Say i want to put a cb radio into my stratus R/T but dont want a huge antenna on my car... is there a way to hook my radio antenna that is already on the car into a cb radio as well?? With all the driving i do i would really like to get a cb radio.

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If you use the AM/FM radio antenna for CB, it will not work well at all; the receive will be poor and the transmit will be ten times worse. Any antenna needs to resonate at or near the intended operating frequency. A CB antenna needs to be manufactured and tuned for approximately 27 mHz, while an antenna for FM broadcast is going to be a lot shorter. Physically smaller CB antennas can work OK, if properly installed; same goes for the radio needing a proper installation.

Why not look into getting an Amateur Radio license? If I can do it, then you can do it. The licensing exam is easy, and the distance to be covered by most VHF (146 mHz) and UHF (446 mHz) radios is a lot better than any CB will ever do. Aside from that most of those in the hobby are pretty cool people, ranging in age from early teens to senior citizens (don't let that scare you off..... some of the coolest "hams" I know are retired electrical engineers whose brains I would love to pick at regular intervals. If I only knew 1% of what they know.........

Anyway, the radios for the VHF/UHF ham bands can be small handhelds or more conventional (higher power) transceivers. My wife and I have been in the hobby for a long time; I started in the late 1960's and she started shortly after she met me in 1989. It continues to be a fun and interesting hobby for us.

By the way, anttennas for the VHF/UHF ham bands are usually less than four feet long.

For more info, check out the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) http://www.arrl.org.

 

Thanks alot for the info... so basically im screwed for trying to have a cb in my stratus without making the car look stupid.... my buddy just installed one in his durango and i love it, it would be great for traveling with. Any ideas on how to make it look good in the car?

 

I'm a licensed radio operator, I'll chime in if you want, heh.

Look around for stealth antennas too if you want....they make great glass mounted antennas anymore too, so that might be better looking if you are able to find a CB band antenna.

Pretty much, the first post was right.....the best formula I used in Civil Air Patrol, after some radio tech showed us this, but not the most accurate, but gives you an idea, is take the frequency, for example, I'll use 146, multiply that by .25 for the wave length of the antenna (could be higher for a better antenna), for this example, 1/4 style antenna which is pretty much the standard, gets no gain type antenna, 146x.25= 36.5 then we always divided by 2, so I think 36.5" is your halfwave length, and then....after dividing by 2 I got 18.25". I did this in civil air patrol when I made a simple quarter wave ground plane antenna, not mobile type mind you. It had four legs and a radiating element of the 18.25" length, and worked great! But don't use this as a guideline like the next line gives a good idea why.

But I don't know about that method, heh, when i do it to the CB band, it gives me a 3.25" length, so that don't sound right, and would never work.....there are some other tools out there to find out the right length, i'm searching as I write this.

So, for my bands I have radios for and operate on, 144mhz and 440mhz, the antennas can be realitively nice in size. The lower the frequency, such as for CB, which is in the 26mhz range, have to have longer antennas to properly resonate the signal from the radio.

One advantage to CB that amateur radio has is that we have repeaters set up all over the country, some repeaters are set up to talk on the internet too, some are linked up to another one further, expanding your range, and the simple vhf or uhf radio you get, can use our data services as well, such as APRS, SSTV, etc etc. If you're going to invest in a radio, I'd suggest investing in a licensed frequency range. Your license is good for 10 years, you don't need to know morse code, however is a perk to getting into the long range radios, HF and talking around the world from your home. It's fun hobby, it's not what all the popular beliefs make it out to be, and all the things you can do to help the community is a great plus.

When licensed to, you can't be kicked off the radio in the time of an emergency, if you are helping for the cause, unlike CB, the government, when they want to use the frequency, can use the CB frequencies as they need. With amateur radio, we use ARES (amateur radio emergency services) and when we are in excercises or in real life scenarios, they would be interferring, and since we are licensed, we would have the right of way. That's the cool thing about interference, is that if something, even like big cable companies interfer with the radios, they have to fix their interference....not like a major perk, but cleans up the cable companies bad wiring too eh. heh. alright, enough of my rambling, thought I'd put my two cents in from my own experience....

Callsign for reference: KD7BJG

*after searching, I found a perfect calculator for your antenna lenght problem. 1/4 is the basic, minimal antenna lenght pretty much. 0 gain, anything less then 1/4 will creat even less gain in theory. This is where I don't understand, essentially, my 18" above for 146mhz is right according to this calculator, however, it's what, 19.25" instead, anyways, for 27mhz, which is in the middle of the CB band, 26.965-27.405mhz filling the whole band for ya there, 1/4 would end up giving on a 27mhz length, "8ft. 7 - 31/32in. or 2.642 M" The calculator uses 1/8, but I don't see why 1/8 would be even useful, 1/4 sucks as it is. so, for example, want better gain then 1/4, go with 1/2 wavelength which is, 17ft. 3 - 31/32in. or 5.283 M, that won't even fit under most bridges heh. too big, how about 3/8, 13ft. 0 - 1/32in. or 3.962 M.

alright, you get my point, these are there so you'll have an idea of how much you'll need. Here is the length of a 100mhz (car radio antenna), 2ft. 4 - 3/32in. or 0.713 M. As you can see, there is nothing close to that length, there was a 4ft length in 1/8. The car radio antenna isn't designed for transmitting either, it is for receiving and that only, you'll damage your radio before you even realize it. When not on a properly tune antenna, you put SWR which is signal output versus signal return essentially. There will be so much signal return coming back on that coax that you'll fry the finals in the radio, which is the final amp for out put of say, 5W or for amateur radios, 50-70W, see we get more power too

I hope all of this is clear and makes sense, I know I go back and forth, mainly because I go and edit things as I remember them. But no, that antenna on the car will not suffice, and you'll just end up paying for it more in the long run, ie getting new radios as they go bad.

Hope this helps!

Matt

 

well that just confused the crap out of me.. haha.
I really just want a cb in my car so i can use it on I75 goin upnorth and back for traffic jams and stuff... but i dont want a large antenna... i know i've seen window mount antennas... i really dont know the first thing about cb radios at all... except that you can talk to people... haha.... but really.. what would look ok on this car?


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My opininon, depending on what type of antenna, if you put a cb trunk mounted antenna on the right side of the trunk, opposite that car radio antenna, it'd look pretty sweet. A window mounted antenna close to the top right as much as possible, you need a clean part of the window though, no de-frost or that black stuff they put on the window, (see my knowledge on that stuff) heh.

Find a good enough power source, if you can find a way to hook up to your fuse box, ie empty 15a or 20a would work just fine, then try for it, other then that, wiring through the firewall and running off your power connections from the radio is well, even better and make sure there are at least fuses in between the radio and the battery first, otherwise install some inline fuses in the circuit that way.

Esentially, you're going to need a good antenna to match the frequency you are using, using the car radio antenna will not work, you'll get poor performance if any out of it. Not to mention, if you transmit on it, you're going to be damaging your radio with the signal out to signal return ratio. Some radios come equipped with the SWR meter, which if so, when running, a 1:1.2 to 1:2.0 ratio is optimal for receiving and transmitting, just some food for thought.

All things aside, can't convince you to get an amateur radio license it seems, heh. Those two mounting spots will work great, and hey, you might convince someone behind you for a bit you're a copper, hahah.

That help you a bit?

 

how would i benefit from a license?? i tried the antenna on the right of the trunk, the trunk is slanted so it looks stupid, how long are the window mount antennas?

 

um, if you have a good mount, you can change the angle and such, so it won't look stupid. window mounts, well, I really don't know, you need a 50ohm coax, if you can find one that allows you to change the whip, that'd help, then create one from another whip, by placing in the screw on mount. It's hard to describe, but I have all see mag mounted antennas, that have the socket for the whipe, and are held in with a alan screw, this kind of mount would work just right for you, finding the whip is the part you'll need. with the link above, find the length, and you can cut yourself up some steel or brass whips.

I hope that helps, not sure, heh. I know what I'm thinking and can do, just hard to describe over the net.

benefits of a license, more access to other resources, extended ranges, ability to make phone calls if on the right repeater with a so called, open auto-patch, which pretty much means the repeater is patched up to the phone lines for phone calls that are needed as necessary.

with our radios, I can output 50w just from my mobile/base radios, a handheld cell phone outputs less than or equal to 1w to 2w, CB max required by FCC (and if more then, can be fined if caught, and up to charges of 10k to 25k are not unreasonable to the FCC if they so find that the use was malicious etc, just a fair warning) now with that said, max output from a CB radio is 4w and 12w on SSB.

I am not sure of the max allowable output power for amateur radio. I have seen that 1500w is the max on some HF bands, can't remember for vhf and uhf which this has been all revolving around, will look on a chart here in a few, but i know my radio works 50w vhf and 35w uhf, and I can talk over 40 miles one way. With better antennas, such as this antenna I use here at home, I get a 6db on vhf and 9db gain on uhf. The greatly improves the transmissions and reception, which I think my antenna is 5/8 wave, but I can't remember right now without looking it up too, heh.

There are many benefits, too many to really list. One thing I really focus on is community service, such as weather spotting for NWS with SKYWARN and ARES. Doing things like this you really can't do with CB, using the radios for many cool things instead of just one simple task of talking on is what is fun for me.

link: http://home.comcast.net/~maheiser/radio.htm just in case i forgot that earlier.

 

Thanks alot, i'll look into it