How To Build A Homemade CB Antenna?

If you're interested in radio and would like to get more involved in the radio transmission process, building your own CB antenna is a great idea. It will allow you to tune in and listen to whatever is being broadcasted on the CB channel. Building a homemade CB antenna requires a little skill, a lot of patience and a few vital materials.

First of all, you will need a coaxial cable of length 100 inches. Using a sharp edge, strip the outer insulation material from the wire. Then, grab yourself a coaxial cable metal braided shield (items like these can be found at various hardware stores) and pull it down your coaxial cable wire so the two lengths are parallel. Find the hole in the braided shield and guide the wire through this, until around half the wire has been passed through. Attach antenna insulators to the ends of the coaxial cable wire. Tie the ends together and you should have a large loop formation.

For your CB antenna to receive signals, it will need to be located at least 20 feet above ground level. The best way to achieve this height is to tie a rope or non-metal wire structure to your antenna and haul it up a tree or up the side of a building. The remainder of the wire (that is coming out of the loop) should hang down to ground level, in order for you to plug it into your CB radio. With a little bit of luck, you should now be able to tune into the CB radio station! Bear in mind that as your antenna is homemade, the signal and there quality of transmission may be poor - so whilst building a CB antenna is fun, it may be better to buy an antenna to use in the long run.

Citizen Bands are the highest level of frequencies band which are rated at the top end of high-frequency band, in other words it is stated that they are just one level below the VHF band. Mostly base-loaded CB antennas function really well.

There are a wide range of CB antennas available in the market now days; they vary on the basis of sizes and shapes. Due to the growing amount of competition companies keep on launching better products for reduced prices on regular basis. You can make your own antenna with the readily-available parts that will function well or even better than the ready made ones. You will require a SWR meter to test the working of the antenna after building it. CB antennas comprise of driven elements and four radial wires which function as the base.

Cut 4 strands of 12 gauge wire to 102 in. Use one of the wires as the radiating element and three as the elements. Take three foot jumper cable and cut all but about an inch or two to splice to the top element. Using a small clamp, attach the three bottom elements to a barrel connector (PL 258). Now take the wire that was spliced into the jumper and attach it to the top of the Barrel connector. The three bottom elements can be spread by using 1/2 in. PVC pipe cut to abot four feet in length. Create a triangle with the PVC pipe and attach the three bottom elements to. Now attach your feedline to the bottom of the barrel connector. Using nylon rope or other non electrical type cable. Tie the top of the radiating element to a tree or wooden pole as high as possible. You will have an antenna that is good as the old Starduster antenna. Note If you really want yo can cut a 12 foot coax cable leaving a connector on one end and strip the outer braided cable leaving only the center wire and use three 102 in. 12 gauge wires on the bottom.
73s hope this helps.

It's actually about three steps below VHF. 2m would be VHF, 6m is HF and then 10m, then CB, which is 11m.

Homebrew CB antennae are fairly cheap and easy to make for very little cash outlay. The easiest is a dipole.

Using the antenna calculator at the bottom of this answer, you can find the frequency of the channel you want to run the most frequently and enter it into the calculator. Once you have the length of both halves of the dipole, it's a matter of soldering on your female RF connector, string your antenna between two elevated points and connecting your CB radio. An SWR meter helps fine tune the antenna but if you've measured properly and cut accordingly, it's a formality. Many other styles of antennae can be made and plans for them are readily available on the web.

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