CB specifics

Looks good. Do you have a picture with the antenna on?

 

At some point I am going to paint the mount and the bottom of the antenna black.

 

Been doing any serious offroading with it there? I would imagine it hits the truck when your bouncing around good. I know mine moves a good mount.

 

You may have said earlier in this thread, but what mount did you use? Really clean install.

 

First thing I thought about too. I can see it catching branches and whipping back in the cab. Looks good though.

 

I thought the same thing, although I really like the look of it. It would hurt the look, but one could add a tennis ball to it so that would smack the cab instead of the antenna. Doesn't help the look at all, but I works.

 

Has anyone here have had experienced using this analyzer? if so, can you please share the benefits, etc? thanks,
http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-259CM

 

It has tapped the cab a few times. I have been thinking about just sliding a tennis ball down on it when I am wheeling. As for the mount. I have no clue who makes the mount. I got it for free from a friend that had it, radio and antenna laying around in his garage. I just had to buy the antenna cable. I also bought a new antenna because the free one wasn't tunable.

 

I am working on setting up my Uniden 520 and was wondering if directly hooking to the battery has shown any batt draw while the vehicle is off for ext periods of time. the truck may only run once a week. and i have read of some units still drawing power even when the CB is flipped to OFF. Any information or experience would be appreciated

 

I’m running this setup and I’ve left my truck off for up to a week with my CB off and I didn’t notice any long start time, battery seemed charged the same. I’ve left my cb on for two days on accident and the truck still fired up fine.

I didn’t check the battery voltage or anything but it seemed normal to me.

 

You may have found the answer by now but, that type of analyzer is handy if you work with a lot of antennas. It allows you to measure SWR easily without using your radio. You can quickly find the frequency with the minimum SWR and quickly see the results of antenna tuning. Just turn the tuning knob and watch the meter dip. The more advanced features, such as complex impedance, are handy if you are building you own antennas. The disadvantage is that it costs 10X what a simple SWR meter costs. If your just installing a couple of antennas it's probably not worth it.

 

Thanks for the information and advise.. I agree with you on the price, as the Analyzer is expensive..
FS

 

I've been having some CB troubles since I mounted my tent. The only thing that changed is I added bed bars and a tent to the rails where my cb bracket is mounted and grounded from. I can hear/receive fine, but when I talk its just loud screeching type noise.

Is this because of the added steel bed bars, do they needed to be grounded as well or is the tent just blocking the antenna too much? Any input would be appreciated!

I've attached a pic of the setup.

 

Could you add a better pic of the set up? Don't need to show the entire truck. Although it looks good.

You have a long antenna, so tent isn't really blocking too much, that shouldn't be an issue.

Did you check your swr? Did it change? How did you ground the antenna (pic)?
Check and make sure you did not damage the wire, antenna and antenna stud. It would probably show up as wonky swr reading anyway.

 

A few months ago I had measured my SWR with the tent on and it did go up a bit. I have not re-checked it this time, but I imagine it should be the same as nothing has changed, unless there is a damaged component somewhere as you mentioned.

I have a bracket bolted into my bed rail and that bracket is then grounded. It goes up and over my bed to stick out a bit and thats where the antenna is mounted. It works great until the RTT is mounted on.

I'll try and get some more pictures and follow the wire to make sure it hasn't been damaged somewhere under the cab.

 

I guess the bars with a tent could change swr a little by adding mass to the system, but that could have been tuned

If you have access to electrical tester, unplug antenna wire from the stud and check for continuity between:
- bracket (actually bottom of the stud) and frame, to make sure that you're grounded.
- bottom and top of the stud (or on the bottom, outside and inside of stud), to make sure you're not shorted out.
-unplug wire from radio, and test inside and outside of your connector, to make sure that your wire isn't shorted.

Whatever I just wrote, wasn't meant to scare you off or anything, and having a tester, it isn't really all that much work. Too many little things could have been done to damage something, even knocking into the antenna and crushing that little plastic spacer, to cause some issues.

Hope it isn't anything serious, let as know what you find. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the advice! I'll see what I can come up with report back if I get it fixed.

 

Hate to bring back such an old thread but I'm the new guy and was floating around the site and I was just wondering what do you guys do with the CB's? Is it a fun thing, work stuff? or in case of an emergency?

 

I installed mine for short range coms while offroading and camping with my buddies. While not offroading, I leave it on channel 19 to hear the truckers yelling at each other.