Finished CB Installation

actually... I only installed the the dual antennas 'cause I thought it looked better...

 

ohhhh......and I thought you were hoping for better performance! my bad

 

unless the antennas are 8' or more apart, it won't help perfomance...so I've been told...

 

OK now I gotta put in my two from my radio days- optmal swr is 1.5-1 or better. If you can't achieve that (with steel 102" whips it should be close) they used to sell an swr matcher unit whereby you could attenuate the swr matchup. Problem with that is you have to leave it inline and some of your transmit power is lost thru it. The upside to it is it saves your final coils from overheating. With your steel whips though even with the loss you still should be able to talk about 12-15 miles depending on noise.

 

Oh and I forgot to mention-swr can be improve by using the shortest run of the highest quality coax you can get..shortest run is the key.

 

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT

And if the antennas aren't mounded a certain distance apart(distance is affected by the electrical length of the antenna EXAMPLE 4' ELECTRICAL LENGTH)they could in fact have adverse effects on the radiation pattern of the antenna

 

an SWR meter is a necessity when tuning an transceiver system

"should be able to talk about 12-15 miles depending on noise"
I don't think 12-15 miles is realistic unless your elevation is fairly high up 50+ feet
don't forget that cb is AM( amplitude modulation) it follows the topography of the earth and it is also effected by atmospheric conditions

 

when i talked that 11.8 miles it was at 2am and my buddie with the base station had a 24 foot antenna on a 30 foot pole.

 

Thanks Andy! I was pullin' that knowledge out of the dusty side of an already lousy memory! True definitely about the distance between the two aerials. When I had them they were on the left and right rear quarterpanels of my '65 Chrysler 300..they definitely had the 7+ feet requirement LOL! True on the talking distance I had the mountainous characteristics of this area on my side!