Jeep CB Antenna Question

I realize this is a jeep question, but I know a lot of people use to have jeeps. My brother is getting a CB for his birthday and I was going to get him an antenna and stuff to go with it. If he is going to mount the antenna on a stock front bumper, is a 3' high antenna a good size? He's not around with his jeep for me to look at, but I think a 4' antenna might be too high. He'll mostly be using it just offroading. Thanks for any help.

I used to have an old CJ7, and I can tell you that a bumper mounted antenna has half the range that the antenna is actually capable of. If he insists on mounting it on the bumper, that is certainly his choice, but he'll get MUCH more range if he mounts it higher. The roof is best by far. Maybe a nice magnet mount that he could stick on there through the top of the rear tailgate. If it's a CJ7 or Wrangler then see if you can find one that mounts to the roll bar. Especially if he offroads in hilly or mountainous areas.

Kind of hard to mount a magnet antenna to a hard top isn't it?

I suggest the rear, away from the FM antenna. Maybe on top of the spare tire carrier or if he don't mid drilling, they make a antenna bracket mount. Most people put it just to the left of the rear tail gate handle.

Jeeps don't work very well for CB antenna mounting in general due to the lack of metal. A roof-mounted antenna on a plastic hard-top will not perform significantly better than a bumper-mount antenna due to not having a good metal ground plane to gather signals to the antenna. The best CB antenna for a Jeep is a 1/4-wavelength whip antenna, at around 9 feet. Mount one of these on the bumper and watch it flop around. A more realistic option is a good quality Firestik or similar mounted to the tire carrier or tailgate. I'm a big fan of the 3' or 4' Wilson Silver Load FLEX antennas. They have excellent performance, and have an enormous amount of bend in them to keep them from getting damaged. I have one mounted to the roof rack of my Liberty and it has been driven into a parking garage with [amazingly] no damage. It didn't sound pretty, though.

My buddy had a 4' Firestik mounted on his rear bumper, on the driver's side. It had okay range, good for caravaning on the highwy and then on the trail. He bolted it right onto the bumper, it got in the way of the tailgate a little bit, but you could just push it off to the side hen opening the gate.

it's an old YJ so the roof mount wouldn't work. I think I have seen a roll bar mount though. rear bumper would be better than the front, but i couldn't picture in my head if there was enough room for a mount on it. maybe i'll just wait till he comes back home with it.

thanks for the suggestions

I have my CB antenna on the front of my X... works fine. I used to use a 3' firestik, now I use a 4' one because I gave the 3' one away.

(The 3' one was easier to tune)

You guys expect the world out of CB. a 4 watt AM radio just doesn't go very far when you are using an antenna that is mostly a matching coil. If you put up a 1/4 wave antenna you've lost 1.5 dbd or so already, plus feedline loss and you've lost 2db.

I find that the Firestik II 3' fiberglass whip is more broadbanded and easier to tune correctly.

I don't expect more than 2-3 miles out of a CB in a wooded mountainous area. This is a realistic number.

I use an Antenna Analyzer to tune my antennas but an SWR meter works fine if one knows how to properly use one.

Anyone know if Ebeauchea has one he's willing to sell and ship?

Mounting in the center of the hood would be the most effective on a jeep. That gives it the largest possible ground plane.

I have a 4' Wilson 1000 whip with a hard mount, and a Uniden radio pushing 16 watts, and I've got some serious range.

here's the base:

Andy get a amateur radio license if you want to see serious range.

My CB outreaches my HAM now....due to a better antenna mostly.

Hmmm...

What kind of radio you got for your HAM?

I wouldn't go around advertising that illegal CB you have there...

Holy shit, I'm a criminal.

Maybe I just can't count. Who knows.