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307
| | Posted on Friday, November 30, 2001 - 10:13 pm: | 
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Expensive Antennas v/s Cheap Antennas…
That's the question.
I just happened to be in a CB shop here last week and a guy drove in to the parking lot in a 1989 Coupe De-Ville . On the trunk lid of the car he had the biggest antenna I had seen in quite some time. So I had to investigate it. I asked him what his handle was and he stated that he was Boomer. Most of the friends he talked to were mainly local and some of their handle's were Billy-Jack, Whippen-Boss and Cleap-up-man. I asked him if I could see what was feeding the giant antenna and he replied "Sure". First he opened up his trunk and in the trunk was a tractor trailer battery mounted on the side near the fender well, not one of the smaller ones either, this battery was about 24" long and was rather large. Hooked to the battery were two gigantic cables that fed into the rest of the trunk. On the other side of the cables were two nice looking amplifiers. A TNT 600 Plus and a small 100 watt modulator. Inside the car there was a nice looking Galaxy DX-88 that was max'd out for performance. The Galaxy DX-88 was tricked out and had a variable power control on the back. I was a bit curious about the antenna rather than the amplifiers or the radio so I proceeded to check it out. The name of the antenna was Monkey Built. It has about a 1 and a half inch in diameter shaft on it. The shaft was about 3 feet long and at the top of the shaft near the center was a coil about 8 inches high made out of aluminum that was about 1 inch wide and a quarter inch thick. Out of the top of the coil was a stinger about 36 inches long. This antenna looked like the mother of antennas and that is what caught my eye. Well after a bit of trying to understand why the massive antenna, I asked Boomer if he would try something new on the trunk of his car and not tell anyone what he was doing until the test was over. I just happen to be an RF Engineer and was curious what all the fuss is over these massive antennas. In the years I have been playing with CB, I have never seen more confusion over "which has the most gain" or "which will talk better". People, the best and only CB antenna that works the way it should is the 102" whip antenna. Anyway, I asked Boomer to install a simple 102" whip into the ball mount on his trunk and try it out. Boomer came back to the shop and had a total re-wire job done on his system. He had the heavy wire and Stinger fuses installed and cleaned it all up. I asked him after he would do the test if he would call me and give me the results. I also explained that during the test that he "does not give it away" about the equipment change on his car. About 4 days went by and I got a call from Boomer. He said he had the information for me and would meet me at the CB shop where I met him the first time. That day came and Boomer showed up at the CB shop. I was sure that the answer he gave me was the one I was looking for. He said he went off and bought a whip antenna and screwed it into the ball mount on the trunk lid and then he gave a call to a few of his friends. He told me that he talked to Whippen-Boss, 606 and Big-Daddy. They all had the same response when it came to the signal report. The whip antenna was performing just as good as the jumbo antenna and there was no signal change that anyone could tell. I guess what I really trying to get across is that just because an antenna looks like a so-called "Big Antenna" and "Expensive Antenna" does not mean it is going to perform any better than the $12 dollar whip. A stainless steel whip antenna can take more power than any CB'er would dream about having. The people who build these outrageous antennas only have one thing on their mind and that is to dig down in your pocket for your money. Anyways, Go down to Channel 6 at about 6 A.M. - 8 A.M. and from 9:30 P.M till 11 P.M. Florida time and give the "Boomer" a call. See ya later , I'm back out……"307" |
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