Show us your home made tools

Call this making "communication tools".

Taking things to the next level of experimenting. Now installed a professional grade Base Station antenna at the optimal height of 36'. Swapped this out from my home made antenna.

View attachment 1715973988

Has increased my range from 3 miles to 12 plus miles. Here is a pic of me recieving the base station signal with my '76 Truck's Cobra CB and 9' whip at the town of Dundas Minnesota 12 miles South of my base.

View attachment 1715973994

At the end of the day I did a radio check on channel 19 from my base. Immediately got a reply back from a guy with a base antenna like mine from the North West 14 miles away just South of the city of Apple Valley.

This guy and 4 of his other buddies are all into CBs in the South Twin City area, we exchanged info and will be looking to communicate together more in the future.

Pretty nice, that's a 25 mile diameter to be able to communicate with others.

Loud & Clear

☆☆☆☆☆

Like our old cars, I was able to pick up another exact same model and year to one of my 1976 "Hy-Gain IV" base station radios.

Working fine, always taking a chance with radios that are 46 years old and unknown history.

Looked like it had OK care, so I went for it. It all worked out fine.

One on the left, cleaned it a little. Next going to give it the final polish and detailing like the one on the right.

20220826_214527.jpg
Good Times