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Continuing with our research into the CB craze of the mid 70s we’ll take a look at what were considered the elite antennas when it came to having a CB setup.  While the truckers may have ruled the roads and channel 19, it was the everyday hobbyist who ruled the airwaves from his home, and rule they did.

If you were on CB and really wanted to impress people with your booming voice over the airwaves you had no choice but to set up a base unit.  Not only were the units themselves powerful but the antennas that people put up on their roof tops could have given some rival TV stations a run for their money.

Choosing a CB antenna for your base station was not easy.  There were plenty to choose from and they all had their pluses and minuses.

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If you were around in the mid 70s in the United States you’d have to have been living under a rock not to know about the great citizen band radio craze made popular by the smash hit “Convoy” by C.W. McCall.  If you were into citizen band radio at all you knew that there was a certain prestige to having certain kinds of antennas, especially if you had a CB setup in your home.

For the mobile units, the ones that were installed in your motor vehicle, the antennas were rather simple and relatively weak.  They could only send and receive a short distance depending on the time of day.  In the afternoon, mobile CB antennas were lucky to reach a few miles, especially during sun spot time.  At night, if you were lucky you could reach about 10 to 20 miles, maybe sometimes a little more.

Mobile antennas came in several types.  One of the most popular antennas was the fiberglass model that hooked on the back bumper.  These antennas were very good transmitters and receivers.  Most were about 3/8 of an inch in diameter and about 2 feet tall.  Some could handle up to 1000 watts of transmission power.

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