What is a good CB radio base antenna?
by David Harvey VK2DMH on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | 2 Comments
I am getting a CB radio for my house and I don’t have too much experience with this stuff.
I want a Cb base antenna that is simple, easy to set up and not too large.
I would prefer not to get some huge aerial that is a pain in the backside to adjust.
I want an easy-to-use antenna that I can erect without too much difficulty and take down just as easily.
What would you recommend?
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Go check it at any electronic shop.
There are three main designs of 27 MHz CB base-station antennas you can buy. These are the quarter-wave vertical, the half-wave vertical and the five-eighths-wave vertical.
Both the 1/4 wave vertical and the 5/8th wave vertical antennas are ground-plane base antennas. This means they have three or four radial elements at the bottom that work like an artificial ground or counterpoise. This acts like a ‘mirror’ for the transmitted radio signal, and effectively gives a reflected lower side that doubles the size of the transmitting aerial. But a half-wave antenna does not require a ground plane or a counterpoise to work.
The 1/4 wave is the smallest and cheapest base-station CB antenna you can buy, and is about 9 feet tall. (The only mobile CB antenna that is anywhere nearly as efficient is the 102 inch steel whip antenna, which is also a quarter-wave antenna.)
A halfwave (1/2 wave) antenna will be about 18 feet tall, and a five-eighths wave (5/8th wave) antenna for 27 MHz is about 23 feet tall. The bigger antennas do have a few Db of gain over the quarter-wave antenna, with the five-eights wave antenna concentrating more of your radiated signal towards the horizon.
You just need to mount your base antenna on a tower, or a 20-foot length of 2-inch galvanized iron water pipe (or similar). If you live in a tall building, place the antenna on the roof and run a cable down to your apartment. There is less loss with a thick cable, such as RG-213 or RG-8.
Make sure to use good-quality coaxial cable such as RG-213 – or even RG-58U for shorter distances.
Ideally the braid layer in your coax cable should be made of copper or other metal. If it is made from aluminum foil, the cable is for TV and is not made for soldering. And you will need to solder each end of the 50-ohm coax cable used to connect your 27 MHz antenna with your CB transceiver.
Also make sure the UHF connectors, PL-259 or N-connectors (whatever your CB radio and the antenna use) are soldered on properly and double-checked before you try to transmit at all. Use a cheap multimeter (Ohm-meter) to make sure you have no open circuit of short-circuit in your wiring and soldering work. Otherwise you can damage your radio transmitter.