Do you stock 27 MHz handheld CB Antennas antennas? Have a Randy II and looking for President ACMR401 or Albrecht TNC27R. I live in US and quality 27 Mhz handheld antennas are hard to find.
Expect some improvement with a 18 to 20 inch handheld antenna on 27Mhz and increased ability to hit farmhouse 18 foot base station antenna
It is a very short, base loaded antenna. I know the UHF versions very well. The killer feature is that they are way too short to be efficient. The loading coil makes it match electrically, but performance wise they suck. The good thing with these style antennas is they are light and fold. The bad thing is they also fold if you move the radio quickly. They are basically extending tape measures in construction - a steel strip that has a gentle bend in the flatness, which almost keeps them extended. You know when you pull out a tape measure and suddenly they fold over? That is what happens. 27MHz needs big antennas for efficiency, and telescopic and short ones just perform very averagely. They’re actually made well and are mega flexible, running through woodland shooting weapons - but distance wise? not their thing.
Tough to make 27Mhz work well on a handheld. UHF CB in other countries is up on 462 to 467 very close to GMRS 476 to 477 and better for handheld range.
These designs are best at VHF to be honest. At UHF the shorter ones work better than the crazily long ones! The longest is 108" - huge!
UAYESOK Telescopic TNC CB Antenna Upgrade for President Randy, Randy II FCC Handheld Cb Radio
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This is what I use.
Yes, we carry the President ACMR401 15-1/2" Tall Folding Tactical Antenna for the Randy II on our site. We are currently waiting for it to arrive at our warehouse, but if you add it to your cart you can opt in to be notified when we get it in stock.
Randy,
Help me understand why in the world why you would want to use the CB band for apparently farming type communications?
GMRS is designed for perfect farming communication, large or small! 50 LEGAL watts for mobile or base communications. FM makes for QUIET communications, especially across farm land. Handheld GMRS is perfect for people working on a farm with an easy to carry SMALL walkie-talkie!
Maybe I’m not understanding your communication needs?
Tom WRQE346
Tom makes a good point. If you fold up an antenna to make it easy to put in a pocket or on a parcelshelf - when people call, you do not hear it - so how do you know when to pick it up and extend the antenna?
British TV viewer when I was growing up in the 60s watched the Australian show Skippy - and they had CB style walkie talkies that had long telescopic antennas and worked brilliantly - totally unlike the real thing I discovered years later. XMY557A for Apple calling XMY557B for Bear - why did that stick in my head?
Were the Realistic TRC-216 and 217 the handhelds that used part of the case to extend reception of the telescopic antenna?
Yes, portable is only useful when on with fully extended antenna and outdoors or connected to vehicle antenna. 27 Mhz is not well suited to handheld antenna lenght.
Skippy. Loved it. We got it in Canada.
Thanks for the earworm! But I am sure it was XMY556 A for apple. Rats. Now can’t get that phrase out of my brain.
Was that Skippy as in the bush kangaroo? I used to watch that when I was a kid - and I’m in the USA. Now the theme song is running through my head.
Isnt it funny we can remember skippy, the bush kangaroo and even the callsign…… but struggle to remember things like bank passwords from last week!!!
Skippy went click click click and they’d say. “What? The bridge over the canyon has collapsed and dads trapped underneath?”
My experience with the AN/PRC 77 radio, which had this type of antenna, was that they only worked when you didn’t need them to. This comment applies to every Army radio I ever had occasion to use in the early days. They kind of look like a tall blade of grass though, which discouraged snipers in theory.
They were also heavy as your favorite metaphor… first time I saw one, Drill Sergeant Keyes was looking for a volunteer to assist the lieutenant. After he got his volunteer, he brought out the radio. “Think of yourself as a pack mule,” he told the soldier.
When the more modern encrypted frequency hoppers started getting deployed around the time of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, they seemed to get more reliable. Late at night I was able to use one of those to patch through phone lines and talk to folks in Wisconsin. This was in pre-cellphone days.
By the time of the former Jugoslavian deployment, the soldiers generally used email for personal communications. I was able to communicate with one such soldier, but by then I was done being deployed overseas.