Dipole Antenna

Anyone know if a dipole antenna is any good for a cb?

A dipole would work for a CB, but you will need to get it to match the SWR for your radio.

The only difference between the half wave dipole and the quarter wavelength vertical is that the vertical is omnidirectional, while the strongest signals for a dipole are off the sides of the wire.

I suppose your first respondent was referring to a manufactured antenna, and most of those are verticals, and they are designed to have a low SWR over the bandwidth you are using. A dipole would pretty much have to be a homebrew antenna, which in the long run will (IMHO) be better because you’ll learn something about antennas.

I will admit, that if you want an out of the box antenna, a manufactured one will be better, but if you are eager to put the thing together yourself, then go for it. Dipoles are the basis for many other antennas. In fact, the quarter wave vertical is often referred to as half a dipole, with the upright portion connected to the center conductor, and the radials connected to the ground on your coax, to act as a counterpoise, just as one half of the dipole is connected to the ground (braid) on your coax, and acts as a counterpoise to the other side, which is connected to the center conductor.

Here’s a formula for you: 468/frequency in Megahertz. The middle of the Citizens band would be 27.285 MHz. A dipole would be 17.152 feet in length, or 205.827 inches, two legs of 102.913 inches.

Its only about 17 feet long altogether. The conversion from decimals to inches is a little odd. The only formula I’ve used is to multiply the foot measurement (17.152 feet) by 12 for inches, and then multiply the decimal portion of the inches measurement by 16 or 32 to get closer to the measurement on a tape measure.

AB9BD

been a ham since 1968, when my Dad and I built our first dipole.

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A look inside your antenna

It's probably not something many people are interested in unless you're some kind of an electrical engineer or bored, but the understanding of how an antenna works can be useful when you are on the TV or the radio goes south on you and the reason is beyond their comprehension.

Trying to explain how a simple antenna in English is not an easy task because there are a lot of technical specifications that must be explained. However, a general understanding can talk without going into technology that would make Einstein cringe.

For an antenna to work it has to radiate. Its antenna, whether television or radio has what is called free electrons through it. It is these free electrons that vibrate. The question is, how these free electrons vibrate and making them vibrate?

Well, in real life it takes an electric field to move an electron. If you take a dipole straight isolated power comes from the combined fields of all charged particles, both positive and negative, on the antenna. We'll call this field antenna field of Coulomb.

In addition to this area, the antenna has a magnetic field which is the sum of the magnetic fields of the free moving electrons. The antenna has a dynamic electric field is the vector sum of the dynamic electric fields of all the free electrons. What we can do is to separate the electric field the antenna at any point in space into two components. One of the components are in phase with the total magnetic field and the other is 90 degrees out of phase. The phase component is the radiation field of the antenna and the output of the component of the induction phase is the field. In the antenna, both fields are parallel to the surface of metal.

What happens is that the Coulomb field and induction field fall much faster than the radiation field with increasing distance from the antenna. Upon reaching distances over a few wavelengths of the antenna, has what is called the far field of the antenna. This field is pure radiation. As you get closer to the antenna that what is called near field antenna. This field is a mixture of radiation, Coulomb and induction fields. Still with us? Great, we're getting to the good part.

What ultimately, about all these fields than it does for your TV or radio picks up signals through its antenna is as follows. The free electrons moving through move your antenna to its maximum speed. The right half of your antenna collects electrons. The left half of your antenna is where the electrons leave and leave an excess of charged ions. The Coulomb field of an imbalance and opposes the motion of electrons to the right. Electrons and then stops, the coast a little and then head back to the left. After reaching maximum speed at which then stops and the process is repeated, now heading back to the right. The result is a vibration of electrons that heats the metal-free and in turn generates electromagnetic waves.

And, in the simplest possible English, is the performance of your antenna.

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