CB radio antenna

[jpnjake]

Ive been looking at putting a cb in my MJ for a while. While browsing my antenna options I was wondering what people have already done or had ideas for on their MJ with antennas. 

[Chad R]

 Before you buy your cb are you going to wheel with friends that have cb’s or go on organized rides which groups? The only reason I’m throwing that out is because a lot of groups are going to GMR radios. 

[jpnjake]

2 hours ago, Chad R said:

 Before you buy your cb are you going to wheel with friends that have cb’s or go on organized rides which groups? The only reason I’m throwing that out is because a lot of groups are going to GMR radios. 

That’s a very good question, in my xj I'm going to wheel, but as for the mj in question It’s mostly a street truck that may go on some road trips. Plus it was an extra cb my dad had so I’m just lookin for antenna ideas. It’s an addition I’ve been looking into for a little while and already having a cb box swayed my decision to cb 

[Chad R]

4 minutes ago, jpnjake said:

That’s a very good question, in my xj I'm going to wheel, but as for the mj in question It’s mostly a street truck that may go on some road trips. Plus it was an extra cb my dad had so I’m just lookin for antenna ideas. It’s an addition I’ve been looking into for a little while and already having a cb box swayed my decision to cb 

 I didn’t want you to go down the road I did. Two years ago I bought a very nice cb for my TJ and now I have to buy a gmr radio.

[jpnjake]

Just now, Chad R said:

 I didn’t want you to go down the road I did. Two years ago I bought a very nice cb for my TJ and now I have to buy a gmr radio.

Thank you for letting me know. I’ll keep this in mind for when I decide what to do for my xj 

[MiNi Beast]

i run a 4ft firestick. really just ensuring its tuned for whatever whip you get. i ran magnet ones for a bit but i have always hit it off the jeep out on trails. so i have since run a spring mount on my whip and the whip itself is easily removable for garage parking and car washes. 

 

i like my cb as over the road i can listen to the truckers tell about accidents and cherry tops along my way. however, now a days less people are running them as a simple set of hand radios work great when you can link 5+ together. makes it far easier to spot others on the trail and install is not needed. but if going way off the beaten path a cb would be nice to have just in case. and like you, i already had it so why not. 

[derf]

Firestick and Wilson make good antennas.  I run a Firestick on a heavy spring myself.  A quick disconnect is a good idea if you need clearance for the garage.

 

Once you install it, you really need to tune it.  Find a good CB shop if you can and get it done.  Alternatively, you can buy an inexpensive SWR meter and tune it yourself.  Plenty of YouTube videos to show you how.

[Eagle]

15 hours ago, Chad R said:

 I didn’t want you to go down the road I did. Two years ago I bought a very nice cb for my TJ and now I have to buy a gmr radio.

 

A friend and I are looking at going the other way. We have GMRS radios and we both have our licenses. The range for GMRS really sucks unless you have totally flat, open terrain. This weekend we're both going to pull out our old CB radios and see if we can get more range out of the CBs than what we get with GMRS.

[Chad R]

6 hours ago, Eagle said:

 

A friend and I are looking at going the other way. We have GMRS radios and we both have our licenses. The range for GMRS really sucks unless you have totally flat, open terrain. This weekend we're both going to pull out our old CB radios and see if we can get more range out of the CBs than what we get with GMRS.

  I bought my gmr radio kicking and screaming.  Jeep Jamboree decided to switch to gmr radios this year so I had to buy one if I wanted to participate. If it’s better or worse than a cb I don’t know. I have seen a few other groups and clubs are starting to use them. In my TJ I’m going to be mounting both a cb and gmr radios.

[Eagle]

Just remember that to be legal you have to have a license to use GMRS, and you have to use your assigned call sign, not a "handle" like on CB. Don't confuse GMRS with FRS -- you don't need a license to use FRS, but FRS is lower power than GMRS.

 

When my friend and I were testing our GMRS, we found that when there was no terrain between us we could both transmit and receive at a distance up to 0.65 miles. In a different direction, with the crest of a hill between me and him, we had scratchy reception at 0.44 miles, but when I drove a little farther up the road to the library parking lot (distance 0.78 miles), we could even hear each other key up.

 

By contrast, I've been able to transmit and receive as far as 13 miles with a cheap, compact Radio Shack CB and a magnetic roof mount antanna.

 

[jpnjake]

Here’s where I decided to cut my cb in on the inside. I had a spare one of these heaters Incase I want to revert to stock 

[fiatslug87]

That thing is tiny, looks like it would fit in the ash tray.

[jpnjake]

1 hour ago, fiatslug87 said:

That thing is tiny, looks like it would fit in the ash tray.

It almost would, it’s actually way longer than it looks tho. But the width would be perfect 

[jpnjake]

here's the final product decided on a bed mounted antenna just behind the passenger side cab corner 

[Jesse J]

where do people have their firesticks mounted on their trucks?

[fiatslug87]

Sorry, FJ not MJ 

[Eagle]

14 hours ago, Eagle said:

Just remember that to be legal you have to have a license to use GMRS, and you have to use your assigned call sign, not a "handle" like on CB. Don't confuse GMRS with FRS -- you don't need a license to use FRS, but FRS is lower power than GMRS.

 

When my friend and I were testing our GMRS, we found that when there was no terrain between us we could both transmit and receive at a distance up to 0.65 miles. In a different direction, with the crest of a hill between me and him, we had scratchy reception at 0.44 miles, but when I drove a little farther up the road to the library parking lot (distance 0.78 miles), we could even hear each other key up.

 

By contrast, I've been able to transmit and receive as far as 13 miles with a cheap, compact Radio Shack CB and a magnetic roof mount antanna.

 

 

Update: We ran a comparative test on Saturday, trying the CBs from the same locations where we had previously tried the GMRS radios. Our GMRS units are both Baofeng UV-5R handhelds, so mobile (vehicle mount) GMRS radios with better antennas should do better, but what we have are the handhelds. The CBs are nothing special -- mine is a Radio Shack that seems to be a repackaged Cobra 25. My friend's is a Radio Shack compact. We were both using magnetic mount antennas, mine on the roof of my Cherokee and his on the roof of an Excursion.

 

With the CBs, we were able to hear and transmit between my house and his house, which is 3 miles line-of-sight with a hill between us. With the GMRS handhelds, from our respective houses we can't even hear each other key up. Reception wasn't great with the hill between us, but from the top of another hill that's even farther from his house than my driveway, we were able to communicate.

 

So, on the basis of this admittedly limited test, handheld GMRS is of little value. It works okay for the kind of distances you would typically encounter in a Jeep off-road group when everyone is traveling in a convoy and you only need to reach from the first vehicle in line to the last, but not reliable for much more than that. CB can reach out at least two to three times as far as GMRS handhelds.

 

We're both going to get our ham radio Technician licenses. That will allow us to use the 2-meter band and to transmit at up to 50 watts (GMRS is limited to 5 watts). So that will get us a lot more distance (we hope), but it will be a quantum leap in cost. A tri-band mobile radio will be around $250, a decent antenna probably at least $150, and a mobile will require a heavy-duty power supply if we want to use them anywhere other than mounted in a vehicle. In the meanwhile, if we want to invest in higher, better antennas we can probably make CB work fairly well between the two houses.