Wilson Lil Will "upgrade"...

[WhiskerBiscuit505]

Hi new here and new to Citizen Band. Right now the only radios I have are a Uniden Pro401HH and a Midland handheld. Just starting out so be nice. I work at a truck stop so I see units all day long so wanted something to have fun with. I got a Wilson Little Will antenna from work and used a adapter to hook it up to the radios and works ALOT better than the tiny ducks on them. This morning I naught a Wilson 49" replacement whip to stuff into the Lil will mag mount. Figured it should work even better. I would have gotten 102" whip but my work doesn't sell once that long. Actually I'm still at work right now so still looming at the whip while I'm in drivers lounge. Excited about trying it out. How well u all think its gonna perform compared to the stock whip that 13" shorter? I know I should have a better radio but right now I need portability and something that can be removed and reinstalled easily and quickly so this set up will work for me. Reason why I wanted to buy a cb was because I live on the red and our phone service doesn't work more than does work so needed something for emergency communication that was reliable. Got cell phones too but never know. Do plan on doing a base station setup for the house two. In all we got three handhelds. Also we use wood for heat so we are out in locations where cell phone service can change. I have been reading and researching like a mad man about citizen band and man is there crazy amounts of info to learn. So far I enjoy it although these handhelds its hard to understand what some users are saying since there bare bones and basic with no features so a lot of static and whirling and other sounds and sometimes I get the same transmission on like three neighboring channels. Kinda like a am radio station in between a station. One clear and the other two mixed with a few other transmissions on top. Actually hear multiple transmissions all the time. A strong one and some faint ones on same channel. Figure one of the others is the other person replying but get other transmissions that just interfere on top. Never hear emergency stuff on channel 9. Mostly people speaking Spanish. Lol.

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Hi new here and new to Citizen Band. Right now the only radios I have are a Uniden Pro401HH and a Midland handheld. Just starting out so be nice. I work at a truck stop so I see units all day long so wanted something to have fun with. I got a Wilson Little Will antenna from work and used a adapter to hook it up to the radios and works ALOT better than the tiny ducks on them. This morning I naught a Wilson 49" replacement whip to stuff into the Lil will mag mount. Figured it should work even better. I would have gotten 102" whip but my work doesn't sell once that long. Actually I'm still at work right now so still looming at the whip while I'm in drivers lounge. Excited about trying it out. How well u all think its gonna perform compared to the stock whip that 13" shorter? I know I should have a better radio but right now I need portability and something that can be removed and reinstalled easily and quickly so this set up will work for me. Reason why I wanted to buy a cb was because I live on the red and our phone service doesn't work more than does work so needed something for emergency communication that was reliable. Got cell phones too but never know. Do plan on doing a base station setup for the house two. In all we got three handhelds. Also we use wood for heat so we are out in locations where cell phone service can change. I have been reading and researching like a mad man about citizen band and man is there crazy amounts of info to learn. So far I enjoy it although these handhelds its hard to understand what some users are saying since there bare bones and basic with no features so a lot of static and whirling and other sounds and sometimes I get the same transmission on like three neighboring channels. Kinda like a am radio station in between a station. One clear and the other two mixed with a few other transmissions on top. Actually hear multiple transmissions all the time. A strong one and some faint ones on same channel. Figure one of the others is the other person replying but get other transmissions that just interfere on top. Never hear emergency stuff on channel 9. Mostly people speaking Spanish. Lol.

Well welcome to the hobby! You can order a 102 inch CB whip online. Lots of radios out there, but I'd recommend a sideband unit
since lots of activity is on LSB! How much did you want to spend on your setup?

 

[WhiskerBiscuit505]

Well when I do a mobile setup in my ride I'm thinking a Uniden 980ssb I think it's called. Real nice looking from the display at work. With a center fire antenna. On the home base I'm thinking either the galaxy dx2547 or the sx2517. There both awesome looking units. Kinda going towards the 2517 if I can swing it cause it seem epic. There's two different base antennas. By the way could not find any mods for my handhelds. Not worried about battery life. I got tons of rechargeable batteries. I've gotten pretty good sitance out the handhelds with the little will connected on top of truck and other radio with a dick antenna trying to communicate far away in hills and woods with lots of rock and in valley but of course the radio with the duck got to the point it could only receive and no transmit to other radio.

 

[WhiskerBiscuit505]

Also do they have repeater stations because I keep hearing a guy saying he is from Georgia. I try to talk bit no reply. I don't think its skip cause like I said I got cheap radio and antenna and don't think that can happen with my setup. I'm I. Prewitt, nm. That's kinda close to Gallup.

 

[kc8kek]

It's skip

Your first instinct was right, it is skip. When the band is open, you can pull skip in using little more than a few inches of damp sting for an antenna, so your modest antenna setup isn't stopping you from hearing it.

Also, a lot of guys (especially on channel 6, 11, 14) run an inordinate amount of power, and somehow the FCC has never seen fit to go shut them down. My advice is to ignore them, there's a lot of good activity and responsible operators enjoying the hobby out there - you just have to be willing to ignore the bad apples.

Like someone else said, get a sideband rig, it's worth it as far as enjoying the hobby goes. I often make long distance contacts (even trans-Atlantic) with a stock Uniden SSB rig and a simple antenna.

If you do a google search on some basic antennas, you'll find there are a lot of good ways of constructing your own antenna without spendidng a lot of money, and experimenting is half the fun.

 

[WhiskerBiscuit505]

Yeah I really want a base station to play with and my work has the Uniden SSb with a rebate which makes the normally overpriced arudd sold at truck stops a bit better priced. Was thinking of getting one as a starter base station unit. Not gonna run no amps or anything just as is so won't need no antenna that needs to handle tons of power. The new unidena look nice. More of a stereo than the typical cb with tons of knobs. Although the knobs look like it makes it a lot quicker to adjust settings. The new cobras look awesome too. Got the whip home yesterday and not gonna fit in the Lil will mag mount so either gonna drill open the mount to fit but probably better to thin out the whip to fit instead.

 

[SCPD]

An antenna is a TUNED Device. A coil and whip RESONATE at a certain frequency. If the 35 to 36 inch whip is replaced by a 49 inch whip. The antenna will not be in tune and could cause your radio to burn up due to a severe mismatch. The only thing you could do to increase the performance and I dont recommend it unless you have the equipment. Is it remove some of the coil in the antenna and possibly the need of changing the capacitor value in the antenna. The 49 inch antenna as is may hear ok but definitely have a transmit range problem.......

 

[WhiskerBiscuit505]

The whip is just a price of metal rod so what to keep it tunes it would have to be twice as long or something to be in tunw or what?