Using whip CB antenna for scanner receiving

[DesertScannerFeed]

Hello,

I picked up a custom-made CB whip mobile antenna at a thrift store today. Looks like whoever bought it was willing to pay extra. Anyhow, it stands about five feet tall and has a small cloth flag attached at the top. Where I live, there are lots of offroaders who have whips like these on their side-by-side UTVs or 4x4 trucks. On one end is what appears to be a PL-259 female connector and a female RCA on the other.

Can I mount it outdoors as a receiving antenna for my scanner to listen to CB and other comms below 30MHz? If so, would I need any additional hardware, parts or configuration to make it work? Alternatively, can I purchase an adaptor and use it inside?

I greatly appreciate any feedback you can provide!

Best regards,

Jason

 

[DeeEx]

RCA?!?! And then the PL259/SO239/UHF on the other end? Sounds more like a broken loading coil to me.

Could you show photos?

 

[mmckenna]

On one end is what appears to be a PL-259 female connector and a female RCA on the other.

The RCA connector would be interesting. There used to be antennas you could buy that had a lamp at the top that would light up when transmitting, makes me wonder if it's one of those.
If you do use it outside, make sure you cover that up and seal it so water doesn't get inside and ruin things.

Can I mount it outdoors as a receiving antenna for my scanner to listen to CB and other comms below 30MHz? If so, would I need any additional hardware, parts or configuration to make it work? Alternatively, can I purchase an adaptor and use it inside?

No reason not to give it a try. Will probably work half way decently on CB. Performance won't be wonderful as frequency goes down, but it'll do something, and will be better than many other antennas.

If it does have a UHF connector on the end, you'll need an appropriate mount, but those are not hard to find. Some ham radio antennas use the UHF connector mounts.

Again, make sure you waterproof that connection, too. UHF connectors are not waterproof.

Indoors would work, but there's usually a lot of noise to be picked up.

 

[DeeEx]

I never thought of the “RCA” being something like a place where a light could mount…good thinking. I remember seeing those in CB shops back in the 80s-90s.

I use an old IMAX 2000 CB base antenna for scanning (nothing above 470MHz in these parts), feedpoint is the top of a fence post behind my chicken coop, at about 630’ elevation (second highest peak in a little sort of saddled ridge line) and honestly it works wonderfully across the bands. I can receive the input frequency of UHF handhelds from about seven miles away— here in Vermont you never know what you’ll hear on that side of a repeater pair so it bears monitoring! I can hear just about any 6m or 2m SOTA activation in Vermont or upstate NY with that antenna.

I realize it’s a compromise but it works well; I’ve never had the urge to use my quad band (amateur) base antenna for monitoring.

 

[Dirk_SDR]

Can I mount it outdoors as a receiving antenna for my scanner to listen to CB and other comms below 30MHz?

If it is made for CB you would have to remove the loading coil at the antenna base in order to receive the whole SW.