No swr reading

My swr won't show anything at all, is it my meter, or my antenna set up, everything is grounded, with an extra ground wire going from the base of the antenna where it mounts, to the frame. any ideas?

 

probably the meter. if you hold down the button and the needle doesnt move then id say the meter.

Also make sure the meter is connected right. When looking at the back the right side needs to be hooked to the radio and the left hooked to the antenna. Also make sure the cal knob isnt all the way down

 

yea I just opened up my meter, and there is 2 wire ends, not connected, and on prong that has solder but nothing connected to it. wtf..

 

I was having trouble tuning before with it, but it was going off the charts, could I have damaged it?

 

hopefully it didnt fry the Tx/Rx board in the radio. It shouldnt have as long as you didnt hold the button down long.

id judt solder the wires back up and it should be got to go...

 

I don't have a soldering gun, (maybe for christmas) but I just twisted them up together, and I'll go check now

 

i wouldnt do that unless your sure theyre supposed to be together... post some pics...

 

It's getting power again, but shooting right across the chart, That's in the garage, but shouldn't it still get a normal reading?

there is still an open prong though, that looks like it's supposed to be connected to something..

 

Here's a pic, the two twisted up ones are the ones that were just separate, and you can see the prong on the right side of the pic, that has solder on it, but it's not connected to anything

 

Don't mean to be an A$$ but the $$$ you will save NOT burning up your CB is worth the 15-35 bucks spent on a new SWR meter....
The "internals" are broken and who will say that meter will be right even after soldering parts back up???

The more you "Key" that mike without knowing ,the more your radio takes "Heat"..

I've seen "finals" toast because driver did NOT want to be bothered by SWR's...his antenna was cracked internally and fried his radio...

Just my 2 cents....

S

 

yea, I was thinking the same thing. but so far, these damn radio's are hard to get a good signal out of, and even then they don't get very good range, I'm thinking of going with a two way radio instead.. what do you think?

 

HEY! so I took my multimeter out to see if I could figure out if my antenna was grounded properly. but I'm a noob with my meter so i need your help.

I set my meter to the 200 ohm reading, and when I touch both leads to my ground, whether it's on the bottom of the antenna, or the mounting bracket, my meter reads 00.3 to 00.5, but usually ended up at 00.3
Now I need to know if this tells me anything?

 

Someone knows, I just have to get your attention!

 

That means you have good continuity between whatever it is you're reading. If you're going from your ground on the antenna mount to the frame of your truck, that's a good reading. Taking a SWR reading in you garage won't be the most accurate because of the closed in space. Also, unless you definately know where those wires are SUPPOSED to go in your meter, I'd get a new one. It's cheaper than frying your radio.

 

I'm tired of cb's and swr's. I bought an swr, it got lost in shipping, bought this one, it fried. this is ridiculous!

so I should do the same, but go from the mount to my frame? I'll try that now. what's the optimal reading?

 

If your ground is good, you'll get a reading like you were before 0.5-0.3. What kind of radio you running?

 

cobra 18 wx st II
with a 3 foot firestick. So from my mounting bracket to my frame I got nothing...
which is weird because all the paint is sanded away from the bed where it's mounted, but it must be the linex getting i the way?

 

Unless your ground on both ends is touching bare metal, you won't get a good connection. Cobra 18 are ok for trail use to talk to people close by. The output is only 4 watts & not much can be done to change that. Bigger radios like the 25, 29 & 148 you can boost the modulation (makes you sound loud) and boost the power internally. One thing that could help your radio is a power mike, they help to boost your modulation. Astatic D104 is a good one.

 

yea I've heard this radio can be boosted to 15-20 watts..

anyways, I can't get any reading from my frame at all, there was a plastic washer in my mount, and after testing things, that was blocking power from going from the mount to the antenna, so I got rid of that.

Now, from my mounting location, which is on the corner of the bed near the cab, I can't get a reading when going to my frame. But I also tried going from two points on the frame and also go no reading...

 

If there's any paint, undercoating, etc on the frame where you are trying to get a reading, that won't work.