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Best shortest mobile CB antenna??
- Thread starter Galaxy 959
- Start date
Did that once to settle a disagreement. The bastard cheated. Caught me totally off guard.
Dude I apologize I thought you were ready!Did that once to settle a disagreement. The bastard cheated. Caught me totally off guard.
Stake pocket on truck, 6 inch riser and 102" whip. Getting it off the roof should make up for the added length. If that is not low enough and the vehicle has a steel rear bumper then mount it there. Unless your driving "Big Foot" the Monster Truck even with a 6 inch riser and 102" whip you will not be hitting as many things as you would with a long whip magnet mount on the roof. I can not think of too many antenna as durable and flexible in the mounting that still has great radiation. I am sure we have all seen the idiot with a 2 foot long Firestick mounted to the bumper of a fullsize truck or the tire spare tire mount of a Jeep. The only capacitance hat antenna's I have seen for CB are huge or really tall not solving the issue here. I can not even imagine an 11m/CB antenna capacitance hat design roof mounted on a truck or van actually driving down the road at speed.
On the issue of where the load is placed on a mobile application it almost seems academic if we are limiting ourselves just to CB and under 100 watts. There is not gain to be had and efficiency is already bad. That said when it comes to receive and transmit I have never found an antenna design that so consistently performed as badly as Firestick. I keep my ARRL Handbook at my bed side and I have read it many times. That said I have never seen where Firestick's marketing has every been true. Easy to tune, never had one fail they just have terrible receive and transmit. In fact in 1992 I went from a 7 foot Firestick mounted to the bumper of and 1985 Ford Tempo to a trunk lip mount K40 and instantly experienced a huge jump in recieve signal strength from regular contacts from all my friends both mobile and stations huge. They when I got a 1986 Toyota 4Runner I went to a 102" whip and again large increase in receive and transmit. I also gained a huge increase in bandwidth.
It did not matter if it was a K40 or a Wilison 5000 or a 102" whip I never ran across a situation where a Firestick outperformed any of the above. Fast forward to around 1998 I gave my 4Runner to my wife and new born son and took her car. It was a compact so no metal bumpers and no way I was putting in a disco disk and 102" in the roof. I tried a 5 foot Firestick and magnet but it was under whelming. I tried a Wilson 5000 and it was a huge improvement. When I got a new car I again tried them both and again the Firestick was under whelming. Neither gave me the bandwidth I wanted but both looked acceptable with the Wilson probably looking better.
On a mobile application I have never seen where the position of the load matters too much but given my limited experience I have seen base loaded magnet mounts outperform even hard mounted Firestiks. In 1992-ish I saw my first large external capacitor/coil antenna. I have no idea who made it but one of the customers of the electronic repair shop I worked at ran a 32 transistor amplifier had one. My boss ran a 667 and he went from a 102" whip to one of them as well on his lugage rack. Why? Bandwidth and shorter over all height than the 102". Even in 1990's Georgia people driving car's understood that 102" whip on a car looked a bit 'Redneck" especially on the back of a Cadillac.
So for mobile application and under 100 watts on CB I do not think the placement of the loading coil matters much and I think all the marketing information from Firestik is suspect in real life. On larger antenna's not subject to HUGE ground loss or on different bands where the total size of the antenna is smaller I think things like where the load is placed and capacitance hats make more sense.
Has anyone with anything close to the proper equipment ever put the top load vs middle or bottom load science to the test on a car with a stock CB and tested this? I can read theory all day long in my ARRL Handbook but like so many things either theory does not pan out in real life or other factors neutralize any benefit out of the lab.
In fact some designs that on paper look terrible or less than ideal have worked well on the trunk or roof of cars in spite of what the book says. So while I have not tried many fiberglass rod's with wire wound around them the Firestick ones have I tried have never given me the results that they claim. Hard to do much better than their 7 foot and their 5 foot II Tunable tips if those two can not get it done than no hope of their shorter stuff doing any bettter!!
On the issue of where the load is placed on a mobile application it almost seems academic if we are limiting ourselves just to CB and under 100 watts. There is not gain to be had and efficiency is already bad. That said when it comes to receive and transmit I have never found an antenna design that so consistently performed as badly as Firestick. I keep my ARRL Handbook at my bed side and I have read it many times. That said I have never seen where Firestick's marketing has every been true. Easy to tune, never had one fail they just have terrible receive and transmit. In fact in 1992 I went from a 7 foot Firestick mounted to the bumper of and 1985 Ford Tempo to a trunk lip mount K40 and instantly experienced a huge jump in recieve signal strength from regular contacts from all my friends both mobile and stations huge. They when I got a 1986 Toyota 4Runner I went to a 102" whip and again large increase in receive and transmit. I also gained a huge increase in bandwidth.
It did not matter if it was a K40 or a Wilison 5000 or a 102" whip I never ran across a situation where a Firestick outperformed any of the above. Fast forward to around 1998 I gave my 4Runner to my wife and new born son and took her car. It was a compact so no metal bumpers and no way I was putting in a disco disk and 102" in the roof. I tried a 5 foot Firestick and magnet but it was under whelming. I tried a Wilson 5000 and it was a huge improvement. When I got a new car I again tried them both and again the Firestick was under whelming. Neither gave me the bandwidth I wanted but both looked acceptable with the Wilson probably looking better.
On a mobile application I have never seen where the position of the load matters too much but given my limited experience I have seen base loaded magnet mounts outperform even hard mounted Firestiks. In 1992-ish I saw my first large external capacitor/coil antenna. I have no idea who made it but one of the customers of the electronic repair shop I worked at ran a 32 transistor amplifier had one. My boss ran a 667 and he went from a 102" whip to one of them as well on his lugage rack. Why? Bandwidth and shorter over all height than the 102". Even in 1990's Georgia people driving car's understood that 102" whip on a car looked a bit 'Redneck" especially on the back of a Cadillac.
So for mobile application and under 100 watts on CB I do not think the placement of the loading coil matters much and I think all the marketing information from Firestik is suspect in real life. On larger antenna's not subject to HUGE ground loss or on different bands where the total size of the antenna is smaller I think things like where the load is placed and capacitance hats make more sense.
Has anyone with anything close to the proper equipment ever put the top load vs middle or bottom load science to the test on a car with a stock CB and tested this? I can read theory all day long in my ARRL Handbook but like so many things either theory does not pan out in real life or other factors neutralize any benefit out of the lab.
In fact some designs that on paper look terrible or less than ideal have worked well on the trunk or roof of cars in spite of what the book says. So while I have not tried many fiberglass rod's with wire wound around them the Firestick ones have I tried have never given me the results that they claim. Hard to do much better than their 7 foot and their 5 foot II Tunable tips if those two can not get it done than no hope of their shorter stuff doing any bettter!!
The ones I build for myself from scratch.
Short and efficient don't exactly go together but when you take a couple short antennas and mount them into an array you increase the efficiency without increasing the size
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Well I put my Lil wil on the roof for now. Flat SWR tuned out real easy. Had to cut off 1/4" of whip was all. So far works real good local but its nothing like my Sirio. Haven't been able to talk any skip on it yet.
My best performing "Shortie" antenna is a Wilson 5000 trucker with a 9" bottom shaft - which I use in situations where there are a lot of low hanging trees, offroad, camping etc.
I slightly modded mine by swapping out the OEM whip for a Larsen 49" super-slinky Black.
Definitely outperforms my 5000 magnet mount and almost keeps up with the full 1/4 wave. I use a 4-mag mount and have yet to lose it to a branch.
Shorter the antenna higher the Q, resulting in low bandwidth(sharp SWR curve). Just saying.
Thats a good thing for both receive and transmit efficiency on a single frequency
I'll try to remember to grab my Trucker 5K tomorrow and check the SWR bandwidth.
- FYI, I use an electrical 1/2 wave of RG-213 which seems to help provide broader bandwidth.
They are long for sure.. I just got back into the hobby after being away for 20+ years.. I am in the process of setting up in the mobile again and purchased a sirio turbo 5000, one of the best antennas I have had.. How did you attach it to your truck? Magnet mount, or drilled holes? They make a stronger magnet for the antenna if you wanted to try that..