How far away?

[Becker]

How far away from my house could I put up an antenna? I pretty much live in a hole. I have a large hill in front of me and one behind me. The base of the one behind me is maybe 15 feet from my backdoor. It's fairly tall. For the sake of simplicity let me just fudge and say it's 250yds long. It may be shorter than this. I'm not sure. Could a tower with base antenna be put up on the top of it, with the coax being buried in pipe, or elevated? Also, I was at ratshack today, and I saw a box that said "The Bandit" base antenna. Maybe made by workman, or astatic. anyhow, it was a pretty small box. Any word on these?

[linx]

As far as you can afford coax I have friends that install their towers in middle of fields and buy big 1000 ft spools of coax.

Good luck.

[DX_MONKEY]

It's not the ideal situation but you can have your antenna up on the hill. Elevation is very important and you'll get out MUCH better. Ditto what Linx said about affording coax. Also with longs runs like this you'll have to upgrade to low loss RG8 coax, something like Belden 9913 100% shielded. If you use the el~cheapo coax you'll lose a ton of signal both on transmitting and receive.

So be prepared to get out your checkbook. Low loss 100% shielded RG8 is around 80 cents a foot.

good luck!

[Becker]

Holy snap monkey... Maybe I'll just wait till I'm through school and in my own house and then get me a base setup. .80 cents a foot is kinda high when you only make 7.50 to the hour... Oh well, just part of it I guess!

[distortion69]

Save up and buy a spool. Should be a little cheaper.

I think price is fair.. and they are a sponsor. $359 for 1000 ft and $225 for 500 ft of lmr400.. you will still lose alot with lmr400 on a 500' run. I'd get to measuring and see exactly how far it is.. you might want to go with lmr600, ladder line, hard line, etc. I definitely wouldn't consider lmr-400 for a 1000' run.. you'd be losing a tremendous amount.

There's a lot of variables.. exactly how much higher up is the hill.

Don't give up.. save up, and make it happen.. a tower is something you put up once, and enjoy for a long, long time. And with a good beam on it, will be absolutely earth shatteringly powerful even with very little power.

Josh

[Becker]

Well, I'm not sure how long the hill exactly is. I'd have to get a gps to map it. On the other hand though, I'm 17 right now, and a senior in High School. Putting a bunch of money into a house that I'll be leaving doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. For the mean time I'll be using the ol' trusty mud duck mobile. Thought about a Dipole in the attic or on the eve of the house though, and a small base, maybe a 929 like I have in my truck.

[209 first class]

if ur interested in your cb performing better, try an anntron 99 on 2 ten foot masts on top of the hill lashed to a short tree with rg-8x coax. using the low loss nice coax it will be big bucks. using the cheap rg58 u may loose too much signal. the rg -8x is a good medium. you will have some coax loss, but the height of the antenna will more than make up for it. plus, when u move, take it all with you. you dont really need to bury it if it wont be in the way. 209.

[greenhorn]

if you kick the bushes enough, you can find it much cheaper. I got 200' of Belden rg213 for $.70 a foot.