Dual antennas or single?

To add a little more two this. Your radio puts out 5 watts. You can send all of that 5 watts to one antenna and get 5 watts worth of range. Or split the power and only send 2.5 watts to each one. At least this is what i have been told. If you look closely most of the duels you see are from the factory and most people with them don't even have a cb in the truck. Also you may notice a lot of time the passenger side antenna doesn't have coax going to it. Just there for looks. I personally have 2 1ft antennas in the factory spots due to the design of my mirrors. When the back of my mirrors rattles off the truck the antennas keep the mirror backs from becoming a flying hazard to the car next to me. I run a single and have had great results with it. Used to run duels until I realized most people with duels don't even have the 2nd one hooked up. So I was snapping off passenger antennas just for looks. What a waste of money just to look cool . If any of this info is false someone with more knowledge please enlighten us . And while i wait i will just go fight with dispatch some more about getting me a load out of here lol.

 

Kind of the true here depends on the size and type of trailers your pulling.

I will admit to have trying some weird stuff. When I was doing produce I used two radios each with there own antenna, one on each side of the truck. Experimenting going down the highway I found that pulling a 14' X 53' trailer that the left antenna and radio would hear things that the right would not (and vice a versa), or at least not as strong because of the physical blockage created by pulling a trailer that was tall enough to cause a null in the signal. So in the case of a 53' Van dual mirror mounts will create a better situation on receive, now the dual antennas also cause it to be more directional forward because of the wave prorogation of the co-phased antennas. I also checked this theory using a Motorola R2000 w/ spectrum analyzer. This allows me to drive around the vehicle and measure the RF output radiated off the antennas checking the directional and signal strength.

The truck I drive now is a flat top columbia pulling a set of tanks that are same height as my tractor. I currently use a single 6' Francis mounted 18" behind the sleeper on a customer bracket, this bracket helps minimize, reflected power coming back off the sleeper. And once again it is about 3 db stronger out the front of the truck. The trailers actually act as a reflector more than a ground plane. In both case the antenna match was and is below 1.5 to 1 on all 40 channels.

The problem I found in performance of the stock antennas were traced back to a inline coupler looks similar to a sma connector, frequently this connection (at least in Columbia's) is not properly tighten from the factor and comes apart Most CB shop would rather sell you a new coax than just reconnecting the cable. More money for them, so check it and make sure all your connections are clean and tight.

I hope this was not too much and that it helps.

 

swap seating is just a hope and a prayer to get a good swr lol

 

I run a K40 single antenna I have it hooked on the passenger mirror and it gets out pretty I dont use the factory installed coax because it's cheap wire and my signal instantly got better. I'd like to get a t2000 wilson antenna and I would just run it on the drivers side. It's one of the best store bought non custom antennas you can buy and you only need one. two is just for looks

 

If your going to run 1 antenna to best spot would be the drivers side. But there is a difference in co-phasing its not just for looks. If your pulling a flatbed or tankers theres not an advantage, but if your pulling a box that is 13'9" to 14' the co-phase antenna system will out perform the single. As far as the factory coax, your right in general it is not that great, but we operate on a fairly (27 Mhz) low frequency so its not as much as an issue as say a cellphone on 900 Mhz or a amature on 1200 Mhz. The higher the frequency the more the more important like shield rating becomes. You can or used to be able to look up line loss on the Andrews cable site. Don't know if thats stil available.

 

a few items need to be addressed here as a professional installer .....

1) steel OR fiber door ? .... ant needs to be grounded .

2) 18' of " Real Coaxle " is recommended for premium performance .

3) again , there is usually a rubber gasket separating your mirror hardware from the actual door surface which is considered " ungrounded".

Remove some gasket ,die grind to metal or ground your mount .

4) Stick with a WILSON antennae.

5) add some hamburger helper if at all possible . "wattage"

............................the #9 skip shooter in The Keystone said that