Will any old spring do the trick?

[Tanto]

I have a firestik brand antenna for my CB radio and want to be sure that I can use a standard heavy duty spring with it. Am I okay with just putting it on between the cable and my 90 fold over?

 

[crawler#976]

http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...+radio&origkw=cb+radio&pg=2&parentPage=search

If it's like the one above it should be just fine. It may require tuning via SWR meter to get the best out of your radio.

Mark

 

[gary in ohio]

Fitting is one thing, working is another. The short fire stick antennas are not designed for the springs. The springs are for the 102" whips adding 6" spring for a resonant 108" antenna. If you put a spring under a fire stick you just make the antenna 6" longer and most likely shifted the resonance point out of the band. If you happen to have a antenna with a tunable tip then maybe, but otherwise no.

 

[Tanto]

I do have one with a tuneable tip, mounted to my safari rack and want to provide some more protection from low banches.

Thank you for the response.

 

[gary in ohio]

Just check the SWR and tune away. I would advise getting the BIG spring, not those little nickle diameter ones being sold.

 

[Tanto]

Thanks, I got the biggest I could find, this one:

Already installed I just need to run the cable into the Jeep and tune it up this weekend.

 

[gary in ohio]

Thats the one, It will keep it vertical at highway speeds and still let it lay over if hit.

 

[jim65wagon]

I've got my antenna currently mounted out of the hood using a T100 bracket. I bought the bracket and the "heavy duty" spring from walcottcb online. The HD spring was the wrong choice for my application; it seems the spring is so stiff the bracket will bend before the spring flexes....shoulda got the lighter duty version!

 

[astateofmike]

I have the same spring on my roof rack and was still whacking branches HARD. The last trip I reached up and started pulling the antenna around...now she is all fine. I think that it was when they chromed it and it was still warm..had to break the spring free...

 

[Tanto]

Mine worked great out of the box. Very happy with the setup.

 

[soonenough]

I have this spring on my Firestik Firefly CB antenna, which is mounted to the lid of my toolbox. It's worked well for me so far. A couple times I accidentally pulled into the garage before taking the antenna off, and the spring did its job - there was no damage to the antenna, mount, and most importantly, the lid of my toolbox.

I think I could've probably gotten away with a medium duty spring, but I wanted to be able to put a larger antenna on in the future without having to change out the spring.