I drive long distances with my buddy. We both ride 2008 Ultras. We use the CB radio to keep in touch. We changed the long whip antennas for HD shorties. But even with the long whips we were getting poor range (Distance) any suggestions?

 

Did you know that in order to get the best performance with a CB radio, especially when changing antennas is to "set the standing wave". It requires a specific meter, and the best case is the aerial needs slight trimming in length to match the transceivers and cable being used. Worse case scenerial the mounting position may require some "adjustments".

When I used to install mobile transceivers we had issues with vehicles that did not have a large enough "ground plane", such as a metal body on a car. Fiberglass vehicles required placing straps of adhesive metal foil to create a radius area of a ground plane.

Also there are mobile "match boxes" to allow for peak match between transceiver and arial, but it still requires an SWR meter to adjust it for peak performance.

Traveling vehicles should have a range of 2 to 5 miles for a solid signal. Beyond that often the signal "drifts" while traveling and you may get only sketchy reception, especially in cities or mountain regions.

Been a good 20 years since I held a CB mike. It used to be my "life", "coffee breaks" and all since I was very young! I was the first kid to have 100 mw Westinghouse walkie talkies that made it from my house to the neighbors so we could privately chat. I even went mobile on my bike with a rig. Moved to a 3 channel 5 watt Radio Shack hand held. I had one with a telephone cradle for my car. At home I used to "talk skip" using a power amp and a Super Scanner arial. I bounced my communications into Canada and down to Texas.

That takes me back 40 years.

Good luck getting some better range. There are a number of installation shops that still set up CBs and it may be the best way to get the bikes peak communication performance.

 

I am a truck driver and have a thing for CBs and spend alot of time with them. With CBs height is might when it comes to Cb antennas. That and proper amount of what we call groundplane. CB antennas need to have a proper groundplane to work properly.

My suggestion would be to go back to the longer whips, get someone with an SWR meter to check the tune. You want the SWR to be below 2:1 for proper transmission. The higher the SWR the more signal loss you are going to get. This means that you are loosing more power as the SWR goes up. Too high and it will burn out the final (output transistor) in the radio.


If you really want better comunication over longer distance and don't care about having to talk to others, then get a set of GMRS/FRS two ways with VOX headsets. They are compact, cost less then 80 dollars for a complete set of two with everything needed and some will reach out past 20 miles depending on terrain etc.

CB for the most part is only good for 5 to 10 miles depending on the setup. Setups on bikes are not that great so be happy if you get out 5 miles at the most.

Another option might be a small kicker amp. KLR makes a real small 100 watt amp that might help. Not sure if the bikes electrical system can handle the extra amp load though.

I have two different setups for my truck. I run a slightly modified Cobra 29 into a 600 watt amp. The other setup is a 10 meter export radio that has been converted for 11 meter (CB) use. It does about 225 watts of power. Both highly illegal setups since the legal output on 11 meter (CB) is 4 watts or less. But I can and have talked to people in Florida, Colorado, Louisiana, Kentuk etc from ND.

 

That stuff include a pocket protector too?

 

Rat,

Good write up. We were typing some similar info at the same time ... who would have thought on the topic of CBs?

spooky, you in your 50s?

 

Sorry, height is not a ground plane antenna. Ground plane is a style of antenna.
Ground plane, omni directional is what most mobile antenna's are. Beams are the most effective, but you cant put one on a mobile. You have beams, ground plane, omni, etc.
I am sure your problem is with your swr. It is to high max that it should ever be is 1.5 to 1. The lower the better. Ground plane antennas have a main center mast vertical with 3 or 4 or more horizontal radiators that make the signal bounce off of the earth. AKA ground plane.

 

The major problems with cb in vehicles is the grounding. You can use the same cb in different vehicles and have very different results. Grounding is a huge factor. You should see what it takes to do a proper grounding on a base setup. Remember almost all mobile antennas are omni directional. Have you seen the truckers that point the antennas forward real far? Worthless. The best mobile antenna is the 102" stainless steel whip. Far a car or truck that is. It is a 1/4 wave antenna. Sorry for the ramblings.

 

Not yet. 43 and change.


As far as my height is might comment, I quess a better term would be length is might but it just doesn't sound right.

A 5 1/2 foot antenna will always work better then a 2 ft shorty antenna. Even after setting the SWR to a perfectly flat 1:1 across the band.

The best you can get in a mobile setup would be a 102 whip but they are not practical in many applications. Say on a motorcycle or mounted on the top of a truck. The next best is a center loaded stainless whip stype. Some of the top loaded fiberglass in the longer lengths are not bad at all either. The fiberglass Skipshooters and the longer 5.5 wilsons seem to work pretty good.

I wonder how a 10 inch shaft Wilson 2000 would look on a bike?

I do know that conditions are terrible up here as of late. The atmosphere is pulling alot of transmissions from down south and there is nothing but loud spanish on the radio along with a constant BEEEEEEP. Our drivers are turning the squelch and RF Gain back to get rid of the extra noise. This makes it hard to hear weaker stations.

 

If you are still working with a poor performance issue consider this. The factory HD radio produces about 3 watts but only about 10% modulation. The modulation is your loudness, it is what rides the carrier or (wattage). There are no modulation adjustments in the radio. I designed a device that significantly increases the modulation 200% to 300%. The transmitting distance will at least double. Check it out.

http://www.motorcycle-communications.com/index.html

 

I 'checked it out' but the website doesn't really tell me anything. What is it? Where does it go? Can anyone install it, or do I need to drive to Texas? How much does it cost? What does it look like?