Clean VHF/CB radio installs

What kind of antenna and mount is this?

 

Well! Won’t get many opinions on an antenna question! The rf mass center of the truck cab and the height of the rack all work in your favor. I chose rack mount forward of center passenger side. Works great. 27 mile hit to repeater consistency and 53 mile simplex test.

 

Did your brackets actually line up straight with the antenna? I have a set and I've been debating about doing my antennas instead because the RTT might hit where I currently have them mounted behind the cab.

 

As others said, move the ground where @Bastek indicated in red. So it's touching the ditch light bracket on the bottom. Make sure the ditch light bracket has good electrical continuity to the

$43 pl259 USA made PL-259 improved double shielded rg-58u for firestik antenna K-8A 18-foot single cb/ham coax cable

pl259 shield. It should also be open (electrically) to the center pin. Make sure the bracket has good continuity to whatever it's bolted. Hood? Fender? A ground strap to the hood is going to help your ground plane as well. Keep ground straps as short as possible.

You don't need to ground the antenna back to a 12v bus ground. If that's where that black wire goes, remove it.

 

No luck. Went out to move the ground to where @Bastek indicated, but still had continuity between the mount and the shield on the wire. Came to realize that the terminal ring on the ground wire was contacting the stud. So I decided to scrape the paint off the bracket, and ground to that and then connected my ground strap to the fender. No more continuity between the mount and the wire. Thought it was problem solved! Off to a large field to tune my SWR.

I still had high readings on my SWR meter, so I unscrewed the tunable tip from the Firestik, and my SWR went all the way down to 1 on channel 1 and 1.5 on channel 40. I sure was thrilled and thought I was totally done. However, I couldn't get anybody on the radio for a radio check even though I did yesterday. So I wasn't totally convinced it was time to call it a successful job.

Next I looked closely at the wire, and noticed the break you can see in the pictures below. The bracket doesn't put the wire high enough, so the hood put pressure on the wire and caused it to fail. I did some research online and found that there should be continuity between the studs on both ends of the wire (there was) and also continuity between both shields on either end (there was not). So now I know my wire was broken. I had another wire that I also ordered that won't work because its mount is way too long, but I did check that one and there was indeed continuity between both shields. So I ordered a Firestik Firering and corresponding mount that will arrive this week and I'll try again. I do think my grounding issues played a part, but the broken wire really prevented further progress. I will update again once the new parts come in! Thanks to all for the help along the way. I sure am learning a lot as this is all new to me.

 

Sorry it didn't work out for you... One of the reasons I was leaning more towards grounding an actual bracket instead of antenna connection.
Fire-Ring seems like an good option in your predicament. Now with that Please ground your bracket and do NOT stick anything between the ring and bracket, so you don't end up with anything like this


Not my photo, posting for educational purposes only.

Good luck, hope it works out ok.

 

What is that I'm looking at? Is it a ring terminal wire for a ground? I won't be doing that again!...

 

Yes. Kinda hard to tell because of potato quality, but that's it

 

Nope I got it. Thank you. I learned why the ground strap to the mount is not ideal. I didn't want to scrape paint off the bracket to leave it protected, but I guess I've gotta do what I've gotta do.

 

I don't think you're getting a really good ground where your bracket meets the truck.
I used a rear bed bracket and just roughed up the paint where all the parts meet, No ground strap.

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My SWR is 1.2 on CH 1 and 1.3 to 1.4 on CH 40. I'm very happy with that. It also took me a couple of days to get a comeback on a radio check. There weren't any people on CB within range that's all.

 

Go out to try to find a truck stop near you, do a radio check near that.

 

I wanted to do it on the rear, but I have bed stiffeners and from what I saw nobody had a good solution to use both because I also have a diamondback tonneau cover.

The local lumber yard down the road from me uses CB to communicate. They gave me a radio check plus someone else about 15 miles away. This was yesterday when my SWR was high but before today when the wire broke. Once I get the new fire ring wire installed I think I’ll be good. I had god continuity between the wire’s shield and the truck.

 

Did you tune the antenna?
You are also confusing “ground”. The firestik is 1/2 a vertical dipole. The resonant mass of your truck is acting as your ground plane. The wire back to battery may actually be hurting.

1. Check all your connections are good. No moisture, no shitty Chinese bent and crappy connections.
2. Tune the firestik per their instructions to channel 19. Then you can see where 1 and 40 deviate.
3. Then try moving the mount. Some will suggest a strap from the mount to the truck frame. Ok, but get you antenna tuned up to its best first then play with straps and mounts. CBs don’t have a huge amount of power so good enough is your goal. I have an auxiliary CB and use a simple 19” mag mount so I can yell at the guys on the trail.
4. Get your Ham license and start over with really cool stuff!

 

Anyway to get this print file or to buy one of the mounts from you? Great design

 

Ever get it figured out ?

 

35 miles simplex. +50 to a repeater

 

That's a nice antenna bracket. What make/model is it?

 

Not yet, Played video games yesterday instead. haha. priorities... But i did get a mag mount one that im going to test today after work. Im also going to recheck all my resistance readings and ensure everything is correct and such.

 

Rack it is then! That's decent enough range for me I think.