Back of set antenna for monitoring only

[izzyj4]

I was wondering how well the back-of-set CB antennas were for receiving local area radio traffic only. Do they pick up half-way decent? No trasmissions will be done on this CB, I have a separate CB with a base antenna for transmitting and receiving.

[James_Bond_007]

They Tremendously suck, big time!!!!

go with a 1/2 wave dipole hung across the room. if it is just for receiving you can place it anywhere and not have a problem. obviously higher equals better.

try to have it in a complete straight line and it will be directional.

this will work 100 percent better then a BOS antenna.

even better a wilson 1000 trucker type antenna with a 102 counterpoise will do wonders, but a dipole is the on the cheap way. an old piece of coax and 2x 102 inch pieces of wire.

[James_Bond_007]

ps: worked the west indies from a nj apartment in the early 90's on SSB using a cobra 148 and an indoor home made dipole and a D104.

[izzyj4]

Thanks James for the information. I will try that. I'm building a listening post, something that I have wanted to do for a while. I got a classic TRC-452 40 channel that I want to keep good since it was my dad's and I have a TRC-453 with SSB that I'll be transmitting on. Thanks again and I'll try the dipole for the monitoring!

[James_Bond_007]

here is a couple of neat calculators for coax loss and dipole design.

Coax Calculator