Antenna - Mobile CB antennas

If you were in the mid-70s in the United States, you should have lived under a cliff not knowing about the great fashion of the radio from the citizen band that became popular with the hit "Convoy" from C.W. McCall. If he was interested in citizen band radio, he knew there was some prestige in having certain types of antennas, especially if he had a CB configuration in his home.

For mobile devices, those installed in their motor vehicles, the antennas were quite simple and relatively weak. They could only send and receive a short distance depending on the time of day. In the afternoon, mobile CB antennas were fortunate to reach a few miles, especially during sunspots. At night, if I was lucky, I could reach approx. 10 to 20 miles, maybe a little more.

The mobile antennas arrived in several types. One of the most popular antennas was the fiberglass model, which was attached to the rear bumper. These antennas were very good transmitters and receivers. Most were approx. 3/8 inch in diameter and about 2 feet tall. Some could handle up to 1000 watts of transmission power.

Another popular type of building a quad antenna was the magnetic roof antenna. These were not very powerful, but they were really easy to connect. Simply place the cable in your CB, which was usually installed under the dashboard of your car, and simply unplug the antenna, take it out the window and place it on the roof. The magnet was strong enough for a hurricane to explode. These antennas could handle about 300 watts of power, making them a relatively low antenna for CB use, but they were also very cheap.

Then we have antenna for central load mirrors. The most popular of these were the Cobras. Don't let these little things fool you. They could handle up to 3000 watts of power, usually made of 24-karat 8-karat gold-plated copper coil. These antennas were also very expensive and today cost up to $ 60 or more.

Of course, one of the most common mobile antennas was CB antennas mounted in the trunk. These were very good antennas mainly because of the vehicle's central location towards the front of the trunk just before the rear window. These antennas were not very expensive, but generally they could handle about 500 watts, and because of their good ground, they were very good to send and receive, even with a mobile device that was not so powerful.