Hello All: Yes these 1/2 wavelength dipole antennas work very well, better than the non ground plane fiber glass antennas from my experience. The only thing is that they require to be hung up from a tree or what even to be vertical as all the rest of the CB world. Or can used horizontal say for skip and such.
The home made dipole antenna can be made real cheap with two lengths of 103 inch wires and a 1 to 1 Current Balun, that is shown all over the net. Basically two wires wrapped around a Toroid Core type transformer, 8 to 10 turns, coax connected to the two input wires, the two 103 inch wires connected to the two output wires. These type antennas can take a couple of KW with no problem. I know guys who have these type of antennas strung up going different directions and polarities for switching them around to the strongest signal for distance DX stations.
The toroid core I use is a Amidon FT240-K toroid core at about 19 dollars each. See:
http://www.amidoncorp.com/ft-240-k/
I will use two of these cores epoxied together for the lower ham bands for a 1 to 1 current Balun.
Jay in the Great Mojave Desert
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