Cb whip antenna for scanner

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Quickcall

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Ive got one of the huge fiberglass whip antennas from radio shack, and I would like to hook it up to my scanner for monitoring in the 46mhz range. Will this work? Do I need to modify the antenna in anyway? Thanks!
 

gewecke

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Typically any cb ant. should work well on a scanner,if your interest is in the
30-50mhz. range.I listen to lo band mil. ops. on occasion and that is what I would use.
Good luck!
N9ZAS
 

bwhite

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I was disappointed with my reception in the car on all bands, eyed up the lonely cb mag mount that had been in the corner of the garage for a decade and thought what-the-heck.
Pretty good on vhf low, good on vhf high, much better than the duckie for 800.
For the cost of a BNC adapter. Yeah, I know the purists will say that the adapter looses some signal.
 

gewecke

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Yeah,you do get some loss with an adapter but your cb ant. probably has rg58 cable
which is lousy for anything above 150mhz. anyway. For a cheap and dirty scanner ant.
they're ok.
R/S did market an on glass ant. good from 25-1.3ghz. which comes with a bnc already
on the cable.I have one on my van,it does ok.
N(ZAS
 

kb2vxa

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Hi Quick and readers,

Being sheathed in fiberglass it raises the question is it a full 102" quarter wave or is it helically loaded which would make it shorter? If shorter can the idea, trimming it down gets to be a hit or miss proposition without a way to check it's resonance.

If it's a full length whip you can use a >fine< tooth saw to cut it down to 60" making it a quarter wave on 46MHz and will cover VHF Lo Band nicely, just put a small rubber boot over the end for protection. You will need a counterpoise of equal length connected to the coax shield to make it work properly, this can be a simple bit of wire. If you use a "ball mount" to hold things together you can get creative as to how and where to mount this thing, just remember if you put it outdoors you have to seal the coax to prevent moisture ingress.

As long as these guys are playing out in left field I may as well say it won't work worth a poop on other bands and that's my dos centavos worth.
 
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