Radio Discussion Community

Mine too was the Fidelity 3000 Homebase. Got it from "Makro" on the first day it became legal. It was crap on broadband, made me sound like I'd got my head in a tin bucket, and looked like an early answerphone system, but I loved that rig, and I still have it in my loft 25 years later along with my ...

I've been collecting old 80's style Cb's and now have about 20, mostly boxed top-of-the-range ones, and yep, they're much better than the nasty new ones. I've noticed though as I looked at a few new ones that the old meters and channel selector knobs are reappearing, so maybe the manufacturers have ...

Try re-fitting a gutter mount, and knocking small ball-bearings into the hexagonal bolts so they cannot undo them. You can then use a quick-release 3/8" mount added to the bottom of a spring-bottomed aerial. It takes literally 2 seconds to take off and put on (sometimes people can't be bothered to ...

I'm trying to keep CB alive by getting my son and his mates cheap cb radio's off ebay so that they can chat to each other a mile or so away. Even if it's only when it's raining it'll hopefully keep the cb flame burning. If we don't use it, we'll lose it sooner or later. It'll be a sad day if that ...

There was a Sharp rig possibly the same as you mention on ebay a few days ago..mint and boxed as new, going for the starting price of £10, plus £10 P&P. The main CB used in the General Lee car itself was I believe a Cobra 78 or something like that for most of the episodes. Hope that ...

The mirror is possibly not giving a good earthing point, is may be separated by rubber seals to stop the water getting into the doors. Try and earthing wire first to see if that improves it. If not, I used to use the Modulator type aerials back in the days (similar to the Bullwhips), and found ...

A mag-mount uses the cars metalwork as its groundplane without the need to rub off half the roofs paintwork to make it earth properly. It's a bit like an electric toothbrush charges up, without a connector in sight..spooky! You could however if you wanted to, put a wire from the top of the magnet ...

Co-ax lengths I've found are best kept to multiples of 9ft.. e: 9, 18, 27 etc, as this is approx the wavelength that 27megs likes best. Try and keep the co-ax in 1 length if possible to avoid loss of power output through leakage of RF, and use thicker low-loss co-ax if you have long lengths of say ...

I wouldn't trust a pre-swr'd aerial 100% as you really need to tune the aerial to the particular rig that it's connected to. The manufacturers will get it pretty good most of the time, but if your rig is a fraction out, then the SWR will go up.. bad news for the rig, and less chance of you using the ...

I had a mate who said his cb he'd just put in his moms landrover was crap..couldn't get out very far at all. Turns out his moms landrover had a big fibreglass canopy on the back, and this is where he'd stuck the magmount! :shock: Good job they hadn't driven anywhere lol. After moving it to the front ...

Cool..the boomerang looks like an upside-down Wotpole from the early 80's but with a 45 degree bent over aerial This stuff sure brings back the memories..boo hoo, I feel old!

Even if you use the aerial for just recieving, I've found that a lower SWR will make the reception better, especially if it's out by miles. Anything 1:1.5 or lower is fine as a rule for transmitting, more is okay for recieving but not too much as the antennae and rig need to be "as one" frequency ...

On top of the Lickey Hills in Bromsgrove, on a piece of carpet with a Rotel 240 pushing 4 watts, a Ford Escort Mk1 sat a few feet away providing the power on a 6ft lead to the cigarette lighter socket, a 5/8 wave Silver Rod attached to a 4ft pole which was tied to stumps surrounding the car park, we ...

A few years ago, I had an Antron about 75ft up, on two poles which started about 12ft up (a 25ft steel scaffolding pole supported by 4 heavy duty wall brackets, with a 20ft thickwalled aluminium bolted inside that a couple of foot) which allowed for a bit of swaying movement to save the aerial from ...

My handle in Nov 81 was Condorman, in Birmingham. My old INVADER homebase aerial got hit by lightning. Then a couple of years later, my Thunderpole Mk1 was zapped...twice!! It blew a small hole about 10mm round OUTWARDS, like a bullet had been shot out from inside the main shaft just above the coil ...