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- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!news.dell.com!texsun!wb9rxw!kf5iw!cmptrc!neal
- From: neal@cmptrc.lonestar.org (Neal Howard)
- Newsgroups: sci.electronics
- Subject: Re: Car antenna design help wanted
- Message-ID: <Bvvp38.3D6@cmptrc.lonestar.org>
- Date: 9 Oct 92 23:54:44 GMT
- Sender: neal@cmptrc.lonestar.org
- Distribution: na
- Organization: CompuTrac Inc., Richardson TX
- Lines: 17
-
- In article <1992Oct9.200441.4070@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington) writes:
- >I presume you mean an FM antenna. The usual FM car antenna is a 1/4-wave
- >whip about 30 inches long, using the body of the car as a ground plane.
- >This works quite well and is hard to improve upon. If you wanted a better
- >one, you'd have to make it longer, which might be awkward. 3/4 wave will
- >work well, but you can't drive around with 90 inches of wire standing
- >straight up.
-
- Sure you can drive around with a tall antenna!!! My dad's TV repair Chevy
- van had a 102" stainless steel whip mounted right in the middle of the roof
- back in the '60's ...best mobile CB radio antenna configuration you could have.
- It beat the hell out of all the tree branches he went under though. I used to
- have a co-phased pair of 96" fiberglass whips on the back bumper of my old
- '78 Ford LTD back in the CB craze days. They made for a darned good FM radio
- antenna as long as the car was pointed somewhat in the direction of the
- station since this setup was pretty directional. Out on the highway at speed,
- they would lay down almost parallel with the road :-)
-