CB radio transmit issue

Hello, I recently bought a black 2002 Tacoma SR5, and couldn't be happier with it, this is my first post on the forum by the way. Today, I installed the radio in place of the ash tray, installed the antenna and mount and tried to test it.

Now, I know nothing about these radios or antenna's, but my friend knows a little something about them, He has a fully functional cb in his f150 and I tried testing mine to his. Here's where the problems start. When he talks to me, I can hear him crystal clear through my radio. When I talk to him, his radio makes a high pitch squealing sound, and he can't understand me at all. I know this is going to be hard without pics, but my antenna mount is only attached to the bed liner, nothing else, (this has got to be part of the problem, correct??). My friend then would have his hands around the top of the antenna and it worked! As soon as he let go, nothing but squealing again. When tinkering around with it more, I had the antenna off the mount, made contact with the tip of it to a metal tie down and it worked perfectly. I don't have a clue, to save my life, where to go from here.

Please, any help at all would be appreciated. Sorry for the wordy post. I hope this post is in the right spot.

 

Welcome to TW.

I'd get in contact with the place you got the antenna from. What type of antenna is it?

Pics would be awesome too.

 

Thanks I can't wait to get started here, I feel these forums are going to be a great help. Anyway, it is a 3 ft firestik with tunable tip.

 

You need a "ground plane" which consists on a body of metal to reflect the signal. Your antenna also needs to be tuned correctly. If you transmit without tuning the antenna, you risk damaging your cb unit. The best place for the antenna is the roof as you want it as high as possible.

 

The squeeling is only because your rigs are too close and your radio modulates heavier than his. You need to ground that antenna to the body, then you need to calibrate the SWR with a meter. This is a transmitter. You need to match the antenna to the radio's transmit frequencies otherwise when you key the mike your output power will reflect back into your transmit coils and cook em. Read this
http://www.rightchannelradios.com/pages/cb-antenna-tuning-and-swr-explained-pv-c0-58.html

 

The tunable tip makes tuning easy , just screw the tip clockwise or counter clockwise to make it longer or shorter. You need to get the SWR (standing wave ratio) to an acceptable level by adjusting that tip. This is very important.

 

Thanks for the reply, I figured the trucks being too close would be an issue as well, but when we tried testing them by driving around at a good distance apart, same thing, i could here him, but he couldn't here me at all, obviously my setup needs to be tweeked. I just wanted to give you that info in case that made a difference at all.

 

Any questions, shoot me a pm, I have installed a few of these successfully.

 

Thank you for your replies, How would I go about making sure there is a "ground plane" with my antenna and mount? Sorry for these noob questions, I wish I could have started here with something more interesting to talk about!

 

Find a good body of metal (roof) to reflect the signal . Some locations will yield a directional signal which will decrease your tx(transmit) reach. Examples of a directional signal would be the front/back fenders. The mount itself needs to be grounded to the body of your vehicle. the hood also makes a pretty good ground plane with a hood lip mount! The antenna needs to stick up above the highest point of the vehicle to be effective.

 

Get some #6 AWG coated copper wire and run it from the metal mount of the antenna to the metal body (shortest length possible) you truck body then becomes the groundplane

 

Tacomabuzz knows his stuff. Think of the wave of your transmission needing a metal "plane" to radiate off of. Like buzz said-if you mount it on the rear bumper, your "wave" will radiate away from the front of your truck and continue mainly in that direction more than any other. If you mount the antenna right dead center of the roof-you will radiate in all directions-etc

 

x2

 

lol dang, some quality info on CB's just got dropped in here. I learn something new (and awesome) everyday on this site.