Topic: CB info

[Rocksurfer]

Reception involves the entire length of the antenna so any part that is blocked will reduce the signal.

[V-Man]

if i mount a 5' antenna on my back bumper will that be ok?

 NO the tail gate is next to the antenna..try a Mag-mount on the roof or a bracket mount on the rear stake hole of the truck bed.

[V-Man]

how can it be blocked if the top is about 1.5 or 2 feet above the top of my truck?

 This may seem strange but the Major LOBE( strongest signal) is at about the center of your antenna..

[Rocksurfer]

The thing I hate about a mag mount is that is keeps getting knocked off my roof, I currently have one on my truck and it drives me nuts.

[V-Man]

The thing I hate about a mag mount is that is keeps getting knocked off my roof, I currently have one on my truck and it drives me nuts.

      Yup major drawback of them if you have trees.

There are mounts that put your antenna out at the back of the box, by using a stake hole..

[DTB]

The thing I hate about a mag mount is that is keeps getting knocked off my roof, I currently have one on my truck and it drives me nuts.

make a "leash" for it 

[Rocksurfer]

Should I use a choker or just a collar, she's fine around town but when I get her off road she gets really wild and unmanageable.

[blackdiamond]

 

In general radios are tuned to work best with standard length antenna's.  Whip's are either 1/2 or 1 wave length and the shorter ones are either 1/2 or 1/4 wave length.  You get better reception if you capture more of the wave length.  If it is mounted "behind" metal that portion of the antenna is essentially nonfunctional in that direction.  As BigMike mentioned the length of cable between the radio and antenna is also important and I believe it is for the same reasons (% of wave length).  I think the ability to tune antennas is to optimize things nothing is perfect in life.  The little stub antenna's are great for convenience and work for most people just fine.

I love when people install duals on pickups and don't maintain the right distance between the antenna's, they are designed for big rigs and should be either 1/4 or 1/2 wave length apart for optimal reception.  At some point the spacing probable results in worse reception with two rather than just having one properly mounted.  It just wouldn't be a quality redneck truck without two antennas.

My dad has had conversations via CB with rigs 40-80 miles away, but everyone had a properly tuned whip and very little geo-interferences.  The guys with smaller antennas were not involved in the conversations until they were 5 to 10 miles out.

[V-Man]

Should I use a choker or just a collar, she's fine around town but when I get her off road she gets really wild and unmanageable.

  I say the choker for training, and the collar after that...You may need to use the choker a few times to start to re-enforce the training...

[dt]

I want to ad that the bed is a bad place to mount the antenna because some manufacturers don't ground the bed to the chassis,if you do use your bed to mount anantenna, make an independant ground strap

[lilstomper]

i get the best tuned anteana and such like this....18 foot of coax and a 102' stainless steel whip mounted in the bed behind the cab with a tennis ball on anteana to keep it from damaging the cab gives me a swr reading of 1:3 swr reading witch is very good comared to how some run theres.thats my input on this ..oh  i run a hr2510 in my weekend wheeler

[SpiffyTiffy]

i love my radio shack cheapy cbs, with a 15 dollar antenna and running the correct length coax. to the antenna, i get very respectable recieve and transmit and i have had this setup with antenna mounts on top the cab to the rear bumper andmirror mounts to. all seem to work reasonably well.