3 element beam specs cb ant. S.W.R. manufacturer info. on directional ant.best for c.b. radio

That depends on your power source and what type of antennae you're using. Can you tell us if your antennae is a mobile antennae or a home/base station antennae? What is your power source, a car battery or a 120 volt AC to 12 volt DC converter? More info is good.

YOU HAVE TWO WAYS TO GO A IF MONEY IS TIGHT GO WITH AN ANTRON 99 1/4 WAVE YOU WILL HAVE GREAT TRANSMIT AND RECEIVE ABOUT 15 MILES AVG. OR THE MAYCO V5/8 WAVE ALL Aluminium LONGER ANTENNA HANDLES MORE OUTPUT POWER EASY TO INSTALL BOTH ANTENNAS

hello ive checked around the radio market and the best price i came up with is $300

To be able to get the same distance in all directions for local use the best type of antenna is a vertical with as much gain as possible. Most makers quote gain in db and this means how much better the antenna is than a plain wire antenna. This antenna will also work for dx on sidebands but the signal goes out in all directions the same distance.

If you want to get a longer range in one direction you have to sacrafice the distance in other directions. To do this you need a directional beam antenna. There are several brands with very little between any of them. What you need to be looking at, if you decide to use a beam type antenna is either "yagi" or "log periodic array" antennas. These are types of antenna rather than brand names. The log periodic array will give the longest range and the yagi will give the next best. Log periodics are very expensive but give the best results. Yagis come with different amount of elements. The more elements it has the better it works but even yagis with 3 to 4 elements give significant improvements over vertical antennas. Because both these type antennas concentrate the signal in one direction you need to be able to rotate it to the direction you want to send, and receive, the signal unless you only want to send it one direction. This means that you might need a mast and rotator which allows you to turn the antenna from a control beside the radio. These make the hobby even more expensive so it depends on how much you can afford to spend. Also make sure that the antenna you buy is resonant on the frequency you'll be operating on i.e. 27Mhz. Otherwise you'll burn out your radio. If you google the different types of antennas you'll find places selling them. You can also buy an antenna tuner that matches antennas to your radio if the frequency is not exactly matched to the radio. It reduces your power out a little but makes very little difference to the range of your signal. Also get the antenna as high as possible to a maximum of 30 feet. After that the gain is offset by the loss of signal through the co-ax cable. Use low loss co-ax cable to reduce the amount of signal you lose between the radio and the antenna.

Having said that I've contacted America from the west of Europe several times using a vertical antenna so you might not want to go for the best.

You need to be aware that there's an eleven year sunspot cycle which affects the long range radio communications. At the height of the sunspot activity you'll get long ranges without any difficulty and at the low you'll rarely get long range. At the moment we're just coming out of the low so it will be another few years before we reach a high. Just don't judge your dx activity on how well you do at the moment.

Good luck with the radio and if you enjoy it consider becoming an amateur radio operator. It gives you more frequency bands to use so the sunspot activity doesn't limit you so much as other frequencies improve with low sunspots. I started off with CB and am now an amateur radio operator for over 30 years.

Typically, this type of handheld has a useful range of approximately 1-2 miles. This distance will be increased with other radios being mobiles and base stations. Distances of 5 miles is possible if the other person has a good base station antenna. I would not expect much from the stock rubber ducky antenna.

JTRadiojunkie

it will not matter what you do if you are running a lot of power i would just move the radio or tv further away

I need the wireing information for uniden washington CB radio,thank you.

NOT AT ALL .....IF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT A BASE STATION ANT.....FIRST GET A GOOD ANT ......GET THE MAST TO PUT IT ON ..1 OR 2 MAST.. YOU MAY WANT TO USE SOME GUIDE WIRES..IT'S A GOOD IDEA......MAKE SURE TO GROUND THE ANT..WITH A LIGHTING ROD THAT GOES INTO THE GROUND.....GET SOME BASE STATION COAX.........GET A SWR METER A CHEAP ONE FROM RADIO SHACK HOOK EVERY THING UP CHECK YOUR MATCH WITH THE METER AND YOUR GOOD TO GO........WHERE YOU PLACE THE ANT ON YOUR HOUSE WILL MAKE A
BIG DIFFERENCE IN HOW THE ANT WILL PERFORM PICK UP A CB RADIO BOOK @THE LIBRARY OR LOOK INTO ONLINE

if the red ant light comes on this means that you have antenna trouble either in the antenna itself or the coax but this should not have anything to do with the radio not transmitting. it sounds to me that you have a bad audio chip or a bad power output transistor. in either case you should really take it to a cb shop and let the professionals solve your problem, good luck!!