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Thread: What am I doing wrong?

  1. #1
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    What am I doing wrong?

    Hi Everyone,

    I'm just starting out on my CB journey and I have antenna issues that I would like your opinions on if that's ok?

    Please feel free to point out my rookie mistakes.

    I have a Cobra 25 Classic (from someone on facebook) hooked up to a Firestik mounted on a 24ft painterspole which is staked into my lawn. SWR is 2.5 on all channels and nothing is received.

    Here are some pictures of my efforts so far. Any help with reducing SWR and getting to hear some voices is gratefully received.

    Thanks, Hankyexpress.

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    1st make sure no metal above the plastic insulator touches your pole mount 2nd move the antenna as close to the top as you can better to use a right angle mirror mount if you can get one that eliminates both problems 3rd it really will not perform all that well as mobile antennas are compromise antennas they work but not as good as full blown antenna a full size steel whip mobile antenna might work a bit better

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    I attempted to do the same thing and never got it to work right. I had better luck using a mag-mount antenna on the top of my car parked in the driveway and running the coax inside to the radio. I made side band contacts to Main and Cali. with this setup and a stock radio.

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    222DBFL (09-10-2016)

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    Yep. You would be better off building yourself either a vertical, inverted V, or horizontal dipole for what you are trying to accomplish. If you were to use the existing painter pole you have and run a piece of wire down it and use an SO239 and a 1:1 balun or a piece of 75ohm coax for a matching stub, you could have a better vertical antenna.
    If you have any trees in your yard, you can hang a dipole up between 2 of them. An inverted V or horizontal dipole would work well for DX'ing and locally out to about 3-5 miles. It doesn't have to be very high off the ground. 18ft or more is optimal, but I have seen them as low as 9ft and work well. There are tons of videos and also antenna calculators on either the App Store or android play store for the antenna calculators for the needed lengths of wire. Also Google 11 meter dipoles and you will see that there is a ton of info on this subject that will help you as well. That or you could build a vertical antenna with 4 102" whips and a 4-6" spring for the vertical whip. The other 3 will be used as ground planes or counterpoise. Like I said, Google is your friend and holds vast info on this subject. But I have to agree with the others here. The setup you have currently isn't going to work very well. Mediocre at best. But that is JMHO. The cheapest route is to build a dipole IMO. You can use wire or even a piece of coax. And you'll need some 75 ohm coax or a 1:1 matching balun to get the impedance to 50 ohms. Also eBay sells dipoles anywhere from $15-$45 dollars. Anyone of them will work. Just have to use your imagination sometimes. Again, these are JMHO's. Hope they might give you some food for thought and possibly some direction. Good luck and keep us posted as to what you end up doing. And we are here to help as always. It might take a few days for someone to answer, but there are many knowledgeable gents here that will help!! Again, good luck and be safe. Have a good day.

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    Tallman (09-27-2016)

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    Thanks :-)

    I really like the idea of using a mag mount on my car and then running the coax to the radio. I nearly bought a mag mount when I purchased the firestik too.

    I am considering making a T2LT dipole antenna following the instructions of UKCBTV on youtube (https://youtu.be/senQ5_fc5WU) that has a blaun/choke in the design. It would be easy to strap that to my painters pole. I have 100ft of RG8X and I only need around 50 to 60 ft of it to get to the center of my lawn. The rest could be the dipole.


    The other idea I had was to go a different direction and splurge on an IMAX 2000. But then there are additional costs for the mounting bracket to mount it to my garage, the extra ~$100 for the ground plane kit for it and then more money for copper pipe(s) in the ground to ensure it's electrically grounded as I live in an area where we get lots of entertaining thunderstorms.

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    T2LT Antenna

    So today I made the T2LT antenna and attached it to the painters pole. I managed to get some reception which was great. My SWR's were ch1=2.5 and ch10=2.8 too high to risk transmission. I think my balun needs to be about six foot off the ground which means I need to rethink my mast as the painters pole is too short. I'm thinking that raising the antenna will reduce the SWR - is this correct? Also the plastic pipe adaptor I'm using as a balun is 4" not 4.25" in diameter, do you think this will make any difference?

    Guidance and comments gratefully received. Thanks for reading.

    Hankyexpress

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  9. #7
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    Your antenna might be a bit long. Here is an antenna calculator for making dipoles. Note the length for the each leg of the dipole, I.E., the center and outer shield. Cut the same from both when you cut. And only cut about 1/4" at a time and see what the SWR is after cutting. Also take a reading on channel 20, which is approx. the middle of the CB band. Then 1 and 40, this will tell you which way you need to go. But for now it appears that you have it too long looking at your SWR readings. Also make sure that your balun is as close to the connection point as possible or it's not going to work correctly. Like where the end of the shield or the other half of the dipole is. Here is a pic of the T2LT dipole for reference. It has the lengths that will get you close and also how to place your choke.
    Hope this helps. Keep at it. You'll get it right. Don't give up!!

  10. #8
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    You also need to use some RG59 or 75 ohm tv coax. Used for your cable. Do some more research on how to build the antenna properly.
    Also you can use the antenna in an inverted V or horizontally and it will work too. Just not as well for local comms. Here are measurements for them.
    Also included are measurements for a vertical antenna.
    Again hope this helps. Have a good one.

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    Also both I made the antennas above at the frequency of 27.205, which is channel 20 of the CB band. The middle of the CB band. Again, hope this helps some.
    Also try cutting your current antenna a bit and see what happens. Or just fold the wire back on top. Might help bring the SWR down.

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    Re-jig

    Quote Originally Posted by 222DBFL View Post
    Also both I made the antennas above at the frequency of 27.205, which is channel 20 of the CB band. The middle of the CB band. Again, hope this helps some.
    Also try cutting your current antenna a bit and see what happens. Or just fold the wire back on top. Might help bring the SWR down.

    Thanks for all the info :-) Great diagram! The measurements are different to what I used today, but that's great. I did try folding down the top of the antenna and the SWR went up. I didn't realize that taking a reading at ch20 will help me work out which end to change the length of, I thought you only changed the length of the tip. I'll have to remove the zip ties from the balun and use something else until everything is all working great.

    I'll give your suggestions a whirl this week on my day off and see what the SWR measurements are like. I'm not going to give up, the more it doesn't work the more it's fascinating why the hell not. lol

    Thanks again for your help. I'll take a look at those apps too.

    Hankyexpress

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