cb radio help/recommendations

Don't skimp on the antenna. I remember being on a mountaintop up here in BC and picking up American truckers with heavy accents. We had one of those tall steel ones I believe. Picked up some long distance skipping waves it was really cool. That was also the same day we saw a 10 foot cougar jump across the road. Some crazy things happen in the mountains.

This is the aerial I use. It's about 6' long, but is very bendy so it goes under bridges and carparks.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29620

I'm sure you can get it over there aswell.
I'm in the UK, but on a good day I can hear people in Scotland and Germany. That's insane range! :waytogo:

yeah the radio doesnt really matter, however if you spend a little more you can get one with a swr meter in it, makes it easier to tune the antenna

i have a cobra 29 nightwatch, its a really nice radio, but i would not pay for it, it was given to me...overkill for offroading

just make sure you get a decent antenna, firestiks are pretty good, i have a magnetic oil cooled one that the same guy gave to me.

its all about tuning the antennna, doesnt matter which antenna you have, you can tune them, get one with an adjustable/tunable base and not the kind you have to cut, with a SWR meter, and you should be good to go.

Cobra's are good.
I have the Cobra 25 soundtracker. It's a big chrome thing that looks like it's straight out of a Dukes of Hazzard movie, but it works really well.

At the moment I have a midland from '79 lol My buddy's dad had it laying around so it fits the bill for now till i can get a nice one in a couple of months. I went and got a 102" whip today and mounted it in the center of my tool box. I asked the guy at radioshack about tuning and he told me that with that big of a whip that tuning wasn't really necessary. Is that true? and if I do have to tune it and end up having to cut the whip will the tuning change when I get a new radio?

Edit: does the whip need to be grounded since it isn't mounted in direct contact with the body?

ou812 said:

Edit: does the whip need to be grounded since it isn't mounted in direct contact with the body?

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How did you attach it to the toolbox? If you have a magnetic mount I tihnk they're already grounded.
Is your toolbox metal and bolted to the bed?
That would act as an earth, but it's not as good as a direct bodywork mount.

In my opinion; Snail mount on top of the rear tub bulkhead (although tricky to fit without taking the back off) or a mag mount on the roof probably best for aerials behind the cab not attached to roll bars.

When you open the toolbox does the aerial foul the rear window?

jimmy5willy said:

How did you attach it to the toolbox? If you have a magnetic mount I tihnk they're already grounded.
Is your toolbox metal and bolted to the bed?
That would act as an earth, but it's not as good as a direct bodywork mount.

In my opinion; Snail mount on top of the rear tub bulkhead (although tricky to fit without taking the back off) or a mag mount on the roof probably best for aerials behind the cab not attached to roll bars.

When you open the toolbox does the aerial foul the rear window?

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Yeah, my tool box is a UWS and its bolted onto the body. As for how I attached it, I used one half of a mirror mount and mounted the whip on the front side of the tool box, right on the UWS emblem. So no, when I open my toolbox the whip doesn't hit the cab or window because its mounted on the front side of the tool box not the lid.

If a direct body ground is better can I just run a ground from the whip to the body and just use a thick gauge wire since I would have to run it a little ways? That should work right?

So I went and grounded the whip today. I ran two strands of 12ga wire from the antenna mount down to the floor of the bed. That seemed to be the shortest place to ground it to..I believe the wire was about 2.5 ft or so per strand. Should that be enough?

ou812 said:

So I went and grounded the whip today. I ran two strands of 12ga wire from the antenna mount down to the floor of the bed. That seemed to be the shortest place to ground it to..I believe the wire was about 2.5 ft or so er strand. Should that be enough?

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Assuming your whip was made for CB, it should be tuned about right for CB frequencies (near 27MHz). It wouldn't hurt to check with a SWR meter. Unless your antenna is way off, the worst that should happen is you lose some of your output power in your coax cable.

Your grounding setup (the dual 12AWG wire) should be fine. Radio waves mostly travel along the outside of wires (skin effect) so a thick wire works about the same as a thin but wide wire/metal strap. Your ground with your tool box was probably OK since the tool box is metal and is bolted to the body. You can get a pretty good RF ground with just sheets of metal close to other sheets of metal (if your tool box has sections that are laying on the paint of your body). That is how mag mount antennas work (no direct metal to metal connection).

Matt

can you hear/talk to people on it?

hop on the highway turn it to channel 19, and say radio check.

if they do answer make sure to ask them where they are at so you can check the range. i beleive the correct phrase is "whats your 20?" thats what the trucker guy that gave me my stuff told me.

mtucker said:

Assuming your whip was made for CB, it should be tuned about right for CB frequencies (near 27MHz). It wouldn't hurt to check with a SWR meter. Unless your antenna is way off, the worst that should happen is you lose some of your output power in your coax cable.

Your grounding setup (the dual 12AWG wire) should be fine. Radio waves mostly travel along the outside of wires (skin effect) so a thick wire works about the same as a thin but wide wire/metal strap. Your ground with your tool box was probably OK since the tool box is metal and is bolted to the body. You can get a pretty good RF ground with just sheets of metal close to other sheets of metal (if your tool box has sections that are laying on the paint of your body). That is how mag mount antennas work (no direct metal to metal connection).

Matt

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I checked it with a SWR meter just for the heck of it and I got a reading of 3.5 and about 4. I thought this was a dangerous opperating level but my buddy checked his with the same SWR meter and got bout 5 I think :shrug: Everything on both of our has been grounded and set up correctly so im thinking that it might be the SWR metter because it was ancient lol
My tool box wasnt lying directly on my body. it was lying on my plastic POS bed linner. I thought that it might have been ok still since the bolts that hold it to the body were in direct contact but I ran the wire just as a good measure.

default83 said:

can you hear/talk to people on it?

hop on the highway turn it to channel 19, and say radio check.

if they do answer make sure to ask them where they are at so you can check the range. i beleive the correct phrase is "whats your 20?" thats what the trucker guy that gave me my stuff told me.

Click to expand...

yeh i can hear/talk people on it. Me and my friend tested ours out and we got to about 2.5 miles before we started picking up a good bit of static. He was only using a small magnet mount antenna that came as a kit with the radio but hes getting a whip also so that should help the range out a good bit.