newbie antennas

[whiskeybottom]

Hi all whiskey bottom here joined minutes ago.....new to the cb world I was walking through Wal-Mart one day and seen a cobra 40 ch cb ya I got it lol also bought a antenna sucked of course started Googleing a few and built me a 11 m dipole half wave a half wave up can't go any higher home owners wife etc....I also made a fan dipole works but not as good as my 11m maybe cause of height also is 4 watts even worth messing with these days basically is there anything I can build to get Me get Me a couple hundred miles or even thousand just on my Wal-Mart 40 band?

Gota start somewhere so I bought it built a few even have a few locals I talk to on the regular just want it stronger more gain I guess and one of my contacts said a power Mic would do me good with this radio any suggestions

[W2NJS]

A power mic is a waste of money. It does nothing except to distort your signal.

[whiskeybottom]

Yea I couldn't see how a Mic could unless it has a built in amp which it does wouldn't the d11 resister come into play I think that's the out wattage limiter or something like that hmmm would beams to Me better then a monstress antenna I live in the suburbs of md lls if I have no choice for a tower I will build it wife and H.O. etc...can deal with it

Is there something else I can build that works great but if there a great antenna that's hidden I'd like to see a couple demos.....I can google it but never no if I'm waisting my time or not I herd 4 watts I think it swings to 12 watts at times but dunno how to measure it

Thank in advance I'm sure these questions have been asked a million times so greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance!

[whiskeybottom]

Multiple antennas? Ground mounted, beams, huge dipole, that's kinda what iv been thinking about any help?

[whiskeybottom]

Basically what my best option

[WB4CS]

No offence to anyone, but for the most part (but not always) most of the people on 11-meters have no clue how radio signals work. They will tell you to get power mics, peak and tune your radio, and etc, all of which will not really help.

With CB you are limited to 4 Watts of power for AM (12 Watts PEP for SSB). You'll hear lots of talk about amps and linears that give you hundreds of Watts of power, however those are illegal and if not properly tuned can end up causing interference across the spectrum. Being legally limited to 4 Watts, CB was designed to be used for local communications. Sure, when band conditions are good even 4 Watts can give you some long distance but you'd need a very high gain antenna to really benefit from those band conditions.

If you're interrested in long distance communications, study for your Amateur Radio License and get licensed as a Ham. With a General Class Amateur Radio License you can use several HF bands (frequencies below 11 meters) with a 1500 Watt power limit. You'll be talking all around the world!

Finally, even though CB has become a wasteland of "no rules", here is the FCC's official rulebook for CB radio for your reference.
Citizens Band (CB) Service | FCC.gov

Have fun on the air!

[whiskeybottom]

Hey man none takin that was the best info I have taken in sense iv started this 2 month journey definitely going to be getting a licence and a nice ham radio my wife said thanx by the way! Hahaha

[k9rzz]

Welcome aboard!

That half wave dipole is pretty efficient. If you can put up a beam (yagi or quad) that will extend your range a good distance without running more power. Might be something that you can pull off at your location.

There are times when conditions will allow you to talk farther than normal, so be patient and keep your ears open. It might be in the early mornings, or late at night when the weather is still. Or, perhaps you'll get some E-skip and you might be able to talk across the country. There's no predicting these openings, so you've just gotta listen and wait. Have fun!

[whiskeybottom]

Thank you all.....

I just made a half of square

36ft total length basically I put positive or transmit middle wire on a quarter wave 9 ft and a str8 shot of 18ft and at the end of that I put another 9 ft str8 down so it looks like a box shaped n I have the wires tied down 6 in or so from ground 18ft wire is the main support about 9.5 ft high off ground?

I was reading and someone said a half of a square would do Me better I guess the signals reflect from ground?? Because of low resistance I think any suggestions about this half square have not tested I guess that will be the ultimate test but.....you guys might no something I'm missing

[whiskeybottom]

And definitely look forward to getting a licence and. More power a ham radio I guess

[WB4CS]

Originally Posted by whiskeybottom

Thank you all.....

I was reading and someone said a half of a square would do Me better I guess the signals reflect from ground?? Because of low resistance I think any suggestions about this half square have not tested I guess that will be the ultimate test but.....you guys might no something I'm missing

You're welcome!

I'm not familiar with that type of antenna, maybe someone else here knows about it. As someone else said above, a simple dipole can work pretty well. However....

Antenna polarity (horizontal VS vertical) can be critical when working line of sight (when the signal does not bounce off of the ionsphere.) Most CB Antennas are vertically polarized (the elements of the antenna are up and down). If you have a horizontal dipole, you will notice that anyone local that is using a vertical antenna will not be as strong.

So with any antenna you build try it both vertical and horzontal and see which one works the best for you. Building antennas is all about trial and error, oh the fun!

If you're interested in learning more about building antennas, I would recommend picking up this book:
ARRL Antenna Book
It's mostly for building antennas for ham radio, but any antenna that is for the 10-meter ham band can be used on 11-meter CB with some tuning and adjustments. (And the book will come in handy if you get your ham radio license!)

EDIT:
Oh, speaking of vertical antennas, you could try a J-Pole antenna. It's fairly easy and cheap to build. They work great on VHF 2-meters, so I imagine one would work pretty well on 11-meters. Google "J Pole Antenna" and you should find plenty of how-to guides to building one. Just be sure that you change the math in the length calculations, instead of making one for 2 meters @ 146 MHz, you'd want to calculate the length for 27.205 MHz (the middle of the band.)

[whiskeybottom]

Ok I put that damn thing to together cant seem to tune it for a second it seemed clear I'm now realizing tuning is a must my out of all the antennas the 17 ft dipole 17 ft high and my swr on cb says 5 ???, never tuned this dipole its made of half in copper pipe brand new shiny to lol anyways I just can't see why a long wire suppoesed to be better then what iv built I think insulation comes to play to the length also never seen anyone cover that I wonder how much different the antenna "half square 36 ft long" would react if I striped all the wire to bare?

Sorry I'm swerving all over the subjects but ill stay up for two days and nights building stuff to work better then my dipole my first original here a great question for you guys can answer Help if you will tuning my baby lls sence It's reading 5s can I add other then taking off and I think it's like 105 inch

[WB4CS]

Note to forum admins, may want to move this post to the CB Radio Forum?


Whiskey,
Good deal on having the motivation to get it right, that's the spirit!

I don't believe that the insulation on the wire really causes any issues. I've built many wire dipoles and worked all over the world with them on HF. You can use copper tube, that's how the J-Pole antenna I mentioned earlier is constructed. You may want to check your connection points and be sure the center conductor and wire shield of the coax is correctly connected to the antenna, and check the length of the elements.

Your high SWR issue may be a impedance mis-match. Your radio needs 50 Ohms of impedance at the transmission point. That can sometimes be because the antenna is not tuned correctly. For most antennas, you can calculate the length of each element by this formula for a 1/4 wavelength antenna:
2808 / (frequency) = 1/4 wave
So for example, if you want your antenna to be resonant (correctly tuned) at the middle of the CB band at 27.025 MHz, each element of the dipole would be 104 inches long. For a dipole or wire antenna that isn't tuned to the correct frequency, you will need an antenna tuner that can match the impedance of the antenna to 50 Ohms. This 1/4 wave formula should work for just about any antenna you build. The book I mentioned before will tell you everything you could want to know about how antennas work and how to build them.

(After re-reading your post, your antenna length should be okay, it's 2 inches short, but that just changes the resonant frequency to 27.530 MHz, so that's okay.) That being said, you may want to check all your connections and be sure the coax isn't damaged.

For your half of square antenna you're asking about, do you have a link to where you found the instructions to build it? Maybe I can look over it and see if I understand how the antenna works.

Another question, on your dipole that isn't working for you, how did you connect the coax to the antenna?

And finally, another antenna you may want to try to build, and it's just as cheap and easy as a dipole or J-Pole is a Ground Plane.

Here's a website I found that has some good info on building 11-meter antennas, including ground planes.
The Ultimate Guide to 11 Meter CB Antennas

Keep us posted on how it goes!

[whiskeybottom]

Yes also for got to mention I did some reading in ground planes will deffinitly look at this link!!! I connected wires to antenna hose clamps no sader gun???? But insulated well!

Half square found on Google discussion search first or 2nd forum explains it better what medals can I use for antenna building? ?

[whiskeybottom]

Also no wire antenna has matchd my dipole 1/2 copper pipe wonder if str8 up medals will conduct better then just wire like solid then stranded can I use tin? Or hangers? Lol always a thought and I have a few old medal stands wouldnt mind cutting up for building also

[LtDoc]

Is any particular metal better for antennas than another? The requirement is for the metal to be an electrical conductor. It should have fairly low resistance, but doesn't have to be super low resistance. Almost anything will work, there's no particular benefits other than mechanical ones. It it isn't strong enough to hold up it's own weight, it's just not big enough, you know? You can go too far in the other direction too, who needs to use 4" solid copper/silver/gold for an antenna (or can afford to)?
Copper seems to be the choice in most cases. One reason being it's easy to solder where aluminum isn't. Aluminum works just fine too, but you just have to treat it differently.
How about the diameter of that conductor and the 'bandwidth' of the antenna? Conductor diameter does have an affect on bandwidth, but it's frequency related, deals with the diameter in relation to the signal bandwidth. The higher you go in frequency the larger diameters can 'spread' the usable bandwidth of the antenna out a bit. That's applicable at VHF/UHF much more than at HF. At HF, to increase the usable signal bandwidth of an antenna you'd have to use some really huge conductors. For instance, at 800 Mhz an inch diameter antenna element will have a larger usable signal band width than a 14 ga. wire. At 4 Mhz, that diameter would have to be measured in feet, not inches. No antenna, no matter what it's 'size', is going to have a very wide usable bandwidth from daylight to dark. That just isn't possible, wish it were.
- 'Doc

[robertmac]

Is it more of Crappy Band?

[WB4CS]

Originally Posted by robertmac

Is it more of Crappy Band?

True, it's not for Amateur Radio and since I've been posting a lot on this thread I put the suggestion that it should be moved to the CB forum.

I may be a ham radio operator, but I'm willing to help out anyone that wants to learn how to build antennas and how they work. And who knows, if more of us were friendly and helpful we might have more people move from CB to Ham and be good, knowledgeable radio operators.

[shortride]

If used correctly an amplified microphone is a wonderful addition to a CB radio setup. A lot of operators don't realize that the audio changes the microphone gain settings and can very easily distort the audio. If you maintain about 80% modulation with an amplified microphone you will be just fine.

[shortride]

Two principles when wanting to talk long distance is power output and height of the antenna. And of course low SWR. Unless conditions are absolutely near perfect, 4 watts isn't going to talk very far without it being skip. Most factory CB would be hard pressed to even put out 4 watts.