i am going through with the CB thing and putting a mini cb in my glove box to spy on the 5.0 while i am on the interstate. just wondering what one of the cb antennas looks like on our cars lol. the one i am looking at is about 18" tall and looks like a bag phone antenna

 

ive never heard of putting a cb in our car.

 

where i am from people put cb's on their 4 wheelers (i'm not joking) but i am going to get a mini one and keep it hidden since they look stupid. but they are the best radar detector. truckers help ya out. no radar detector is 100% because the cop can just flip on the radar and nail ya and then turn it off, but the truckers will let ya know even if the cops gun is off i wouldn't worry about it if i didn't travel every 3 months

 

i may be wrong, but i think cops use frequencies which are not as easily tracable by the every day joe. my dad was a cop and he also happens to be a HAM operator and i know with that you can listen in on police radio transmissions but not so sure abt that via CB. also i kno they have some ham antennas which stick to the inside of your rear window, might wanna look for somthing like that. itll look more hidden,

 

Cops actually have 3 radars in their car. A fixed radar on the dash so they can tag you if your in front of them. A fixed radar in the back rear window so you can get tagged if your behind them too. And a hand held radar which people most commonly see. Some even use lasers to tag you. Which will pretty much cause your radar detector to be useless.

 

Since its a temp thing every 3 months, get the standard heavy duty magnet one. then you can put away when you dont need it, and leave the CB in the glove box, you should get a good 4-5 mile range on those. Or you can do a hand heald CB with built in ant, last time i looked there were pushing 3watts and that good for 3 miles on average, and not hafta worry about installing the mini cb

 

the cb isn't for listening to the cops, it is for talking to truckers to find out where they see the cops. i don't really want a magnetic one because i don't want to risk scratching the paint. so i did some research last night before i left the hospital and i saw some decent smaller glass mount no drill antennas. i think i will just do one of these, and then get a coaxil adapter to where i can plug my phone into the antenna when i am not using it for my cb.. not sure if this works but my buddy does it with his antenna and gets up to 2 more bars in remote areas. and yes his is a cb antenna

 

As far as the CB antenna, I was in the same search a while back.

Basically it comes down to on glass antennas suck. Get a Wilson Lil' Wil and put on the hatch. Its magnetic and it is 36". It works..

I still have to do all my mounting..I was not going to do it after I got everything..but decided I may still do it after my stereo install.

CB's need the biggest antenna you can get (more or less). On glass antennas dont work since they are designed for a high frequency signal (hence shorter antenna).

No TCers around here seem interested. I still am..so hit me up if you have any questions or ideas.

 

Also..again...phone and CB are different wavelenghts and frequencies. So an antenna may work great with one device and completely FUBAR another.

Again..I was looking at using a single antenna in place of the stock one for both CB and FM. Again..the knowledgable told me its a waste of time.

 

true.. the thing about the range with glass antennas is i only have to be able to reach the truckers right beside me.. or the ones i just pass.. as long as i have 1/2 mile or mile reach i will be cool with that..

 

if all you need is a hlaf a mile AND once every 3 months, grab u a portable, no install mess, no worries. you still have a glove box and no ant. delimas

 

so how do the truckers know where the cops are?

 

5000 trucks on the road, they sit high up and they talk to eachother, when one sees one, they say hey there is a cop/smokey/bubblegum machine/black n white/ you get the pic at mile marker 415 west bownd behind a overpass..
And you dont need to wait, when you get on the freeway just ask for a smokey report, and youll get the loation of every cop for 200 miles lol

 

Actually..that is what I am currently thinking about doing. It would be so much less of a pain for me to deal with that.

 

are the portable ones decent? i didn't think about that

 

yup they are good... well as long as it doesnt look like a disney character. But the same guys that make the indash, make the portables. cobra, motorolla, midland... just make sure you get a good 3W or more and you should be happy

 

ive got one in my jeep wrangler... cant really use it on the road because 37" mud tires aren't quiet... i use it for trail rides to keep in touch with other groups or to talk people through a tough obstacle... Have it tied into the radio in case I want to use it on the highway, but even then it's hard to hear (I wear headphones so I can hear the music on the highway)

 

So you have yours coming over stereo speakers? How did you do that then?

 

is there a way to have the stock antenna be used as the CB antenna?
i dont care about FM reception. i rarely, if ever, listen to FM radio.

also, i dont know much about CB but what units do you guys recommend?

 

You can use a stock antenna but it will get AWFUL reception and you end up having to buy more connectors and costing more for that than just to buy a CB antenna.

To hook it to the speakers, there is an AUX out on the unit I have (Cobra 75 if i remember correctly) and I tied it into the aux input on the radio. I have the AUX split to my iPod and to the CB so they will play over each other (CB is silent until someone talks when tuned properly).