CB Radio Purchase

[ssick92]

Hey everyone,

Apparently it has been a long time since anyone wanted to hook up a new CB radio...

Anyway, I am about to purchase a Cobra 29 LXBT radio which is one of the newer ones with Bluetooth technology. I am planning to use this with a 3' Firestik mounted with their NGP Side mount along with one of their springs on my 05 Colorado. Does this sound like a solid setup for using as a countermeasure, traffic emergencies, bluetooth, and offroading? It is coming to right around $200 with S&H, any idea on how much range I will get for this $, after a tune obviously?

[ssick92]

I actually changed my order to a 4' Firestik with a Ball mount instead of the side mount and a 3'.

[Ham man]

One antenna was just as bad as the other.
In order for the antenna to radiate properly, it needs to be placed beneath a ground plane.
A ground plane for 11 meters - what you call CB radio - is about 9' x 9'
Since no car and very few trucks are 9 x 9 - you can cheat on it if you have a big enough surface area - such as the roof of a Chevrolet Suburban or Ford Expedition.

In order to make the body of the vehicle capacitive, you need to physically bond all the metal surfaces together, doors to body, body to frame, body to hood, front end clip to frame, engine to frame, transmission to frame, exhaust to frame, axles to frame..
Not just with one strap, RF likes lot's of ground. It requires using a copper braid strap, at least 1 inch wide at 4 points for truck bed to frame, body to frame etc,,, that is a lot of copper strap. Most people just won't do it.

The antenna you propose is a compromise antenna, it dribbles out a little RF and hopefully the radio will fold back enough power that it won't burn itself up.