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Base Long wire antenna for cb?
- Thread starter Tweetybird
- Start date
A simple "long wire" probarbly (in most cases / normal effort) will not outperform a "normal" CB antenna. There are those who can; If you insist on using "wires" google: rhombic antenna, bobtail curtain antenna, (curtain antennas in general) bruce array etc. those provide gain. I think w8ji has a nice write up about wire "gain" antennas.
Bare in mind the horizontal types need heigth..... 30 feet isnt really enough if you want them to "beat" the horizontal beams.
Im looking at them more or less like:
unless your "situations" really provides a good match for them....on CB it most likely is better to invest in heigth and a beam.
But under circumstances.... ( high pine trees ...slooping mountain / portable setup etc) they sure can give a big kick in "one" direction !
Kind regards, Henry
Edit : The skywire antenna provided in the picture is a "single element cubical quad" flat... on those low frequencies it is more or less a NVIS antenna (not good for DX). if we take that antenna and construct it for 11 meters, it has nothing to do with "a long wire"... it it is rather small, just a full wave piece of wire And it would be more bennificial if it was straigth up at a decent heigth and fed at the bottum.
Bare in mind the horizontal types need heigth..... 30 feet isnt really enough if you want them to "beat" the horizontal beams.
Im looking at them more or less like:
unless your "situations" really provides a good match for them....on CB it most likely is better to invest in heigth and a beam.
But under circumstances.... ( high pine trees ...slooping mountain / portable setup etc) they sure can give a big kick in "one" direction !
Kind regards, Henry
Edit : The skywire antenna provided in the picture is a "single element cubical quad" flat... on those low frequencies it is more or less a NVIS antenna (not good for DX). if we take that antenna and construct it for 11 meters, it has nothing to do with "a long wire"... it it is rather small, just a full wave piece of wire And it would be more bennificial if it was straigth up at a decent heigth and fed at the bottum.
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This is not entirely true, even for a simple longwire or doublet, even if we don't include the ground reflection gain you get from using a horizontal over a vertical.
As the antenna approaches a wavelength long you get lobes with quite good gain, sometimes as much as 20dB, forming but you also get nulls that can be -30dB or more. Once you get past a wavelength long and as you increase the length the number of nulls and lobes increases and their width narrows.
You can use this to your advantage. When DXing I found using antenna modelling a length that gave me lobes that formed a X pattern. Orientating my antenna wire north/south meant I got loads of gain towards Australia/China, South Africa, North America and South America with the null to the east doing a great job of silencing the booming European stations on my doorstep.
Sir,
I doubt if you see any antenna a wavelength long with 20dB gain ?
Lets do it otherwise....
Put yourself up a nice 1/2 wave or 5/8 wave vertical....
Then as the topic startef....put up a long wire....(or several)
Then please tell me when then single long wire starts to outperform that vertical and tell us at what heigth that was and in how many cases, all the time ? (directivity).
This is a CB forum, tell me again about that great nulls and hugh gain you experience on 11m on those wires.
Looking forward to your experiment.
Now, you see I had some "sarcasme" above, thats because i know you are a frequent writer, (no harm ment, but you know a lot...).
In all honest.... would you really say to anyone willing to try a long horizontal wire... at (most likely) low heigth ...go for it ! Thats what topic started is looking for.
And i totally agree with you...sometimes its the best ! I only use long wires (beverage's on low bands) for RX (160/80/60meters) there is nothing better !)
But this is CB....
What can a person expect, with no knowledge from a single piece of wire...
What money is best spend ....
To my opinion.....heigth...yagi.... but yours migth differ...Im happy with that
I doubt if you see any antenna a wavelength long with 20dB gain ?
Lets do it otherwise....
Put yourself up a nice 1/2 wave or 5/8 wave vertical....
Then as the topic startef....put up a long wire....(or several)
Then please tell me when then single long wire starts to outperform that vertical and tell us at what heigth that was and in how many cases, all the time ? (directivity).
This is a CB forum, tell me again about that great nulls and hugh gain you experience on 11m on those wires.
Looking forward to your experiment.
Now, you see I had some "sarcasme" above, thats because i know you are a frequent writer, (no harm ment, but you know a lot...).
In all honest.... would you really say to anyone willing to try a long horizontal wire... at (most likely) low heigth ...go for it ! Thats what topic started is looking for.
And i totally agree with you...sometimes its the best ! I only use long wires (beverage's on low bands) for RX (160/80/60meters) there is nothing better !)
But this is CB....
What can a person expect, with no knowledge from a single piece of wire...
What money is best spend ....
To my opinion.....heigth...yagi.... but yours migth differ...Im happy with that
I am using scraps to make the antenna. Spent a dollar on 8' 1/4" pex to make ladder line. I have scrounged up 270' 16 guage stranded wire I peeled 90' pool light cord it's got nylon stranding I can use for the rope part. What a pain separating the five different things that were twisted together but free. I have a carbon fiber filter lid wrench I cut up for center and end insulators need a pully now. I have to take my starduster down and repair wind damage and I can attach the pully then. I hope it works on the shortwave reciever. For a cb beam I would like a moonraker type.
Im really strugling to understand what you are writing, sorry im Dutch hi.
If you are looking for a random rx antenna for HF wide band...
Just pu up 60 ...90 feet with a nice balun (end fed wire) ..
That starduster... sounds like a winner on 10/11m compared to the planned "piece of wire" you are planning on.
Are u sure u need to put it down ?
Wire antennas:
Random HF = longwire with balun. (Search end fed multi band)
Low band HF RX = beverage (hard to beat...but long, only low band, no tx)
High bands (15 MHz up...) go for a simple.dipole as long as its up high...
If you can do that, you will see the ups and downs of others...
(Thinking topic should not be in CB section hi)
Kind regards H
If you are looking for a random rx antenna for HF wide band...
Just pu up 60 ...90 feet with a nice balun (end fed wire) ..
That starduster... sounds like a winner on 10/11m compared to the planned "piece of wire" you are planning on.
Are u sure u need to put it down ?
Wire antennas:
Random HF = longwire with balun. (Search end fed multi band)
Low band HF RX = beverage (hard to beat...but long, only low band, no tx)
High bands (15 MHz up...) go for a simple.dipole as long as its up high...
If you can do that, you will see the ups and downs of others...
(Thinking topic should not be in CB section hi)
Kind regards H
No I am only taking the starduster down to straighten the wind damaged verticle on top of antenna and was putting it back up. I am putting the wire antenna under it for shortwave reciever I have. I will buy a beam somedayIm really strugling to understand what you are writing, sorry im Dutch hi.
If you are looking for a random rx antenna for HF wide band...
Just pu up 60 ...90 feet with a nice balun (end fed wire) ..
That starduster... sounds like a winner on 10/11m compared to the planned "piece of wire" you are planning on.
Are u sure u need to put it down ?
Wire antennas:
Random HF = longwire with balun. (Search end fed multi band)
Low band HF RX = beverage (hard to beat...but long, only low band, no tx)
High bands (15 MHz up...) go for a simple.dipole as long as its up high...
If you can do that, you will see the ups and downs of others...
(Thinking topic should not be in CB section hi)
Kind regards H
If nothing else it's good practice for a rookie. I get a lot of different opinions and I glean a lot of knowledge from the replies I get. I value everyone's opinion and appreciate the knowledge being passed on
I had a friend who used one for dx and it was great. He had to use another antenna (A99) for local talk though.
Mine is a homebrew StarBuster from scrap. Aluminum tubing, fiberglass elct fence rods for radial standouts. When my very got bent, I was out of scrap for repair. Went over to truck, removed 102" whip w 4" HD spring and up it went. Just throwing an idea at ya.
