• Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!

  • Microsoft MSN, Live, Hotmail, Outlook email users may not be receiving emails. We are working to resolve this issue. Please add support@steelsoldiers.com to your trusted contacts.

CB Antenna kits?

rmgill

Active member
2,479
14
38
Location
Decatur, Ga
I know several folks have CB's in their deuces. I bought a sugar scoop mount at Saturn and of course need the stand off for mounting the scoop on the bed. What sort of antenna mounts do you use and what other bits do you include in the truck for getting the CB working?
 

cranetruck

Moderator
Super Moderator
Steel Soldiers Supporter
10,350
75
48
Location
Meadows of Dan, Virginia
Ryan, the AS-1729 with tunable base, MX-6707 can be used as a CB antenna, but the SWR is rather poor and it's impractical to drive with the antenna in any other position than tied down making it even worse.

I use a small standard CB antenna, it can be seen just to the right of the passenger side flood in the image below.
You have the 24 to 12 volt converter as I understand it, so 12 volt is available for you. Do install a "hash" filter in line with the 12 volt supply.

My solution was to assemble a small 3 amp converter with extra filtering plus getting the 24 volt to it from the MX-7777 suppressor for spike protection. See "deuce electronics" image below.

Naturally, the ambient noise in the deuce makes it impossible to use the CB while driving unless special arrangements are made.
I run the speaker output from the back of the CB to the VIC-1 intercom system and can listen to the CB via the headset. It comes in loud and clear. Talking into the mike and be heard is a different story. In my case, only while at standstill. First image below shows the CB installed below the dash, a little out of focus, but still..
 

Attachments

rmgill

Active member
2,479
14
38
Location
Decatur, Ga
I'm not sure what a hash filter is. The 24-12 volt power converter is a large 15 amp capacity (30 amp surge) unit with a built in fuse and other features. (PST-D24/12-300 at http://www.powerstream.com/dc1.htm).

I wanted to get one of these units, but being marine rated with a battery charger option, they're spendy.
http://www.newmarpower.com/dc-dcconvertersstandard/dcdcconvertersstandard.html

As far as CB antennas, I'm of a mind to use a full 1/4 wave whip on a spring mount that's somehow affixed to the sugar scoop. I was hoping I could pass the signal through the AS-1729 or similar base. Perhaps I need to find one that is fried that I can rebuild as a passthrough.

CB radio comms will likely be rigged up through and intercom setup once I have the funds to monitor it all on a headset system. I'll probably go with the VIC-1 setup once I can get one installed. I'll also want to pipe music into it as well because that actually made the drive down from PA quite bearable. I suppose that hooking up a module to plug into my celphone could be an additional option that'd be quite useful. Keep on going and I could have a veritable communications suite. Might as well plan for a module for adding an FRS/GMRS radio to the rig. ;-) That would make ground guiding easy, just toss the FRS radio to the ground guide and I can hear exactly what they say. Not that handsignals from someone that knows what they're doing don't work well.
 

Recovry4x4

LLM/Member 785
Super Moderator
Steel Soldiers Supporter
34,012
1,808
113
Location
GA Mountains
Ryan, I've seen plans on the internet for converting the MX6707 for use with the CB. Don't recall where I saw it but it's out there. If a Google search doesn't yield results, try poling the Mil-Veh list.
 

readyman

Member
523
7
18
Location
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Looks like they're working on the site, but here's the link.
http://idiventure.com/flashoffroad/radio/Milantenna/milAntenna.htm

I drilled a hole in the hex bottom of the lower mast segment and put in a right angle co-ax connector. I didn't want to mess with the internals of the base.
The top of the rigid lower mast segment can be tapped to screw in popular CB antennas like a Firestick. Look's original military when you're done.
 

SixBuy

New member
226
1
0
Location
Dallas/Texas
Take a look at the Flightcom 403 intercom. It's tiny and it works on 28 V and it's cheap(er) if you can pick one up on ebay. Also does stereo with radio override and pilot (that's you) isolation. A simple switch or two will allow you to use more than one radio, say CB and GMRS or ham. Flightcom.net has the instruction manuals on line sos you can get an idea of the capabilities.
Has anybody come up with a neat way to mount radios beside the drivers seat or on the roof?
 

Elwenil

New member
2,190
40
0
Location
Covington, VA
Lee has done the CB conversion on the military antenna and seemed to work pretty good for him. I plan to do the same for the antennas on my 715.
 

Dieselsmoke

New member
1,146
2
0
Location
CA/NV
A buddy and I did th antenna conversion to the tuneable base, SWR came out excellent, wasn't perfect but then where it was mounted didn't leave for the best of ground planes anyway. We found the instructions online, think it was a civvy hummer website.
 

Loose Deuce

New member
470
0
0
Location
South MS.
Hey Cranetruck, Its starting to look like the inside of a space ship with all the gismos. Do you have a better picture of those wheel chocks ? I think thats what they are ?
 

SixBuy

New member
226
1
0
Location
Dallas/Texas
What am I missing here? How did you keep the shield from shorting to the center conductor? If the shield (body of the right angle) is soldered to the hex and the antenna mast is threaded into the hex, where's the insulation? And how did you keep the soldering heat from melting the poly inside the right angle? It certainly looks neat!
 

readyman

Member
523
7
18
Location
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
After removing the hex guts you're just working in the brass hex empty hole, no mast at that point, no mil-spec springy contact things/gizmos.

You have to disassemble everything. After removing all the mast parts, you end up with just a center conductor in the mast sticking out, kinda way up 2' into the hex base. Trim the mast center conductor(copper) to match where the coax meets it.

The right angle connector comes apart too(center conductors unscrew), to solder or weld to the hex base remove the insulator first so you don't melt it.

Solder the two (mast+co-ax connector) center conductors in the hex area and assemble the co-ax connector(the coax center conductors screw back together). There's no insulation at the solder joint.
 

SixBuy

New member
226
1
0
Location
Dallas/Texas
Ah,ha! I was just about to believe in magic! I didn't realize the mast was nonconducting and had a center conductor. The last one of those I saw was solid metal. Oops, that dates me. Anyway, that is a slick way to go. You ought to take orders for some.
 
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website like our supporting vendors. Their ads help keep Steel Soldiers going. Please consider disabling your ad blockers for the site. Thanks!

I've Disabled AdBlock
No Thanks