Influencer I
hey all! so i have question, i have a cb antenna it’s about very little higher then my roof, i want to put it on my hood, my question is that going to work well or would i need a longer antenna?
Cb antenna location
- Thread starter Louie559
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Contributor III
My father had an old set of dual-phase antennas attached to his side mirrors and they worked fine. No issues what so ever
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Influencer I
Influencer I
@RoarinRow thats where i was thinking of putting mine as well, somewhere in that general area
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Protector III
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Agree. Would try the intended location first before upgrading. Have my CB antenna near the a pillar, the SWR reading is not very good but ok. This is caused by the nearby rollcage and snorkel. So it really depends on the rig and other mods.
Influencer I
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I’m going to jump in here... just because you have great SWR readings doesn’t mean your signal is coming in (or going out) very well. The hood is a poor location when trying to reach someone behind you because your vehicle acts as a reflector and reflects the signal to the front of you... the same happens in reverse when mounted on the rear bumper and the antenna doesn’t clear the roof line... the best place for a CB antenna is on the center of the roof, or if running a full 1/4 wave antenna then where at least half the antenna is above the roof line.
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Form my experiences it is always a kind of trade of with the mounting psition. Form a technical point of view of course it is a very good position to have the antenna in the middle of the roof. But this is for my purposes a no go as the rig is already 2.3m high and more is not feasible while overlanding (low archways in nice old-towns, overhead lines, trees and so on), in the middle of a desert of course no problem.
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I run my CB antenna on a fender mount as well, mainly due to the fact the roof is occupied and it's the least of the comms so I wasn't as concerned about it.
SWR is somewhere around 1.0-1.1 and it works fine for what it is.
SWR is somewhere around 1.0-1.1 and it works fine for what it is.
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I used the Teraflex hinge mount on my Wrangler with a 5’ firestik antenna and get a 1.0-1.1 SWR and can talk about 3 miles. So that seems like a decent location.
I have a 2' CB antenna attached to a ditch light bracket above my fender. It is roughly the same height as my cars radio antenna which means it will fit in my garage. But I swap it out for a longer 4' one if I'm going on an adventure.
If I'm highway driving, I'll leave the CB on scan mode just in case there's any chatter about traffic incidents.
