What are the model numbers so i can look at them ?? Wink wink
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Fiberglass vs. Metal Whip? (Static Comparison)
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Project25_MASTR
Millennial Graying OBT Guy
Personally, I tend to only use a handful of antennas. Larsen NMO27 or a 10/11 m product from Tram. Both are whip styles. One could be called center loaded, the other is base loaded. I prefer NMO mounts fur pretty much everything though.
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+1 on the Larsen Nmo27s. Works great for 10 or 11 meters.
. 73, n9zasI've had a lot of antennas on vehicles over the years... both Steel and also Fiberglass. They are typically 10 feet tall. I did have a 9 foot steel whip on the trunk lid of a '68 GTO, which would have put it at about 12 feet long (took out a lot of florescent lights in parking garages with that thing).
Right now the tip of the fiberglass whip I am running atm on my F350 dually flatbed is about 10 feet to the top.
I have never broken any of them.
I am sure it is possible, but it has yet to happen to me.
My first CB was on a '61 impala back in 1974. It had a 2 meter radio in it as well. I have never had a car or truck that didn't have both a CB and a 2 meter radio in it... never a broken antenna. It's just not something I worry about. I prefer 10 feet max because that will clear 99% of all low bridges. If I run into something lower than that, I would slow down to a crawl as I went under it of course. Yes, I have hit low tree branches and havnt had any damage to date.
Rick
Right now the tip of the fiberglass whip I am running atm on my F350 dually flatbed is about 10 feet to the top.
I have never broken any of them.
I am sure it is possible, but it has yet to happen to me.
My first CB was on a '61 impala back in 1974. It had a 2 meter radio in it as well. I have never had a car or truck that didn't have both a CB and a 2 meter radio in it... never a broken antenna. It's just not something I worry about. I prefer 10 feet max because that will clear 99% of all low bridges. If I run into something lower than that, I would slow down to a crawl as I went under it of course. Yes, I have hit low tree branches and havnt had any damage to date.
Rick
AC9BX
Member
JUNK! The amount of woo in the CB market is astounding.
Fiberglass has nothing to do with the signal. It is an electrical insulator and is supposed to be transparent to RF.
Fiberglass will NOT reduce static or noise. Ideally it has no effect on the signal.
If you don't want or can't use an 8 foot tall whip then you go for a compromise, a way to get the antenna to resonate at the needed frequencies, loaded or helical or something else. A fiberglass antenna might be helical wound and not a whip. In this case it has more wire, a lot more. But that doesn't equal better. Helical antennas used in place of proper length 1/4 wave verticals are less efficient. However, at 27Mhz CB you are otherwise using a bottom or center load (tuning section) anyway which is also less efficient than a 1/4 wave vertical.
If it's a loaded antenna (usually at the bottom for fiberglass) a fiberglass model is just a very small wire (cheaper) encased inside. This antenna will not perform as well as metal. The increased surface area will offer wider bandwidth, that is it tunes better across the band, and will be slightly more efficient. I would never recommend using a straight-wire-inside fiberglass antenna. Some fiberglass models use the thin wire to connect to a metal outer sleeve to then connect to the mount. This thin wire get fatigued quickly and subsequently breaks.
A helical antenna need not be and likely won't be the same length as others. None of the compromise antennas will be a specific length. They are all the length required to make the design tune on the frequencies used. If a coil at the bottom is made for a wire 30 inches long then that's what it needs to be. More metal in the air is better but it has to match the system.
Speaking of matching, typically there just isn't enough metal over a flat area of a vehicle to function as a good ground plane or counterpoise. Mobile antennas on vehicles for these lower frequencies often exhibit low feed point impedance. Some antennas may not compensate for this. They have a coil made to tune the short antenna but not to match it to the feed cable. This is one reason why a seemingly inferior antenna may outperform a seemingly better or longer one. If you turn your coax into a heater due to a mismatch performance will suffer.
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