Modified CB antenna for Scanner
Mike M.
>I live in a metal sided house and am rural too. I don't get anything
>on my scanner, and when something does come in, all I get is noise.
>I need an outdoor antenna but dont want to spend any money on this.
>I have a dozen or more old CB antennas. The coax from one of them
>will directly attach to the scanner.
>
>My question is how to modify the antenna to get the correct wave
>length. What length do I need to cut it to, (or add some on) Does
>anyone have any info?
>
>PS. These are all car type CB antennas. I realize this wont be a
>perfect antenna, and a commercial one would be better, but anything is
>better than what I got now. My neighbor gets all kinds of reception,
>just with the telescoping antenna on the back of the radio, but he is
>in a plastic sided house. So, just getting something outdoors will
>help me.
>
>Thanks
>
>Mark
If the CB antenna is center loaded or top loaded it should work
reasonably well. If it is base loaded it probably won't.
I used to use one of the cheap magnet mount center loaded CB antennas
as a mobile scanner antenna and it worked quite well on VHF Hi and
UHF. I also tried one of the base loaded types and that was like
shorted coax.
There are lots of antennas you can build for next to nothing, just do
a google search.