If you run a plain steel whip, it has to be the long ones like your buddies run, 3-4 feet won't work. If you have a good metal bumper that's grounded, that's probably a good choice. Antennas shorter than the long whip have coils, like the wire you can see under the shrink wrap on a Firestick, so that they can be shortened and still have a good standing wave ratio(SWR). Most fiberglass antennas are top loaded, meaning that coils are mostly at the top of the antenna, which means that most of the working part of the antenna on a 4' firestick would be above the bed. Francis antennas are continuous load, so they're probably not as good for your application.
I asked what kind of truck you'd be driving because the newer Macks that I've driven have very poor grounding from the doors to the chassis. It was a pretty easy fix with a couple of ground straps, but that might also be another reason to go with a bumper mounted whip, if you have a metal bumper anyway. Firestick actually has a great technical help section on their website that will explain a lot, no matter what you decide to do. Transmitting antennas aren't a plug and play deal, it takes a little bit of knowledge to get the best setup for your application.
You should probably also look at getting a noise-canceling microphone right off. The mic's that come with radios let a lot of background noise through, and you'll have a lot of background noise in a dump truck. For the money, it's hard to beat an Astatic 636l, you can get them on ebay for $30 shipped.
Rat, I'm with you on the Galaxy receive, I thought the ones I've owned had at least more even receive volume so you could hear the far away signals without the close ones blowing you out of the seat.
First Radio suggestions?
Discussion in 'CB Radio Forum' started by Logan76, Nov 25, 2009.
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