homemade antenna small????????

[dime196604]

I am very new to the cb world just got my car up and running well not grate but well. got a crappy realistic trc 474 in my car but i get 9 watts out of it with a K40 antenna like i said not grate but works good... Next thing i live in a 2nd story apartment with a small porch about 12 ft wide 8 ft high and 4 ft deep and i can not put anything on the roof (sucks) any body out there got any homemade antennas out there that i could fit on here? any that i could buy? I have read a lot about the firestick indoor antenna and just put that on my porch but any one know if its any good or not? more so lookin for some one who know of some thing i could built that i could fit up here. Thanks and hope to get some good ideas from you guys out here

[51]

you could go with a vertical steel whip with radials extended out from the base, a straight or folded half wave dipole, a loop antenna, just to name a few. lots of possibility's. You wont be worldwide but you will be on the air, maybe even shoot some skip when conditions are right. Good luck!

[231]

If you have a railing on your deck, you could attach a shortened dipole to it. It won't require any radials and can be polarized either vertical or horizontal. That's probably what I would do.

Sirio has some nice commercial balcony dipoles you might consider looking at. I think something like that would be nice and work pretty well for you...especially since you aren't on the bottom floor. You can make them yourself too. Heck, a guy can use a couple of mobile antennas like a couple of 4' top or center loaded antennas, too. They wouldn't work as well as a full sized dipole but would still get you on the air.

Good luck.

[420Snowman]

You can make a dipole for less than 20 bucks and if its done correctly, you can talk well locally, and even shoot some DX. I started with a Dipole in my garage attic and I have talked all over the south with this thing, (they are rather directional). You could do a sloper from the roof to the floor of the porch also, that would change your take off angle and maybe help with the DX.

Have fun with it, thats the main thing!!!

Snowman

[dime196604]

if i wanted to make a shortened dipole would i just put coils on each end to make up for the space i dont ??? so say i had a coil of 51in of wire and and element of 51in that wouls come out to 102in. now if i did that on both sides would it work??

[420Snowman]

You can actually buy a "slinky" style dipole antenna and the "coiling" it already done for you. To answer your question, I belive it will work, but not as well as it would stretched out to the full 102", what do you think 231????

Snowman

[231]

You can actually buy a "slinky" style dipole antenna and the "coiling" it already done for you. To answer your question, I belive it will work, but not as well as it would stretched out to the full 102", what do you think 231????

Snowman

I think there are literally hundreds of possibilities for him. The question is which will work best in his installation? I think a slightly shortened 1/2 wave dipole should do just about as well as anything else for him.

dime196604 if you google "Loaded Dipole" you'll find all kinds of instructions for them. I can picture your balcony, but only you know what you might be able to get away with. If you need to hide it, or make it invisible to your neighbors there are ways to do that. So if you decide to go the wire dipole route (which is a good one I think) just do some homework first. The beauty of wire dipoles is they are cheap, easy to make, easy to modify and tune, and can be changed literally in just a few minutes. I've built lots of loaded (shortened) dipoles over the years and they work quite well. If that's an option for you I'd probably try and install the loading coils in the middle of the legs rather than at the ends. It just makes it a little easier to build, that's all.

Good luck.

['Doc]

Given the area he has to put up a dipole on that balcony, it wouldn't even have to be 'loaded'. Just 'bend' it a little, sort of a 'U' shape? Maybe 3 feet hanging vertically on each side, the rest horizontal?

The part that that will 'bite' you with any installation like this is that the neighbors will experience some interference problems. Hopefully nothing really 'bad', but you can almost bank on it, RATS!

There are several options as to what type/style of antenna that can be adapted to 'fit the situation. All of them are naturally going to be 'less' than 'good' compared to the same antenna out away from things. But, if you can live with the performance (hey, better than nothing!) and the other possible problems, go for it!
Good luck.
- 'Doc

[Night Crawler]

Given the area he has to put up a dipole on that balcony, it wouldn't even have to be 'loaded'. Just 'bend' it a little, sort of a 'U' shape? Maybe 3 feet hanging vertically on each side, the rest horizontal?

That's what to do here's some examples
[Please login or register to view this link]

[dime196604]

i try looking at the examples you gave me night crawler but it tells me the link does not exist or broken?? you got any others?

[231]

i try looking at the examples you gave me night crawler but it tells me the link does not exist or broken?? you got any others?

It works fine for me using Firefox.

[dime196604]

ok that weird it would not work before so i tried it with firefox and it worked but now it works with my google browser too??? i don't get but oh well at least it works now

[dime196604]

P.S. thanks for the info and link

[dime196604]

so just by tuning the AM power inductors it will throw off my frequency??

['Doc]

What are you talking about when you say, "the AM power inductors"?
- 'Doc

[dime196604]

ok first of all that reply was for another post i posted not this one i just got em mixed up... but any way i have a realistic TRC 474 and some one told me that the AM power inductor were L6 and L8 and if i messed with them with my radio hooked up to a watt meter i could tune them to get my radio to push more watts.. but two guy got into a fit with each other about what i could do or not do and i never got a start answer. one said i could do it with a watt meter and the other very strongly disagreed.. so i didn't know what i could do if any cuz the one guy said by tuning them i could get more power but it would change the frequency along with it and i would not know cuz i'm only using a power meter... so i'm at a bit of a loss here you can find the post under my posted under tuning the power inductors like i said at the beginning of this comment i meant to put it under my other post not this one about antennas.. sorry for the mess up but you help would be greatly appreciated