20 miles...

**srtga** · 06-08-2009, 07:57 PM

I drive through an area where a guy is running a big base station but I haven't heard him for a while. Today He was on the air and I made contact with him. He said my radio sounded good and we figured that he was 20 miles away.

I thought it was pretty cool although the guy is often a nuisance because he just blabs on and on plus he's near the interstate

I also made contact with another car with a mag mount antenna. Not sure of the brand but it was one of those with a black coil about halfway up the shaft. Not a big one, probably a cheapie. I could only hear him for about 1/2 mile before I outpaced him and his radio. The antenna was mounted on the roof towards the back.

I'm sure he can't be very happy with it...

**compu44** · 06-08-2009, 11:54 PM

You'll get some amazing range on base stations, mostly because their antenna is typically so much higher up than the other mobiles.

The mag-mount on the other vehicle, did it look like this one by chance?

**supercowpowers** · 06-09-2009, 05:47 AM

I've seen those little antennas with the black loads in the middle at Wal Mart. That's what you get when you don't want to make the trip to the truck stop or go online and get a Little Wil...

**srtga** · 06-09-2009, 09:29 AM

Originally Posted by compu44

You'll get some amazing range on base stations, mostly because their antenna is typically so much higher up than the other mobiles.

The mag-mount on the other vehicle, did it look like this one by chance?

That looks like the one. I don't know if he didn't have it adjusted right or what but the transmit power seemed to be pretty pathetic.

**compu44** · 06-09-2009, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by srtga

That looks like the one. I don't know if he didn't have it adjusted right or what but the transmit power seemed to be pretty pathetic.

I had one of those antennas, the Wal-Mart knockoff of it anyway. Mine had a stinger (the part that is above the center load) that was a fair bit too short. I swapped it out with a different stinger and it actually worked surprisingly well. Got it tuned down about 1.3:1 in the center. I've read of the same thing with other people having purchased that antenna - two short of a stinger. Makes it nearly impossible to tune.