Picking a suitable antenna

[zedan]

First post here, so hopefully I've picked the correct section.

I picked up a Uniden BCD436HP a while back and absolutely love it. I've been using it with the factory rubber ducky antenna with little issues. Works perfectly when I go to racing events, works great when I'm in the city. The issue I'm having is picking an antenna for my car.

I often make fairly long road trips on the highway and part of the reason I bought the scanner was to provide myself with more information on traffic, etc. Essentially, I'd like to be able to use the scanners Citizen Band scanning capabilities while on longer road trips. Obviously I wouldn't be able to transmit and an actual CB unit would be greatly better but in my car, there's not really any room for one.

So, in my search for an antenna and a greater understanding of antennas, it seems like I need something like the SpectraForce antenna (Not really available in Canada), but how well would this actually work? Would I be better off with a NMO tri-band? Abandon all hope of a middle ground for while on road trips? Pick a CB based antenna and forget the other stuff while on road trips?

Thanks for the help.

 

[JamesO]

The CB radio is the major challenge of any smaller/shorter "scanner" antenna.

You might try this Larson antenna with a magnetic NMO mount - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P9JAVF6?tag=viglink20662-20

I have this antenna here that I have not tried yet, but this would be a lot cheaper and is supposed to be for CB use. You would need a UHF/SO239 adapter or pigtail to connect to your scanner.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002IP3WV4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I may see if I have adapters and give the TRAM antenna a try.

 

[mm]

A better more dedicated 27 MHz antenna is below.

You will still be able to receive VHF with this antenna at reduced sensitivity while UHF and 700/800 reception, if needed, will be fair to poor but again for 27 Meg CB this is the best mobile antenna to use.


https://www.amazon.com/BROWNING-26-...508266761&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=larsen+nmo+27

 

[cmdrwill]

The Browning antenna has poor construction. You would be much better off with the genuine Larsen NMO-27 antenna.

And yes due to the coil in the base of the NMO-27 reception at VHF UHF may not be really good.

 

[JamesO]

Just to update this thread, I dug around and found some adapters to connect my TRAM CB antenna up to the scanner for some subjective testing. The results were very promising for a $16 antenna. While I have not had a chance to test this antenna for its intended purpose as a smaller magnetic mount antenna, it does a very good job as a scanner.

From the subjective standpoint the TRAM antenna does quite well. It does a good job on CB frequencies, when compared to the Radio Shack 800 MHz antenna I usually used the NOAA Weather Channel was far superior reception. The few 800 MHz trunked systems also all came in quite well.

Overall from the first subjective test, the $16 TRAM Mag Mount works very well and I would consider this for a mobile application, especially if you are tying to monitor CB traffic while traveling.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002IP3WV4?tag=viglink20662-20

I also have a NMO mag mount with a small 400 MHz antenna with a coil in the center similar to the Spectrum Force antenna that I need to make some comparisons. I may also have Spectrum Force antenna somewhere around here as well.