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JK CB & HAM RadiosBulletin board forum regarding all topics concerning CB and HAM radios, the installation of them in your Jeep JK Wrangler. This would include antenna mounts, wiring, tuning and usage.
Without talking skip or repeaters, just straight radio to radio, what type of radio has the longest useful talking range?
As others have said a mobile Ham radio would give you the best range. However the other part of the equation might be, who you are trying to talk to? It's great to have the long range but if there is nobody out there that will respond to you or the rest of your party are not licensed then a Ham rig might not be the best solution.
So my question would be, who are you planning on talking to?
Mostly wife, cell phones aren't reliable for getting a signal, and I don't like them much anyway, around our house and the drive to work there are very few places I get one bar, much less two, then the places we go camping are just as bad, thinking along the lines of base camp to vehicle.
right now our CB radios work better than cell phones but the range is short, not really looking to talk just to see who answers, just a portable more reliable than cell phone, not long range, but more than 5 or 6 miles like the CB
Ok, I'm guessing your wife like my ex won't be too interested in getting her ham license so that might rule that option out.
You look like you are in a rural area, will you be talking mainly mobile to mobile or base to mobile? If the latter than a good 100' tower with a omni directional CB antenna with some gain might be a good route to go. To bump up your range a bit more I might want to go with a Sideband radio which tend to be more expensive but will help with range. Now the downside with CB is when propagation (skip) rolls in it could wipe out the channel(s) you are trying to use but that might be hit and miss. So basically run Sideband in the house and the Jeeps.
Antennas are another part of the equation, longer (wavelength eg 1/2 wave, 5/8th etc) + height will also play a factor in range. Personally not a fan of the spare tire mount antennas because the SWR (match) of the setup can be adversely affected by the way they are positioned. Aside from this there are a lot of different types of antennas on the market, for example magnet mount K40's granted with our Jeeps they won't stick to the roof which is the ideal spot or some of the top loaded fibreglass whips. So a good antenna in a good location with good SWR can make quite a difference in range for CB. On my Jeep I was lucky to have the Morryde tailgate hinges which allowed me to have a custom made bracket made to fit on the hinge. The advantage is that this gets the antenna away from the tire/rim.
FRS and GMRS, now these radios are fairly common and the big advantage with them is that they are FM vs CB which is AM/SSB which means their 'sound quality' is better than CB. No license either on the low power units. But technically these are primarily hand held units with fixed antennas so their range can be limited due to terrain, granted so can a CB but UHF radios are more apt to work better line of sight due to shorter wavelengths that they operate on, add terrain into the mix and range drops dramatically. There are a few FRS or there used to be a few FRS radios that had magnet mount antennas that could be stuck to the metal part of a car. Radio Shack used to sell them though not sure if they still exist as Radio Shack closed up here in Canada. This option would be a lot cheaper than the SSB CB radio route however I don't know if it will really be better.
One other thought about poor cell phone reception, a long time ago there were a number of glass mount cell phone passive repeater antennas. I ran Larsen KG825 antennas on a couple of vehicles and they did help with the cell signal. Not sure if the current cheap one's are any good though. Larsen make commercial grade antennas, you see them quite often on emergency vehicles and they work well.
Good info, thank you.
wife doesn't have a problem with getting a ham license, right now I have a president McKinley ssb cb in the jeep, but don't have ssb at home, but have thought about setting one up, just haven't decided to go with ham set up or stay on the cheap side, ham is probably the best option from reading
Ok, I'm guessing your wife like my ex won't be too interested in getting her ham license so that might rule that option out.
You look like you are in a rural area, will you be talking mainly mobile to mobile or base to mobile? If the latter than a good 100' tower with a omni directional CB antenna with some gain might be a good route to go. To bump up your range a bit more I might want to go with a Sideband radio which tend to be more expensive but will help with range. Now the downside with CB is when propagation (skip) rolls in it could wipe out the channel(s) you are trying to use but that might be hit and miss. So basically run Sideband in the house and the Jeeps.
Antennas are another part of the equation, longer (wavelength eg 1/2 wave, 5/8th etc) + height will also play a factor in range. Personally not a fan of the spare tire mount antennas because the SWR (match) of the setup can be adversely affected by the way they are positioned. Aside from this there are a lot of different types of antennas on the market, for example magnet mount K40's granted with our Jeeps they won't stick to the roof which is the ideal spot or some of the top loaded fibreglass whips. So a good antenna in a good location with good SWR can make quite a difference in range for CB. On my Jeep I was lucky to have the Morryde tailgate hinges which allowed me to have a custom made bracket made to fit on the hinge. The advantage is that this gets the antenna away from the tire/rim.
FRS and GMRS, now these radios are fairly common and the big advantage with them is that they are FM vs CB which is AM/SSB which means their 'sound quality' is better than CB. No license either on the low power units. But technically these are primarily hand held units with fixed antennas so their range can be limited due to terrain, granted so can a CB but UHF radios are more apt to work better line of sight due to shorter wavelengths that they operate on, add terrain into the mix and range drops dramatically. There are a few FRS or there used to be a few FRS radios that had magnet mount antennas that could be stuck to the metal part of a car. Radio Shack used to sell them though not sure if they still exist as Radio Shack closed up here in Canada. This option would be a lot cheaper than the SSB CB radio route however I don't know if it will really be better.
One other thought about poor cell phone reception, a long time ago there were a number of glass mount cell phone passive repeater antennas. I ran Larsen KG825 antennas on a couple of vehicles and they did help with the cell signal. Not sure if the current cheap one's are any good though. Larsen make commercial grade antennas, you see them quite often on emergency vehicles and they work well.
'Not wanting to derail the thread - but nice antenna bracket !
Thanks, it was made by a friend. Strong enough to hold a 9' fibreglass whip though I have a multi band antenna on it currently. It will not bend at highway speeds. Fits perfectly on the Morryde tailgate hinge and keeps the antenna away from the spare. I bought one of the spare tire mount antenna mounts but immediately realized I was going to have problems with SWR due to where if sat behind the tire/rim. I didn't want to have to drill a hole on the body tub as we have use a lot of salt/brine on our roads and that would just rot out that spot. Was lucky that my used JK came with this hinge and not the stock one which I couldn't have modified to work. Just bought a JKU and the first thing I ordered was another Morryde heavy duty tailgate hinge kit.
