CB Antenna change out.

Took of the Wilson 5000 added firestik. Hunting season around the corner always hit a tree limb with the Wilson. Even though these are not ground plane antennas. I added 10 gauge ground wires. To eliminate electrical noise from power lines.

 

I like, what did you use to mount them on the tonneau like that? Been looking for a solution for my setup here once I put my tonneau back on for the winter.

 

Are you using both antennas at the same time? Don't trust your body ground? How do you figure they don't need a ground plane?

 

Definitely ground the mounts. And check your swrs.

Nice looking rig

 

I use another set of Mirror Mounts to mount the ones that come with the firestik. The hold down's for the back flip. Work fine. The new firestik don't need a ground. Made for RV and fiberglass Mounting. I used a MFJ259B antenna analyzer. To tune each antenna. So they had equal SWR reading.

 

OK they are 1/2 wave. I can't see what you have them mounted too but really a body ground is all you need and a wire can become an antenna, if you feel you need to ground it use a flat braid. It's a clean install you did a good job. Now when you join two antennas together you need to make a phasing harness or buy one they are not feed with normal 50 ohm antenna wire they use 75 ohm wire there is a good bit of science involved in this including length, co phased antennas do work better than a single antenna but they need space between them typically on 11 meters a good 9’ is best, in your case you are right on the edge of being too close. Without the harness your SWR may look fine but there is power loss in the cable wiring that can be as high as 50%. I don’t mean to sound like a know it all but I have been doing this stuff for quite a while and when you are dealing with antenna design it makes no difference if it’s CB or microwave.

 

You are right on the 9 feet. My waves will come out looking like butterfly wings. I co phase PDL 2 antenna before for circular Waves. Using rg11 with rg8. I built this antenna 6 element 44 feet long 19 feet wide. It's was supposed to be 42 feet long. But with field strength meter. To get the wave shaped like a football. I had to go 44. I'm called Tasmanian Devil or 757 in the big apple on the superbowl and railroad tracks.

 

Nice setup TXPROMAN! What radio are you running on the base?

 

RCI 2980

 

they are 5/8 wave.

 

Nice! You must live where it does not ice. DXCC on 6 meters, long boom 6 ele, 6 meter folded dipole repeater antenna wires for 40-80 meters and a VHF/UHF 22' vertical. They are on the tower at the house we have a full wave 160 meter cubical quad on the old AT&T long haul microwave tower and a 6-80 meter StepIR with the longest element being 72' up at 320'

 

Yea, what he said ^^^^^

 

Nice setup maineah,
I'm in upstate NY. We get ice . LOL. Have to live with it. I made my towers. To many hobbies. Like to build things.

 

The StepIR came down in an ice storm when the boom broke and landed on the deck just below it if it had come off the tower it would have been history. It belongs to my friend W1IMD it did not destroy it but it did not do it any good. He never has said what it cost him but StepIR was no help he hired engineers to redesign the entire antenna boom and truss assembly with thick wall aluminum tubing (1/2") custom made joints etc. and when it was all said and done heating elements inside of the boom. My long boom 6 meter survived the ice storm we had up here in 98 I have no ideal why not much of any thing else did.

 

I see you are in Maine. It's cold and you get the north eastern snow. I get them and the lake snow here. So far none of my antenna's came down. We can get 1 to 4 feet of lake snow over night. So I keep an eye on my antenna's.

 

Yeah I'm in land but we get the coastal storms it can dump a foot or more over night the snow usually is cold enough not to be a problem it's just the ice being in the mountains we get crazy temperature inversions above freezing at 3,500'. and 20 at the house.

 

I put my ham gear in now. Yaesu ft-857D and ATAS 120A antenna.