CB RADIO homemade Dipole antenna in a loft.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2024
- My first attempt at making a CB radio antenna for the 11 meter band. A dipole inside a loft. This video is not intended as a guide.
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Fred you being a ham operator and putting up stuff like this dealing with 11m is awesome, most hams I’ve talked to look down on me being involved in cb and tell me it’s garbage which pushes me away from wanting to be involved with ham, I’ve never been shamed by those on 11m, I look at it differently, for me it’s a great learning experience, I am in the process of learning everything that I can about cb including building my own antennas and running a good clean station, grounding and whatever information I can learn, in my opinion this is a great way to start out, it’s affordable, I’m making contacts all over the world and I don’t even have to run much power to achieve this, my station is clean and grounded properly thanks to ham operators showing how it’s done, this to me is most definitely a gateway to ham, especially if the person learning cb is wanting to do it right and clean, I’m getting into ssb for the first time on cb and now thinking about studying for ham as well realizing how fun ssb is, I’ll always talk on cb still, it’s my roots, thank you for being involved with 11m and teaching us how to do stuff like this, it really helps me out and means a lot 😎😎😎😎
Hi Mike. Thank you for such a detailed comment and iam glad you are enjoying 11 meters as much as me. Just one thing iam not a radio Ham myself. I just hang out on 11m SSB
11 m is really fun, and no problem on the comment I appreciate you thank you
The proper way to make the inverted V antenna is to use this formula 468/27.205 aka channel 20 and multiply by .98 to get the best length for the antenna and to figure the length of each leg is 234/27.205 and again multiply by .98 . But if you have the antenna straight horizontal the impedence will be about 73 ohms but by dropping the legs down you can find the impedence will get to be 50 ohms . I'm an amateur radio operator and I have been studying antennas and with help from other amateur radio operators I have found out about how to build my own antennas and save money . Good luck on your antennas and have fun with them ,73's from kn4kbh .
Made one of these back in the late 70's, and got a 1.3-1 match with it. Close enough for Government work. LOL
Seriously, it was a great little experiment, and in an emergency would have worked to allow you to communicate locally with friends and others.
I found some 8-10 gauge solid aluminium clothesline wire at a local store, and based my measurements off of the basic 102 inch whip antennas being sold at the time.
Well done on the Antenna Fred. Good to see it working, get well soon!
Keep up the good work Fred. Without people trying and failing then trying again none of us would learn.
Congratulations on your homebrew dipole, nice work 👷
It’s the only way we learn Fred...trial and error...well done mate....Bob
Love your enthusiasm Fred,channels got so much better over the last couple of years so well done mate n look forward to the next one:) looking forward to a back in the day story :)
Thanks 👍
Gee Fred, making your own antenna. We''ll make a ham out of you yet! 😀
Everything in your design should work except the close proximity of the attic insulation with foil surface.
As for those pointing out horizontal vs vertical polarization... An inverted-vee is not perfectly horizontal, so you will have a combination of both horizontal and vertical waves. None of this will matter with skywave DX. Keep up the good work.
Keep in mind, the 27mgz cb band used to be an amateur band so there is no reason you can't operate an inverted V dipole. I had one years ago that I built as an extra antenna in addition to a half-wave ground plane. When a friend was thinking of buying a second antenna I told him to save his money and showed him my dipole and then got out the materials to make one for him. He just could not believe that I built him an antenna for less than $5.00 worth of parts that worked so well!
I have a 27mHz inverted-V in my loft too. Amazing antenna. Gets out across the continent and beyond when the bands are good (furthest I worked is Israel and North Africa but received from USA and Canada). As the old saying goes, its easy to build a worse antenna than a dipole but hard to build a better one. You should maybe consider going for your foundation ticket (easy peasy). You've basically passed the practical building this. It will teach you everything you have covered in this vid and more.
Wow, sounds like you have made some awesome contacts on your "V" what are the deminsions if i may ask???
Unfreaking real. These guys are masters of an art that is almost gone forever!!
Cracking video Lad. Making antennas is fun. I now have a spiders web/rats nest of failures, but some do work very well. Keep the videos coming and kick that cold right into touch.
Gave you a thumbs up Fred for building your new antenna, last time i worked into the UK on the 11m band i was running one of my Kenwood transceivers (i can,t remember which one) with an Acom 1000 amp for a laugh, just to say HI !!!!
The guy thought i was pulling his leg when i said i was in the South West of France !
Is 27.305 a regular SSB frequency Fred, i will store it in the memory bank in the scan cycle, incidently had a friend after all going to a restaurant here, he had been into CB and had a box of stuff in the garage and would drop it off at my house. Came home one afternoon to find a box, full of Cobra 148GTL's , Midland 80channel AM/FM rigs, valve amps and cables and even a antenna rotator !!! and the best was the K40 with a mag mount !!!!!!!!!
So my new 10m antenna is now the K40, started on CB, been licensed since 1982, held ham callsigns all over the world, still do, won plenty of contests on HF but still love the CB.
Respect to you man, keep the videos coming.
73s call you on 27.305 one evening whens theres some 'skip' into the UK ......
Thanks Anthony
My god this takes me back lol i used one of these when i was in me teens. It was great for talking stateside. I used 1 because a vertical dipole used to cause loads of tvi. The inverted v stopped all that. Nice one Fred.
Thanks Gary. I wish i had made one for my dads loft back in the day.
Love it!
Great experiment with good results.
I wanna put a wire up for top band during the winter. I'll let you know how it goes 👍
Lovely job. Got one up in the same fashion. Top video keep it up Fred. 👍🏻
Cheers bud
Nice one Fred, I only use wire dipoles now, if you stuck it outside you would be surprised at how well it will work. I always use an airwound as well I also use electric flex, a cheeseblok for connecting the wire and coax at the antenna side obviously. The best antenna I used was one of these but as a fan dipole, never needed a tuner for the band's it worked brilliantly. I'm hoping to get one up soon again but got to much to do with the house atm, the wife will kill me if I start playing with wire again lol
Hi Fred thanks for that I am making one for my loft as a back up to my outside antenna
Great job Fred learning is part all part of it and makes the hobby more interesting. Now you have achieved and made you feel good.. 5 star mate and well done a fully tuned dipole makes a good antenna
Cheers Lee. I did enjoy the building part.
@@CB-RADIO-UK just remember from novice to advanced you will never stop learning clueless is a little harsh we all learn from one another hence your video and other ones out there it's all about enjoying the hobby whether it be CB or Ham radio ignore the stigma kick ass on the learning and enjoy it 😁
Hi Fred I hate to pull rank on you but you said that you were not any good at making aerials but I can honestly say that my record for making aerials is pretty poor.
Thanks to your video I was inspired to build an inverted V antenna and I ordered a balun like the one in your video and I got stuck in, expecting the worst, due to my previous failed aerials in the past.
I made the inverted V and it actually works.
Thanks for your Video and for inspiring me, keep the videos coming they are much appreciated.
all the best, Brian
Glad i was able to help you Brian. Well done on building your own.
Excellent video.
I've been messing about with antennas for ages, both on CB & the Amateur Bands. And have had some excellent results with antennas that supposedly shouldn't work very well.
Usually it's all down to the tuning of the antenna - if you can make it radiate the RF out rather than reflected back, then you're heading in the right direction.
The whole radio hobby is all about experimenting.
Of course, when experimenting, always be aware of the damage that high swr can cause to your equipment.....
Keep up the good work Fred.
Thanks. Yes i agree you have to try different ideas and find what works. RF is an issue running an antenna in the same room as the radio but i did get it working.
I really fancy building a mag loop. Ive read up on it a few times. Finding the right vari cap for a decent price is the tough part.
@@CB-RADIO-UK Did you ever get round to building a magnetic loop? I've really enjoyed this series, it's been really helpful 👍 I've seen 6band UK made mag loop on fleabay for 110quid. Do you think it would be worth it? I'm thinking my options are between a loft dipole like yours (cheapest option), the mag loop, or a widebander wonder wand/loop (most expensive option).
(I do plan to get a ssb rig at some point later on, but will grab a cheap UK rig to start with)
Please keep in mind that there is a 20 DB loss in signal going between a horizontal and vertical antenna. In America, most CB antennas are verticals. Good build though!👍
Have a look at the book Dummy’s guild to CB. Played with that antenna 40 years ago. Another one we use 3’ by 3’ ply covered in tin foil small block of wood in the middle with a broom stick and 18’ of single Core wire. I had that in my loft for years.
Don't forget Fred, the other lads are virtually polarized and the inverted V is mostly horizontally polarized.
Best regards , carl.
nice video greetings from Serbia, 45NS001, mate the dipole is sometimes better than vertical or directional factory antena, so thumbs up for creation, iverted V especially outside with a center on some high pole, i was experimenting very much with dipoles and i am very happy with them, also try to experiment to take a 2,5mm full wire then remove completley the isolation, after you trim and tune it just spray it with nitro glaze protection for wood or metall the transparent one to protect it from weather conditions
Always fun to experiment.
It's definitely not going to work with that shiney insulation in your attic
Hi. I covered that in another video it non conductive mylar.
@@CB-RADIO-UK So no effect on radio waves reflected back to dipole and poor reception/transmission?
@@Big_John_C I think there will be some effect yes. Hard to say to what degree without removing the mylar. However the antenna worked and got fair reports. I would think that most people trying this set up would prob not have the same problem.
@@CB-RADIO-UK I mounted my dipole on the ceiling of my radio room in a v shape and it performed exceptionally well even though it was horizontal, had a nice chat with a gentleman from Zealand Island Denmark that evening.. 5,460 miles away with a 25 watt radio
@@Big_John_C Amazing result. Well done.
Great video Fred
Thanks for giving me some inspiration.
I’m learning a lot from you ❤❤❤❤
Good work. You have an effective inverted V antenna cut for 11meters. Since it's legs are slanted it emits a signal w/ both vertical and horizontal polarity components. You CAN feed a 1/2 wave dipole directly from RG58, Though it's not recommended. You can even get very acceptable SWR if the length of the dipole legs are carefully adjusted. Where you run into possible issues is proximity to any metal (and even wooden structural material). In the case of closeness to wood, the leg-length adjustment should allow low SWR. Now it IS best to put a choke-BALUN at the feedpoint (as you did by coiling several turns of RG58). That effectively negates the BALanced antenna from the UNbalanced RG58 section of feedline to the radio. The 1:1 BALUN wasn't necessary, as the coiled coax took care of that (the choke-BALUN effectively IS a 1:1 BALUN). The choke action of the coil also helps keep RF off the feedline portion from the radio to the dipole, helping keep RF out of the area of the radio. Since the dipole is physically close to the radio, the RF field is gonna be high anyway, though. I've been making dipoles for decades (for 11M as well as 10, 20, 40 and 80M. They make great antennas. They're horizontally polarised for local (non-skip) comms. However, after the signal enters the skip (skywave) domain it becomes circularly polarized so it doesn't matter the polarity of the receiving antenna.
Thanks Rick thats really helpful info. I did wonder if the air choke and Balun would be doing the same thing. After my first fail i was really happy it worked. I may try building one outside next year so i could try it with just a RF choke.
Hi Rick, I’ve got the same setup as this in my attic with a President McKinley. Unfortunately I’m getting erratic swr on the inbuilt swr meter. I’m being heard ok but in receive it’s dropping out due to the swr jumping around, any ideas?
@@r188ops8 Go to a Pilot/ Flying J/ Loves truck stop and get a $25 SWR/ watt meter and see if your antenna is unstable. I don't see that a simple dipole will give you trouble, but you should be able to determine if there's something happening with your "Radio to SWR meter to antenna" stream. Move stuff around while transmitting and see if anything changes. I don't have a lot of faith in SWR meters built into the radio. Let me know what you find out after you eliminate the "in-built" meter.
Morning (well it is here) Rik, will do, I’ll get one today and see what happens 👍🏻
Paul
Glad it worked for you Fred. Regards Mick (26CT3060)
Dipoles are good for dx, great video👍
Catching up on some of your past vids Fred, 30 odd yrs ago , I made a inverted v , for a naughty freq , echo Charlie , and it was a vague basic antenna that was chucked over the top of the roof of my house, coming down about a foot off the ground in my front and rear garden , a thin piece of wire that was hardly noticeable, didn’t have any rf chokes or ballum, I used the antenna tuner in the kenwood to swr the Ariel, and believe it or not I spoke to a group every day for months using 30 watts lsb ,, can’t remember the exact length of each leg for 6.6 , but was around 38 ft , if my memory serves me right , oh and in the group was a woman called Annin France a guy in Cornwall and a guy in London , , they were the days , l o l , cheers Shane ,,, back on the Cb, and will be doing some videos on my sister channel , cheers shane uk 🇬🇧
Sounds interesting and sneaky. Glad to hear your back on the air. Hopefully your noise will be better this time. Look forward to your videos.
@@CB-RADIO-UK thanks for the reply Fred , one of these days before I die , maybe before this winter will drive down some where nr ur location and have a yatter with you on your afternoon 405 net ,,, it’s on my bucket list , l o l cheers shane
wow you have a clean loft
Its not a s clean as it looks.
good job fred
Impressive setup Fred. That balun is key to a good antenna. The choke idea seemed to work reasonably well Fred. Maybe a little diffierent tweak or more wraps might be better. Experimenting, as you say, is the key. All is well here Fred. Decent weather here as well.
Thanks Andy. I wont be stopping when i get a little breathing time after xmas. Hope the quad bike is going well.
For the ugly balun its mostly around 8/10 windings. But to me honest it didn't work that well and i went for a 1:1 ferrite balun and that worked much better. I noticed less local noise. Considering SWR i never seen too much difference between inverted V with or without the balun. Just a little perhaps. But without i have seen 1:1 SWR as well. So it all depends on the antenna location i guess..
i am using a 4ft top load antenna in my loft it is working pretty good
That's great
well worked out Fred I may have a go my self :)
You didn't need to make a choke. You're balun is your choke. Only thing I see that's going to hinder you is all that foil insulation.
Nice Video. Its a good alternativ to use inside of the roof. Best greetings from Austria. 73s Frank - 35WR035
Great video bud 73-51 from 29AT120 MICK
its the table that Mrs Fred varnished
Hi. Yes the same one.
@@CB-RADIO-UK thanks for the reply Fred
Watching from Ireland, keep it up
I want to put an antenna in the loft, now I have to decide whether to buy the rod balun or some wood varnish, as our own table needs work
Lest we forget, before spending time and $ on a dipole CB antenna, unless one plans to string it vertically, which would not be very feasible in a attic, a horizontal dipole is polarized "horizontally"...exactly 90 degrees out of polarization with most all mobile and base CB transmissions on a vertical antenna. But since he's strung a inverted V, there will be some vertical polarization component but only 50% efficiency. The foil backed insulation doesn't help either.
Good video Fred, Some of the information is a little wonkey on the net with regard to building dipole antennas and inverted Vee's.
The angle of the V needs to be 90° as close as possible and will affect SWR and the need for a balun.
A dipole is a balanced antenna, coax is unbalanced hence the need for a balun (BALanced UNbalanced)
ive got mine to mount up when my leg is better.
Did do a mic mod though to a cobra M75 today ready for use on the 6900
Thanks for the info.
Best CB contacts I ever made was on a bodged-together wire inverted-v dipole fed with 75-ohm TV coax with an equally bodged-together connector (a tv coax plug soldered onto a PL259). Literally cobbled together out of stuff I had handy. Couldn't believe the results, it didn't need much fettling to sort out the SWR and worked a treat. I used it for a couple of years around the last sunspot peak and was getting into Canada, US, and the Carribbean on 12W PEP SSB. Niiiiice. If you're making contacts and your radio doesn't go bang, that's a win. Mate if you're this into playing about with radios you should do your Foundation ticket. Basically if you can read you can pass it. PS All that metal on your roof insulation will F up any antenna you put inside it... tear it out and put fibreglass instead lol.
@Charles B. As long as the radio doesn't care too much (mine didn't). I'd always planned to replace the coax but it worked so well I didn't dare change anything!
It looks like you had some form of metal foil insulation in the loft I suspect that didn’t help things. I bet you shack was live with rf and half you signal was radiating from the feeder. I actually don’t mean to be disparaging as I have built a lot of antennas and my efforts have been very random and many really poor, it never matches the theory but you doing absolutely the right thing by experimenting. An indoor antenna is always going to be a serious compromise and have a high noise floor. 27mhz is also a relatively low frequency lending itself to electrically large antennas. I have been doing some work using two loaded vertically mobile whips to form short tuned dipole. It worked very well on 27 but it was still just to big. I have a couple CB restoration video if you get a minute I would love a thumbs up from you. Keep going keep experimenting and I hope your feeling better soon. Best regards Chris
Thanks Chris. The foil in the loft is non conductive mylar. Thanks bud.
fredintheshed1 Mylar is definitely non conductive it’s the insulator used in high voltage and high stability capacitors. But it does look to be purposely reflective so still wondering if it’s metal sprayed ie like mirrored sun glass these are splutter coated.
@@CB-RADIO-UK it may be non conducive but I still think its blocking rf. We use mylar to protect our computer components in a high rf environment and high static environment.
oh well its a LOT claener than mine. im just starting up again after being away from c b since 1982, Got a lot to re learn
Im cleaning the spiders out of my old rigs too.. Nothing to re learn other than where did I put my screw drivers.
A 4:1 BALUN would have worked also but a long-wire antenna matching to your transceiver via an UNUN should also work.
Ah no 😒your the first to say that it's not for cb Fred! I'm going to cry😭😭
At 27Mhz, the loss through tiles is lower than at FM frequencies and far lower than TV frequencies, but obviously reflected power is the big issue here.
I had a 5/8 wave up the chimney back in the day
You might have been better off separating that foil insulation at the apex of the roof into a "Left and "Right" panel and connecting that to the coax . An 11m dipole should present a significant mismatch or performance hit in the presence of that much foil Backed insulation.
Are you sitting nicely???
Way back in the old days... I made a 36ft wire dipole from 2.5 twin core wire.
Strung it at washing line height down the garden.
It worked pretty well out to 15 - 20 miles, Ive never been interested in DXing. If I get an out of town copy, its an accident.
I keep looking at my extendable curtain pole and thinking that it maybe could be used as an antenna of somesort, I just don't know how that would work though, but would need to be vertical, which would make it hard to keep the curtains up on... :P
do you know if this is possible to make the v with the t2lt so that it can be dual use when ever you need in the loft in a V configuration OR in a tree vertical?
You could bend a T2LT into a V and it might work. Only issue will be getting the SWR down to a safe level.
Another great video Fred, I have a SS CRT 7900, it covers 25 to 30 mhz, would I need two inverted v aerials to get a good SWR on 10 meters and 11 meters? Or is one longer and perhaps use some kind of antenna tuner?
You could use a tuner but if you have the space a 2nd tuned V for 10m would work better.
@@CB-RADIO-UK thank you Fred, would it be worth having up two inverted v's, one facing north - south and one facing east to west? As I did read they can be directional, I'd have each v on its own coax, using a switcher box to the radio.
I think its worth a try. Thats the real good thing about making antennas you just try things till something works. Good luck.
Your 5 turn transmission line coil is a choke balun. Did you really need a second balun at the apex of the antenna?
Initially, I was thinking that your attic looked entirely too neat and clean and then you pointed your camera to the side areas and I saw the fiberglass insulation mess and I felt right at home... I absolutely HATE working in the attic due to the fiberglass... Then again, the fact that it can reach 140F up there in the summer with the 90+% humidity that we get here does not make it exactly "inviting" either...
Hi. Yes mine gets too hot also in the summer.
cheers for that - as a CB newb (ex pat living in New Zealand on 477mhz) I've been trying to work out how to best do this - I've also just become aware about signal loss over cable length & you need to budget otherwise you might spend a princes ransom for something that has less range, haha.... how much per meter did you spend on the cable?
anyways, just wondering if all that foil backed insulation you have impacts your signal? Like would it be worth putting that over the dipole(s) so the antenna is in no way shielded?
Hi. The mylar is non conductive but it prob does not help.
Have you tried the Sigma Excalibur antenna? I remember them from the 90's and were good for local contacts around the town.
Not one ive tried myself.
Good job on the dipole, this will work better on dx
G'day Fred. I've designed, and am constructing a ground plane antenna. It's got to fit in a small area. If possible, I'd like to send you progress pics. Then you'd be able to tell your viewers how easy it is to make an antenna in a fashion that you or they may not have thought of.
Hi Noel. LOL iam no way qualified to teach antennas iam just a rough learner. Maybe you could share the video yourself. I'd be interested to see your progress.
Righto Fred. I'll give the video a shot. It will be my first video. We'll see how it goes. It'll be a little while, 'cos I'm still waiting for some parts.
Wow, you guys have way more activity on CB there! Ever thought about running that Grant 2 and the dipole as a portable set up to see how far you can go? And yes, I subscribed. Anything radio related is worth watching.
73! WX7UTE :)
I'm looking to put up a Thunderpole in the back garden but permission is looking flakey with my housing assoc, so I'm looking into dipole.
Would I be able to make one compleley out of RG213 BX coax?
In theory yes. I tried RG58 but found it gave a very high SWR compared to single core wire.
@@CB-RADIO-UK 🤥
Morning Fred.... I've watch your video and have had many an hour pondering over wether an balun is really needed.....As a fellow Ham and CBer since the early 80s I've built many antennas. At the minute I have a wire dipole for 40/20 meters but it also tunes on several other bands with my MFJ tuner.But no balun at all or a trap...I havent used HF for a while but I've had good DX all over the world.
so is a balun really needed ?? when you buy a cheap dipole from knights its just 2 x 9 foot sections of ally and the mounting pole...no balun or choke . which brings me back to the question....do we need a balun or not???
Anyway thanks for all your vids and the time and effort you put into the..73 for now CT341
Interesting question. Ive not got much experience with antenna construction. I did try a simple T joint dipole but could not get the SWR low enough to work which i why i bought the balun and that worked. I deffo did not need the coil choke.
Try a one-to-one current ballon it helped me a lot with RF getting into my computer laptop etc and it's significantly dropped my standing wave ratio a significant amount
Yes i ended up with a 1:1 balun.
@@CB-RADIO-UK here is a link to the 1:1 I made on my other TH-cam account th-cam.com/video/HrKN_kQBI4g/w-d-xo.html
21 CT 003 can't you putt your builds onto the grup padge the toow mobile wips looks so good but can't find the cooling fore it best regards from Sweden
Hi. Do you mean a playlist ? If so they already are just see here. th-cam.com/play/PL26R2EonyEzyDtiGIK1DWa4Gnd3186xRx.html
think i might give this ago fred
Hey fred, two kinds of balun, you want to use a current balun and not a voltage balun, from what Ive read
Hi Russ. This one is made for radio.
Thinking about your other video on the start of CB, how cool would it have been to have access to the info to make this kind of stuff when we were kids. nowadays, everything is a Google query away, whereas back then you had to sort through the bullshit and old wives tales, and learn by trial and error!
With your dipole, don't forget the impedance will change relative to height above ground rather than always be the "native" ~73 ohms, and also, you will get more signal broadside to the length of the wire, if that makes sense.
Is dipole good for CB base antena? GP is more better or the same?
Some dipoles work well but a full dipole is very large unless you use mobile antennas. A 18 foot base station antenna on a pole is kinda like a dipole.
@@CB-RADIO-UK with a 1/2 cb Dipole and 30w on ssb... and other radio have 1/2 dipole. Talk range distance its cca 20km?
👍
Just made one of these but my swr is high and if I shorten the wires it's well below 2.7 meteres wire length.🤔
Hi David. Without an antenna tuner you just have to play at shortening the wire ends a small bit at a time till the SWR is the best you can get.
Hey fred! good to see you making antennas. I recently uploaded a video on my channel of a cb antenna i made from measuring tape on my ceiling. Maybe you could do that if you're having any issues, mine is a V dipole also.
Check my video out if you have the chance, you would have a ton of fun building something like it.
The configuration you have with your dipole will react to vertical and horizontal signals, probably why you were able to talk to people with verticals easily.
My tape measure dipole is strictly horizontal so i don't get hardly any vertical contacts unless they are within a few miles.
BUT because my antenna is horizontal it cuts out on the vertical noise of people trying to talk over eachother and when I'm able to get a contact with a sideways antenna like mine, we can talk easily because of the limited noise.
I'm easily talking/receiving over 15 miles with 7s units.
You should try some more designs, my first successful antenna opened many great doors for me, get into it man!
You may also have a 75-ohm load on the dipole at that height if so 1.5 or so is about as good as the swr will get. You might if you like experimenting make another one the same total less about 10 percent and mount 1/4 wave apart making a beam, if you have the room put up a third one and get maybe 8
= dbi gain. research wire beams, it looks like you could successfully do it. In other words the dipole in the middle and another wire the same length as BOTH sides of the dipole a 1/4 wave each side of the dipole, getting gain off each the back and front with a lower side signal. A beam with that gain. better for others using the same polarity. This is a calculator page www.eagle3.net/browardarc/documents/antenna-calc.html
Figured out my problem Fred with my Zetagi swr/power/matcher. It's working fine. it's my antenna that's the issue. swr too high
Ok Dean. Yes the matcher will only do so much.
@@CB-RADIO-UK it matches down to 1.0 on 20 and 1.1 on 40 and 1.1 But still need to sort antenna
Thank you for the video Fred in the shed, they're awesome! and we have learned a lot. This is going to be lengthy so please bear with me. I want to put a inverted V dipole on the outside of my house at the peak of my roof similar to your installation in your rafters. The roof pitch is 4/12 Maybe 160° , not even close to the 110°suggested angle for inverted v I have read about...You think this will work with wire being Directlty contacting the house with the wave/radiation shooting into the house and half of radiation shooting out into free space ???or do I need to hang it in my rafters in the in between them without the dipole's touching anything like in your video? . I hope you understand my question,not the best explaining things.lol
Hi Casey. The voltage at the end of the dipole wires can get very high so you need to use plastic insulators at the ends. If they touch the house i would suspect that your SWR will also be quite high.
@@CB-RADIO-UK thanks for sharing. Most TH-camrs dont write us back. Yes I have insulator for the tips. So you don't think it's a good idea? Should I just put it in the rafters?
Hi Fred I have just made myself one from your advice I can only get the swr down to 1.6 so from 26mhz to 28mhz it goes from 2.0swr to 1.6swr back to 2.0swr at 28mhz
1.6 SWR is fine. I had to fold the ends over and tape them to about 1cm at a time to get mine down low. Ive since bought a antenna analyzer for about £38 from ebay but not even had the time to open it yet.
Fred in the Shed Hi Fred snap I have just brought a RigExpert Analyzer which made the tuning in a lot easier. I found the angle of the wires made a big difference.
Hi Fred I have managed to get the SWR down to 1.0 on 27.555 and that was by changing the angle of the wire. Like you it is just a back up just in case anything happens to my Antron 99
@@marksteeples5489 Sounds good. i will be playing later in the year outside.
@@marksteeples5489did you go at 90 degrees for the best SWR
Really enjoy your channel
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Please feel free to laugh at my questions as I know nothing, lol, but do you think it would be possible to make a diy hexbeam/moxon beam out of copper wire and an old aluminum rotary washing line frame, to use in my loft?? Lol😅😂
(I have litterally no idea what I'm doing, but the fun/attraction as a kid was to see if I could get out on something I'd throw together myself, lol😅😂)
Hi Iam sure most things are possible when making antennas. Ive never tried a Moxon myself so would have no idea where to start. I think all the information would be found on radio Ham forums or maybe the homebrew section on Transmission one. here www.transmission1.net/
@@CB-RADIO-UK thanks once again mate, I'll check those resources out 👍 much appreciated!! ☺️🙏
You say the rod balun was only around £20 on ebay? Can you put the link up for the one you got coz the only one I can find is £54.99 cheers Fred.
Ok i will add it to the video description. Now done
Can you review the Anytone AT-5555N II this month please???
Yes if your willing to sent it me free of charge :-)
At 55 seconds in you have a sheet up there showing the inverted dipole being longer legs and total length of wire than a regular horizontal dipole , now everything I've read shows the inverted dipoles the lengths are SHORTER on each end than with a traditional straight across dipole ... what's the Correct answer? because I'm seeing two different lenghts on many different videos what's the truth?
In practice i started longer than recommended and simply folder over the ends on each side until i reached the best SWR that i could.
@@CB-RADIO-UK thank you Fred.have a great weekend.
The Rf was high because you have foil backed insulation which is reflecting back on the antennae
Certainly did not help but it went away after the air choke was fitted.
@@CB-RADIO-UK The Choke will also inhibit the signal....you would have done a lot better t have laid the antennae on the top of the roof rather than under it
An outside antenna will always do better but that would defeat the idea behind the video of setting up a simple antenna inside a loft.
My wife says size matters all the time to me 🤣🤣
What length is each leg ?? I'm gonna use my old g5rv wire antenna
Think i started at 2.65m and cut them back to get a good SWR.
Fred in the Shed roger that bro I will dig my old wire out in fanny about tomorrow with it taking my time ? Tell me did you use it on usb 27.555 ?
@@tommcbride798 No not for the test as the bands were closed. It should work well for skip though.
Fred in the Shed I will test it out and let you know how I get on with it 😉🤪👌😜
It's the angle and length of the legs I'd say is it?
No not really. The angle should be around 90 degree but ive had to go with what i could make fit the space.
@@CB-RADIO-UK worked pretty well Fred!
Hi Fred, nice video👍🏻. As someone who really is a ‘noob’ to CB (month 🤣), can I ask how you grounded the inv v? If that’s a daft question I do apologise.......Paul 👍🏻
Hi paul. Its not grounded but insulated. The ground mesh is connected to one part and the centre core the other.
Hi Fred, thanks for the swift reply. Now you have confused me 🤣🤣, what do you mean by ‘mesh’? Or are you just referring to the centre wire going up to the dipole? Apologies for being thick 👍🏻
@@r188ops8 Hi. Sorry to confuse you. Yes the coax center and earth screen is split to form the dipole.
Hi Fred, roger, got you now. I’m Going to have a go at this over the next couple of days, just got a McKinley today so should make it really easy to adjust the swr if I don’t get the lengths right first time 🤣👍🏻
@@r188ops8 Go for it. Just fold the ends over and tape then to reduce the length.
I wonder if this antenna would work on a homemade fm radio
On the commercial band ?
Radio 5, do you ever report Lower?
Well yes 2-3 if the station is weak. 1-2 if its hardly readable.
Hi Guys! 😉
How long are your ends are they 103" total
Sorry Pete a cannot rem.
@@CB-RADIO-UK I went 9ft on each side so I have a little to play with
Hi bud I am looking to buy a mobile c b and fit in my my car can u recommend any thanks bud 👍
Best value would be a CRT 6900N which gives you AM FM and SSB. If you buy from Knights the UK 40 FM is preprogrammed.
@@CB-RADIO-UK thanks
Thw foil in the top of the roof will make it less efficient
Do I need a balun
Well some say yes and some say no. I tried without and had very high SWR issues.
What about a magnetic loop antenna
I would love one :-) They are expensive to buy but i do fancy having a go to make one in the future. The expensive part is the vari cap with high enough power handling.
I am a amateur radio operators but I still enjoy what happens if your videos and building one would be a good project 73
Can’t help but cringe at the foil backing right next to the antenna. Probably going to have a lot of coupling there. But if it works then go for it!
I doubt it worked because of the shielding effect on that insulation. Next time just lay the wires on the outside of the roof
It worked pretty well.