CB Antennas?
What CB antennas have you guys had good luck with that are short enough to play nice under a truck camper? I'm curious to see the mounting as well. Obviously a 3 foot fiberglass whip won't fit.
Forum Discussion
BradW wrote:
On our old lance I mounted two 2' firestik antennas on the top of the ladder.. Since they "saw" each other, they used each other as a ground plane. That setup worked very well.
A groundplane is an entirely different thing. It’s effect is to lower the radiation pattern from mostly skyward to more line of sight.
Two antennas near each other affect the radiation pattern differently, they make it more directional. They really need to be about 9 feet apart, a quarter wavelength.
The reason you saw that on trucks in the CB heyday with twin antennas on the mirrors, which are about 8 feet apart, is they make the radiation pattern like a figure-8 as viewed from above. They’re directional to the front and rear, and much less to the sides.
The idea was to concentrate the signal up and down the highway and minimize interference from the sides.
Your ladder was acting as the groundplane.
The reason they works well was how high up they were. You’d probably do better with a single one.
