Diamond D130 Dicscone Antenna & CB Channel 19

[chazcarly]

Is there a way to get the Diamond D130 to pick up low band better, trying to get one CB channel, 19 and I get nothing. Work next to an interstate. If I change to my Mag mount TRAM Tri band on a file cabinet in my office, I pick up that Freq. I know nothing about Antennas...

 

[mmckenna]

Is there a way to get the Diamond D130 to pick up low band better, trying to get one CB channel, 19 and I get nothing. Work next to an interstate. If I change to my Mag mount TRAM Tri band on a file cabinet in my office, I pick up that Freq. I know nothing about Antennas...

Couple of things to consider:

1. There is no where near the amount of traffic on CB as there was back in the 1990's. If you are expecting to hear a lot of truckers talking, you may be disappointed.
2. The discone antennas, as they are designed, don't work well on CB. The top whip is the active part on low band, and it's usually tuned for the 6 meter ham band, so waaayyyyy too short for CB.
3. The ground plane presented by the rest of the antenna is not suitable for CB frequencies.
4. You could replace the top whip with something tuned for CB, but it's still going to suffer from the lack of ground plane.
5. Are you 100% sure the antenna is working? Often we find that people install these, don't waterproof the outdoor coax connection, water gets in, and it destroys the coax.

Some places to start, we could ask a lot more questions, but start with those...

 

[prcguy]

There are some Discones that have a top wip tuned to 27MHz. You could probably rewind the whip loading coil so it resonates at 27MHz, that should perk it up.

 

[chazcarly]

Couple of things to consider:

1. There is no where near the amount of traffic on CB as there was back in the 1990's. If you are expecting to hear a lot of truckers talking, you may be disappointed.
2. The discone antennas, as they are designed, don't work well on CB. The top whip is the active part on low band, and it's usually tuned for the 6 meter ham band, so waaayyyyy too short for CB.
3. The ground plane presented by the rest of the antenna is not suitable for CB frequencies.
4. You could replace the top whip with something tuned for CB, but it's still going to suffer from the lack of ground plane.
5. Are you 100% sure the antenna is working? Often we find that people install these, don't waterproof the outdoor coax connection, water gets in, and it destroys the coax.

Some places to start, we could ask a lot more questions, but start with those...

Yes, the scanner a BCD996P2 works fine on everything programed into it with the discone, I Just never hear anything on the CB CH19 programed in it. Like I said I switched out the antenna for my Mobile Tri Band and yes not too often but couple times a day I picked up Truckers loud and clear with that antenna. (they sounded like they had tuned up radio's) The discone is up on the roof on a 10 pole about 30' total height. The Tri band was just 5 feet away on the top of my filing cabinet. Longer whip? how long and where would I get that. My other thought was a splitter and just run two antennas but to get the correct splitter it looks expensive to do it right. Third choice is just getting another base scanner cheapy with the Tri Band Mag Mount and call it a day.

As always thanks for your help.

 

[chazcarly]

There are some Discones that have a top wip tuned to 27MHz. You could probably rewind the whip loading coil so it resonates at 27MHz, that should perk it up.

Yea I wouldn't know where to begin to do that LOL.

Thanks

 

[mmckenna]

Third choice is just getting another base scanner cheapy with the Tri Band Mag Mount and call it a day.

As always thanks for your help.

Get a used CB radio, a 12 volt power supply, with carful searching, that would be cheaper than a new scanner.

Add a dedicated CB antenna, and you'll have a CB you can actually transmit with.