• To anyone looking to acquire commercial radio programming software:

    Please do not make requests for copies of radio programming software which is sold (or was sold) by the manufacturer for any monetary value. All requests will be deleted and a forum infraction issued. Making a request such as this is attempting to engage in software piracy and this forum cannot be involved or associated with this activity. The same goes for any private transaction via Private Message. Even if you attempt to engage in this activity in PM's we will still enforce the forum rules. Your PM's are not private and the administration has the right to read them if there's a hint to criminal activity.

    If you are having trouble legally obtaining software please state so. We do not want any hurt feelings when your vague post is mistaken for a free request. It is YOUR responsibility to properly word your request.

    To obtain Motorola software see the Sticky in the Motorola forum.

    The various other vendors often permit their dealers to sell the software online (i.e., Kenwood). Please use Google or some other search engine to find a dealer that sells the software. Typically each series or individual radio requires its own software package. Often the Kenwood software is less than $100 so don't be a cheapskate; just purchase it.

    For M/A Com/Harris/GE, etc: there are two software packages that program all current and past radios. One package is for conventional programming and the other for trunked programming. The trunked package is in upwards of $2,500. The conventional package is more reasonable though is still several hundred dollars. The benefit is you do not need multiple versions for each radio (unlike Motorola).

    This is a large and very visible forum. We cannot jeopardize the ability to provide the RadioReference services by allowing this activity to occur. Please respect this.

Question about broadcast range.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
Hello CB forum,

I have a new radio set up in my pick up truck and I'm running a linear for the first time ever. I have a Wilson 5000 magnet mount that's been trimmed and centered on the optimal ground plane etc... (It's been set up by a ham radio shop fellow I'm friends with that's into really advanced stuff I can't talk about without sounding dumb cause it's above my pay grade). The radio is a galaxy 99v2 that's been peaked and meticulously tuned, It will do 11 meters but my antenna is matched to 10 meters. My linear is a older used texas star 500 watt linear. He showed me the finals have red markings on them which means they are an older better generation than the new regulated stuff I'm told.

I know that in a mobile unit how far I can broadcast is going to very all the time based on the terrain, but when I'm at my house I'm in an optimal location on a very high ridge pretty much at the crest, there's just sky all around me and I'm at 2900+ feet in elevation, little town of cool ridge wv. I'm curious how far one can broadcast from a location like that on 500 watts in your all's opinion? AM and SSB

Also curious if there's any forum members who think they are close enough to talk to me?

Thanks for your input.

Interesting side note. I used to run a 102" whip on the roof of my '13 silverado but I was forced to go to an antenna with a coil in it for this 2017 silverado cause the metallurgy is either way to ****ty or the sheet metal is way to thin for a good ground plane for a natural 1/4 wave antenna. Best swr we could get out of it was 1.7
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20180609_181349.jpg
    IMG_20180609_181349.jpg
    99.1 KB · Views: 505
  • IMG_20180523_165215.jpg
    IMG_20180523_165215.jpg
    243.1 KB · Views: 504

FiveFilter

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2016
Messages
308
I assume your SWR is OK even though the antenna is tuned for 10M? Although not as important for a 4 watt ratio, a big amp will want a good match of maybe 1.5:1 or it could heat up and be damaged fast.

Based on your elevation of 2900 feet, I'd say your line-of-sight communicating potential is maybe 60 or 70 miles, assuming the receiving ratio has like power. If the receiving radio is also at 2900 feet, the range might expand to 100 miles or more. Just a wild guess. There are so many variables.

This is for reliable communications. If "skip" is rolling, the range potential expands to thousands of miles.
 

jhooten

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2004
Messages
1,735
Location
Paige, Republic of Texas
Wait, You ran a Quarter wave on a magmount?

Personally I'd rather have a 1.7 swr on a quarter wave than any loaded antenna, especially one "matched" to 10 meters which leads me to believe the swr is completely off the scale of the meter.

A linyar and a mag mount, really?

See those black stripes on either side of the roof panel? They are not conductive and the middle panel of the roof is glued on. You need to bond it to the rest of the body to get a good RF ground. Then again, with a mag mount the RF ground at the antenna is practically non-existent anyway.

Unless the skip is running my guess is 20 miles at best.

Oh BTW, Even though the claimed power rating of the Wilson 5000 is 5000 watts I've seen them go into melt down at 200 watts with a 3 to 1 SWR.
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
I assume your SWR is OK even though the antenna is tuned for 10M? Although not as important for a 4 watt ratio, a big amp will want a good match of maybe 1.5:1 or it could heat up and be damaged fast.

Based on your elevation of 2900 feet, I'd say your line-of-sight communicating potential is maybe 60 or 70 miles, assuming the receiving ratio has like power. If the receiving radio is also at 2900 feet, the range might expand to 100 miles or more. Just a wild guess. There are so many variables.

This is for reliable communications. If "skip" is rolling, the range potential expands to thousands of miles.

I got ten and eleven meters confused. I'm set up for 11
 
Last edited:

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
Wait, You ran a Quarter wave on a magmount?

Personally I'd rather have a 1.7 swr on a quarter wave than any loaded antenna, especially one "matched" to 10 meters which leads me to believe the swr is completely off the scale of the meter.

A linyar and a mag mount, really?

See those black stripes on either side of the roof panel? They are not conductive and the middle panel of the roof is glued on. You need to bond it to the rest of the body to get a good RF ground. Then again, with a mag mount the RF ground at the antenna is practically non-existent anyway.

Unless the skip is running my guess is 20 miles at best.

Oh BTW, Even though the claimed power rating of the Wilson 5000 is 5000 watts I've seen them go into melt down at 200 watts with a 3 to 1 SWR.

I got 10 and 11 meters confused. Sorry still a noob. I wondered what those black stripes were. I assumed some glued on accent piece, but yeah I had the 1/4 wave antenna on a three magnet mount on my old truck and it worked fine. On the new truck not so much. I tried it on the corners of the bed with a bracket but the swr was still way to high for running an amp. I've been using this radio and antenna for a few months and the same radio on the older truck with the other antenna. I can easily say that the wilson works better on this truck with a flat swr than the quarter wave one did on the old truck at a 1.2 swr and better than on this one at a 1.7. The cab is my preferred place to mount any antenna because of how it's high and centralized. I had it checked for it's ground plane etc to make sure the location was optimal. I'm a novice but they guy that set it all up for me is far from a novice. I'd much prefer a permanent mount but I use my work trucks up in a couple 2 or 3 years and I'm really not sure how long I'll own this one.

One thing I can tell you on my old silverado the roof didn't flex when my antenna was pulled and pushed around, this new one does horribly. The whole roof flexes with just the single magnet wilson if I pull on the whip.
 
Last edited:

jhooten

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2004
Messages
1,735
Location
Paige, Republic of Texas
My CB antenna is a quarterwave on a ball mount at the passenger side front corner of the bed. It is tuned to the middle of the band, which just happens to be channel 19. To get it to 1.3 to 1 it ended up being 99 inches including the spring. This probably because of the proximity to the C pillar.

Non-skip, stock radio, truck to truck on the highway over flat ground with no static or electrical interference 15 miles is about what I can expect.
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
My CB antenna is a quarterwave on a ball mount at the passenger side front corner of the bed. It is tuned to the middle of the band, which just happens to be channel 19. To get it to 1.3 to 1 it ended up being 99 inches including the spring. This probably because of the proximity to the C pillar.

Non-skip, stock radio, truck to truck on the highway over flat ground with no static or electrical interference 15 miles is about what I can expect.

That sounds pretty good for a stock set up from what I hear, but I am not as advanced in knowledge as a lot of you guys? I never ran mine at stock power with my 1/4 wave so I don't know how it compares. My radio turns up to 42 watts. I talked from charleston wv to teays valley one time which is about 20 miles give or take. In my area the geography is usually the limiting factor for a mobile.

Do you think that having your antenna on a bed corner affects your lobes? I was afraid of that with mine and I also didn't want it below the roof line, but if yours can do 15 miles barefoot, maybe that's not a bad idea after all If I can get the swr to a reasonable level. When my buddy hooked up his analyzer to my roof mounted system he said magnetically it wasn't even seeing the truck and said I should be glad I hadn't damaged my radio yet, we tried the bed corners but he said the ground plane just wasn't optimal and thought that he could trim that wilson to a flat standing wave and get it to perform better than the 1/4 wave could on my particular vehicle (not in general, just my sad unfortunate truck). So far it is working better. I have to turn my gain down lower to cut out all the noise, and if I crank the gain all the way up I hear a lot more chatter so as far as I can tell it's an improvement.
 

jhooten

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2004
Messages
1,735
Location
Paige, Republic of Texas
Once upon a time I took a yard sale cb, hooked it to the antenna, rubber banded the ptt switch, then walked a 500 foot diameter circle around the truck with a field strength meter in hand. The needle barely moved the entire time. So, I don't believe the mounting location on a pick up sized vehicle has as much effect on the pattern as cb legends would have you believe.

At HF frequencies the body of the vehicle acts as one plate of a capacitor insulated from the other plate, the ground below it, by the tire rubber. So, the vehicle body and the ground below it are all part of the RF ground system and have an effect on the radiation pattern.
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
Once upon a time I took a yard sale cb, hooked it to the antenna, rubber banded the ptt switch, then walked a 500 foot diameter circle around the truck with a field strength meter in hand. The needle barely moved the entire time. So, I don't believe the mounting location on a pick up sized vehicle has as much effect on the pattern as cb legends would have you believe.

At HF frequencies the body of the vehicle acts as one plate of a capacitor insulated from the other plate, the ground below it, by the tire rubber. So, the vehicle body and the ground below it are all part of the RF ground system and have an effect on the radiation pattern.

Your probably right, my buddy is a detail oriented perfectionist, so even if it is a small effect he'd care about it. I don't know what he used but it's some sort of analyzer that checks swr, and the resistance in the coax and dunno if it directly checks or if he infers from it how well your grounded but there wasn't an easy way to get a good ground plane out of my truck with a simple mount. If I wanted to spend tons of money I'm sure he could have rigged something beyond a simple mount but I'm going with my 2017 Chevy is made of low quality junk. And it's working really good. I skipped down to Florida and out to Indiana the other day on regular am
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV

Yes, Texas star dx500. Braking the law, breaking the law.

Took the time to read the list. Pretty sure I exceed most of those things with just the radio since it's been peaked and tumed and can access like 320 channels plus it has the +10mghz button. On top of that I have a linear wired up finally. But the govt says I can't do that, so it must be impossible, and yet I haven't had any trouble. It's almost like no one takes enforcement seriously, which is a shame, since we should all just obediently do whatever the govt says.
 
Last edited:

Skylloga

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2017
Messages
7
Location
Branson
Did you try a fiberglass antenna like a firestick or something similar? When I was running all kinds of cb stuff I was told that if using a 102" it didnt matter where it was mounted as long as the the top 30ish inches was above the highest point of the vehicle. As for mag mounts and center loaded antenna's the load needs to be above the top of the vehicle. As for fiberglass antenna's as long as they are above the top of the vehicle they were ok.

I always ran center loaded antennas when I was running power. The local cb shop let me use various antenna's to get the best performance. I ended up with a center loaded locally made antenna built for large amounts of power. I had a galaxy pluto and texas star vplus modulator and most of the time I would walk all over the guys running 500+ watts on base. And not because I was between them and the other person. I was just loud, had the perfect steel bodied car and perfectly tuned cb setup. One of the guys at the cb shop I frequented said I was perfectly tuned and setup.
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,226
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
There seems to be a lot of "I was told" info about CB antennas and depending on who told you it could be true or false. Placing a 9ft whip on the bumper of a full size van will leave about 30 inches above the highest point of the vehicle and guess what? You will not be able to match it and it will not radiate worth a hoot. Unless the guy that told you it would work will refund all your money from mounting it there, don't believe it. I've had to fix probably a hundred of those bumper mount 9ft whip installs, been there and done that.

One fact is a 1/4 wave antenna radiates the most energy in the bottom portion of the antenna and it radiates less as you progress up the whip. In a center loaded antenna most of the radiation happens below the coil. The maximum radiation area follows where there is the most current in the antenna and that happens in the lower impedance portion of the antenna.

A base loaded antenna mostly radiates near the base but you introduce losses by sticking the coil at the bottom. Bigger thicker coil means less potential loss and a tiny bit more signal out but the coil is not doing very much radiating in center loaded antennas.

A fiberglass antenna is just an antenna and it goes by the same rules as a stainless steel or copper or aluminum antenna. Fiberglass can have the loading coil spread out over its length or it can be center or top loaded and most of the signal will radiate from the lower portion of the antenna.

If you have an end fed 1/2 wave antenna like an Antron 99, most of the radiation will come from the middle of the antenna because the ends are high impedance and the center of the A99 is the low impedance point. Antennas have rules to follow and it sounds like the guy that told you stuff did not read the rules.


Did you try a fiberglass antenna like a firestick or something similar? When I was running all kinds of cb stuff I was told that if using a 102" it didnt matter where it was mounted as long as the the top 30ish inches was above the highest point of the vehicle. As for mag mounts and center loaded antenna's the load needs to be above the top of the vehicle. As for fiberglass antenna's as long as they are above the top of the vehicle they were ok.

I always ran center loaded antennas when I was running power. The local cb shop let me use various antenna's to get the best performance. I ended up with a center loaded locally made antenna built for large amounts of power. I had a galaxy pluto and texas star vplus modulator and most of the time I would walk all over the guys running 500+ watts on base. And not because I was between them and the other person. I was just loud, had the perfect steel bodied car and perfectly tuned cb setup. One of the guys at the cb shop I frequented said I was perfectly tuned and setup.
 

guyonearth

Member
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
5
Yes, Texas star dx500. Braking the law, breaking the law.

Took the time to read the list. Pretty sure I exceed most of those things with just the radio since it's been peaked and tumed and can access like 320 channels plus it has the +10mghz button. On top of that I have a linear wired up finally. But the govt says I can't do that, so it must be impossible, and yet I haven't had any trouble. It's almost like no one takes enforcement seriously, which is a shame, since we should all just obediently do whatever the govt says.

There are sound reasons for FCC regulations, whether your limited intellect grasps them or not.
Be sure to let us know what your fine is when you get nailed.
 

FiveFilter

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2016
Messages
308
Quote: "...whether your limited intellect grasps them or not. Be sure to let us know what your fine is when you get nailed."
"

Obviously, the guy who made this insulting statement is not a "guy on earth". It must be from an alien with an unlimited intellect who is masking as an insulting earthling with an obviously limited intellect but an unlimited ability for insulting mere earthlings.

Despite this scare tactic, the chance that using an amp on earth will cause a fine is just about zero, especially if used in a mobile unit. I don't encourage the use of an amp, but the risk is minuscule, even if a guy with unlimited intellect tells you otherwise. Now, if you're using a gigantic amp on a base radio that interferes with the neighbors or a nearby police transmitter or airport, the alien might be right.
 

asuddendeath

Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2018
Messages
66
I run a sr-a10 mag mount. I can do 20-25 miles on 10-12 watts.
Growning up i ran a silver eagle 350 with a corba 29 and a wilson 1000 mag mount. No issuses ever. I did loads of dx and had a great range.
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
Did you try a fiberglass antenna like a firestick or something similar? When I was running all kinds of cb stuff I was told that if using a 102" it didnt matter where it was mounted as long as the the top 30ish inches was above the highest point of the vehicle. As for mag mounts and center loaded antenna's the load needs to be above the top of the vehicle. As for fiberglass antenna's as long as they are above the top of the vehicle they were ok.

I always ran center loaded antennas when I was running power. The local cb shop let me use various antenna's to get the best performance. I ended up with a center loaded locally made antenna built for large amounts of power. I had a galaxy pluto and texas star vplus modulator and most of the time I would walk all over the guys running 500+ watts on base. And not because I was between them and the other person. I was just loud, had the perfect steel bodied car and perfectly tuned cb setup. One of the guys at the cb shop I frequented said I was perfectly tuned and setup.


I thought about it, but I get good performance out of my Wilson. And the set is flat as a pancake. A firestick might work but I already invested in the wilson.
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
Quote: "...whether your limited intellect grasps them or not. Be sure to let us know what your fine is when you get nailed."
"

Obviously, the guy who made this insulting statement is not a "guy on earth". It must be from an alien with an unlimited intellect who is masking as an insulting earthling with an obviously limited intellect but an unlimited ability for insulting mere earthlings.

Despite this scare tactic, the chance that using an amp on earth will cause a fine is just about zero, especially if used in a mobile unit. I don't encourage the use of an amp, but the risk is minuscule, even if a guy with unlimited intellect tells you otherwise. Now, if you're using a gigantic amp on a base radio that interferes with the neighbors or a nearby police transmitter or airport, the alien might be right.

There are sound reasons for FCC regulations, whether your limited intellect grasps them or not.
Be sure to let us know what your fine is when you get nailed.

I usually turn the power down anyway until I have an opportunity to shout out about an accident blocking the road or a speed trap etc...

It's great for shooting skip but what's the point? I can say hi and buy and have a good day or **** you and your dog without the help of a cb radio.
 

Gniederb

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
58
Location
WV
The verdict is in. seem to be able to skip for huge distances and talk to a comparable radio close to 100 miles with optimum geography.

Having good equipment might help one hear another rig over a longer distance. I do have a good antenna and my receive is tweaked in my radio, but most these dang truckers don't seem to be able to talk more than a mile or two with their junk. 4 watts is pretty much useless in WV. Wish there were more higher output radios out there in use.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top