speaker cables and power cables. The human ear can is normally restricted to hearing about a 3db change up/down, so one needs to choose their battlefield carefully. I'm sure Craig's Skipshooter is as good as you'll ever get on CB, but the question is whether or not it can stand up to the abuse an antenna suffers on the road, and if not, what is an acceptable alternative.

 

well I'm pretty tired of all the weeble wobble on that mirror mount myself so I can relate to what he's saying about that. A 7ft.skipshooter or 7ft. Firestik is probably as good as it gets with the right coax and connecters on the mirror mount deal. I think he's got a stainless steel mirror mount on there. All he can do is hope for the best.

 

Spook your not tuneing one ant for all the bands anyway,unless if some highend deal but then its gonna need retune anyways..
In the case of the cb deal i tune sometime for the best on 19 cause its the middle channel and sometime i tune inbetween 1 and 19..In eastern canada where i live 1 is the main channel and 19 covers west of montreal quebec and alot of the states i run through..

 

I really am using one antenna; this one...
http://www.tarheelantennas.com/little_tarheel_ii
They're actually pretty common for ham HF use, along with their larger brothers. Mine is mounted on the spare tire bracket on my Jeep Wrangler, and the radio is an Icom 7100, with the main radio body in the boot and the control head on the dash. You've done the right thing with your installation. It's much easier to get a perfect match if you're dealing with a limited bandwidth like CB 1-40. I could only do that if I restricted myself to one band, which I'm not willing to do, and I don't have room for a dedicated CB is this vehicle. The Stryker is in my wife's Cherokee.

 

Its rare i find anyone that ill chat with goin up the road that has above or below 1-40 or sideband..

 

Alot of states and certain areas will run the low side of 19...

 

As I've said in the past my big truck antenna is tunned for resonance on CH 19 and I have an SWR of 1.5:1 go above and below that and I see 1.2:1 and 1.7:1 respectively. But on 19 where I spend 98% of my time talking I get out much better than before I put the analyzer on it and I had a 1.3:1 swr.

And @craig_sez I'm glad to see you're starting to think about all of this.

 

With all due respect back bud I don't battle anyone about anything on here. I do what I do they do what they do. We all make mistakes with this stuff nobody's perfect at any of it. Some have more knowledge than others at certain things. That was rabbis biggest problem to me he always thought I was trying to dis- credit him on many things..that wasn't the case he's a very smart man on many levels with these cb radios and especially cb radio antennas. Im not stressing out about any of this stuff. If you can help someone and give/pass knowledge to them from your own experiences then do it....

 

Always thinkin....Now if my thoughts are right or not is a different story..lol0