Inching back into CB

[mercury888]

I've been meaning to get back to CB for, well, ever since I quit back around 1990. Tonight I finally had some time to myself sufficient to bung an aerial on the side of the workshop. It's only a boomerang - the 27W one - all I can manage right now. It's literally on a home made bracket on the gable end of the workshop (aka wooden shed), so not a good location but I had some hopes.

Does it work? Does it stuff. SWR is 3 across UK and drops to 2.6-ish on CEPT channel 1. No amount of angle changing makes a difference and the SWR actually comes down to 1.6 on CEPT 1 if I remove the radial, but is still 3 across the UK band. Humbug. I had a better SWR on a magmount inside the workshop sitting on an old PSU as 'ground plane'.

Cables are ok - I made them. SWR meter is ok (dummy load shows 1:1)

So am I right that if the SWR is lowest at the lowest frequency the aerial is too long? Annoyingly back in the day I put up numerous aerials for myself and mates and all were perfect. Mind you, all were 5/8 verticals and all mounted high (or scary high).

[Tim]

Antenna should SWR regardless of how high off the ground it is. High SWR on the low channels, antenna needs lengthening, high on the high channels needs shortening.

[Mudslinger]

Usually if you can't get the SWR to an acceptable level something is fundamentally wrong. Check all of your coax connections and try a different SWR meter if you have one.

People say those Boomerangs are not much good, but not long back I was speaking to a station in Germany who was using one. We were on mids FM and he was hitting me S9 even though he was only using 2 watts.

[The Collector]

If the skip was just right he could have been using milliwatts and got to you nicely

That aerial isn't one of those that requires the coax to be a certain length is it? I know some crappy aerials like the Bazooka used to need it to be cut exactly to length.
If push comes to shove, bin it and get a 9ft tank whip aerial with a decent-sized groundplane if you've got somewhere you can mount it

[mercury888]

I have another SWR meter on order so will be able to try mid-week hopefully. I've also ordered an analyser (no, not because I can't SWR a blessed CB aerial! I want one anyway as I plan to build my own aerials) and it will be interesting to see what this boomerang actually thinks it is.

The trouble with where I am is the workshop is very visible, otherwise I'd stick a 5/8 up on a pole. It's also away from the house so chimney mounts are out.

[mercury888]

Well the analyser came, the boomerang was resonant on 24.9MHz ?! Fiddling with the radial made only a tiny difference (but did at least make some). I've trimmed it down quite a bit and got to a SWR of 1.2 to 1.5 across CEPT & UK, and the old SWR meter agrees, as does the CBs internal SWR meter.

CB seems pretty dead round here though so no on-air checks. There were two guys on UK19 in for the long haul and a dead keyer, just like the old days...

I chucked my IC-R2 at one of the boys and they can hear me - so I have a definite range of, um, 100 foot...

The new SWR meter is a bit of an anomaly. It's a new boxed Zetagi HP1000 transmatch but I can't get anywhere near FSD when setting the thing and the SWR meter moves backwards. My old knackered SWR meter also shows 4W on its power setting so the CB is putting some juice out. I'm guessing the HP1000 is DOA.

[TheRadioGeek]

Try adding a random length of coax.

[stanogs68]

believe it or not i honestly think there s people wanting to get back into CB

[loudassassin]

believe it or not i honestly think there s people wanting to get back into CB

well im almost back after a few years away, after doing some diy stuff, i had to put the radio gear out of harms way, and before Id managed to set it back up, a family member who id gotten it off wanted it back. A Cobra148gtl-dx , astatics, supplys etc..
So to quench my radio thirst, ive been using online radios etc, but the urge was too strong to resist.
Last week I bought myself a rtl usb dongle thingy, and a CRT 6900n.

I've not got a psu anymore, but i think ive got an antenna in the loft, and whats left of a inverted V-dipole in the outhouse.
So once ive sorted some power, and worked out how to get the radio from 10m to 11m i'll be back on.

[rizz]

Nice to see another station coming back on air, you should be able to get into the mid week net or at least hear some of the stations when your up and running, its on the mid block usb and run from Derby.

You plug the lead into the radio inside it and the usb into a computer/tablet and run the software to change the banks to what you want.

[rizz]

I have another SWR meter on order so will be able to try mid-week hopefully. I've also ordered an analyser (no, not because I can't SWR a blessed CB aerial! I want one anyway as I plan to build my own aerials) and it will be interesting to see what this boomerang actually thinks it is.

The trouble with where I am is the workshop is very visible, otherwise I'd stick a 5/8 up on a pole. It's also away from the house so chimney mounts are out.

I have the Boomerang 27A and it works well I can get 20 to 25 miles on 4 watts and the bandwidth isn't too bad, it isn't flat across 80 channels its 1.4 mids channel 1 to 1.5 uk40 channel 40 and just over 2 around 28500, they cost 25 notes +5.95 shipping and the radial is 5 foot long the main element is 8.5 long if you fancy changing but don't want a 18 footer swaying around in the wind it its here

http://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/cb/cb-ante ... merang-27a

[ghost123uk]

In that past, I have had surprisingly good results using one of those ^^^, especially if you mount them high enough (and it's not a big heavy aerial to do that)



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[rizz]

In that past, I have had surprisingly good results using one of those ^^^, especially if you mount them high enough (and it's not a big heavy aerial to do that)



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Yes they are good, the 27A is the better Boomerang, no loading coil on the main element.