I made one of these several years ago. I had 8-10 miles barefoot, and much much more with a DX180 A Stealthy Homebrew Vertical Dipole Antenna Using Mobile CB Antennas I used the 3 ft. length FS-II tunable tip antennas. I also made a setup using 2 102" whips with springs and a heavier central mounting bracket. I just had them laying around and too much spare time...
I'm currently using a firestik II 4 ft antenna mounted to an all metal bar stool as a base antenna it's just standing out here on my balcony talks great do a lot of skip talking with it
