UHF Antennae
Submitted: Friday, Aug 29, 2003 at 09:47
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Caren
Can anyone tell me what is the best sort of UHF antennae to get for coverage and reliability. My current antennae is quite small.
Reply By: Member - Nigel (QLD) - Friday, Aug 29, 2003 at 18:58
Friday, Aug 29, 2003 at 18:58
I've never tried it, but been told by those who know, that a 1/4 mounted in the centre of your roof will do very
well.
If your like most, and don't want to put a hole in your roof then a POLAR brand elevated feed is the best I've found. It's a fibreglass 6dB whip on a metal base about 20 cm long - overall length is about a metre.
Get the one that comes with the oversized spring - and it will be virtually unbreakable.
AnswerID:
29585
Reply By: Bob Y. - Qld - Saturday, Aug 30, 2003 at 11:33
Saturday, Aug 30, 2003 at 11:33
Caren,
Regardless of the theory mentioned above, for economy, performance and size, you can't beat the POLAR mentioned by Nigel. They will also work on the bullbar, but not as good as mounted somewhere a bit higher. like roof rack etc.
You can also remove the fibreglass antenna, and replace it with a 150mm unity gain, for use in town, where there might be low awnings, servo's etc. RFI and BENELEC make similar aerials, of similar gain.
We made up a bracket to mount these, at the top of Toyota
snorkel, on HZJ75-78's.
Enjoy your trip, Hooroo...
AnswerID:
29628
Reply By: Eric - Sunday, Aug 31, 2003 at 21:00
Sunday, Aug 31, 2003 at 21:00
Caren and others.
The comments about gian and polar paterns are all true and correct, but the diference in paterns is not significant. The limiting factor on cb performance is the signal to niose ratio, there is plenty of power in the signal, the transmitters in satellites are about the same power and much more distant. The reason a higher gain antenna does not make any diference is that the noise is also increased, to put it in simple terms if recieving the signal is like finding a needle in a
hay stack, then having a bigger antenna makes the
hay stack bigger by the same amount as it increases the signal. The best performance is gianed by placing the antenna in a shadow from the niose i.e. the motor so a small antenna is more in the shadow than a larger one on the roof. Eric.
AnswerID:
29735
Reply By: Frankenstein - Wednesday, Sep 03, 2003 at 21:36
Wednesday, Sep 03, 2003 at 21:36
I started with a fibreglass whip but broke it in the bush, so I then purchased a stainless steel antenna with the spring in the middle (purchased from Dick Smiths with a 5 year warranty) - It lasted all of about 7Km's on the
Gibb River Road before it snapped off from the corrugations just above the screw on base.
I now carry two One fibreglass, 1 s-steel and change it for the prevailing conditions.
It doesn't matter what the performance is, any antenna is useless if its broken.
Cheers
Alan
AnswerID:
30040