CB troubles

yes ive searched and searched and searched

i cannot get my cb tuned out of the red zone..

ive had it mounted every possible place i could think of and grounded to every possible thing i could think of.. its really frustrating.. id like to have it mounted in the top left of my bed but no matter what i cant get it out of the mid red section.. ive checked the cables and the antenna and everything

please help im about to break this over my knee

 

desperate bump

 

Im having trouble to with mine,

 

What antenna are you using? If you're trying to run a 3' firestik, you're not going to get it below 4:1. You need at least a 4'.

 

i

i have a 4 foot... i think its a astatic one it doesnt have a ground wire or tunable tip so i ordered a 4 foot firestick II

 

With the firestik II 4' I was able to get to 1:1.7 SWR. Make sure you've got your washers and everything in order- you could always be grounding the antenna accidentally to the mount. Once you get that 4' firestik installed, report back!

 

firestick II is coming in tomorrow, i will test and i hope to god my swr wont be in the red still

 

I have a 2 foot non tuneable (not a Firestick or a Wilson brand), antenna I've been using for awhile now. It's the biggest POS antenna they had. The SWR is high and it's about 6" behind the cab. I use that one only for recieve purposes and I don't have to screw with taking it off in and out of the garage.

I also have a tunebale 4 footer (Wilson silver tip). That one has lower SWR reading on 1-40 than even my 102" whip does, though I prefer the 102" for flat out performance. I have a heavy duty stud mount about 6" behind the drivers side of the cab. I can swap antenna out in a couple seconds.

Are you using good quality 18 foot coax? Initially I was using something like 12 foot length and when I switched to 18" coax, my readings improved on all antennas but one, which is an open coil antenna that is a bit too low and the coil (bulk) of the antenna is at or below the cab line (not good).

If all else fails and you don't mind using an antenna on the roof, a Wilson 1000 is a trouble free solution. Normally with their mag mounts, you can just about if not, run them straight out of the factory sealed box and not even have to tune them.

 

pay no attention here, my firestik II works just fine. i had the same problem and its simply because mine was improperly grounded. i just grounded my antenna from one of the bolts on the mount to one of the bolts on my frame. that solved my tuning problem.

 

If ur cable is too long make sure the extra cable is coiled up in a figure 8. Also the bed seems to be a crappy place for antenna placement. I have mine in the bed too but I only care about short distance comms like on the trail.

 

I have a few questions:
1) Have you Ohmed out the coax cable? this tests if there is an unbroken or broken electrical connection from one end of the cable to other, testing the center conductor and the ground or shell of the PL-259 connector.

Guide:
http://www.rightchannelradios.com/pages/testing-coax-for-shorts-pv-c0-83.html

2) Have you tried another SWR meter mainly a good external one?
Guide:
http://www.rightchannelradios.com/pages/swr-meter-coax-connections-pv-c0-81.html

http://www.rightchannelradios.com/pages/testing-a-cb-antenna-pv-c0-86.html

http://www.rightchannelradios.com/pages/testing-for-a-ground-pv-c0-82.html


Points of view: As the opinion of " Best Antenna" races on, the question was put as needing help with troubleshooting not which antenna can take an illegal Amplifier.


Unfortunately, SWR meters built into radios have a reputation for being somewaht finicky. While they more often than not are good enough to perform a basic antenna tune, they tend to be much more unreliable than even the most basic external meter. If you have gone through all the previous troubleshooting steps, found no problems, and your built-in SWR meter is STLL alerting you to SWR above 3.0, you should try to get your hands on an external meter to double-check the readings. Frequently in these circumstances, it's the on-board meter that is to blame.

 

Any suggestions for keeping the mag mount antennas from scratching the paint????

 

I've got a little wil on a black truck and no scratches. Just make sure the paint is nice and clean before plunking it down. Besides, unless you're like 7 feet tall you'll never see any scratches on your roof.

 

i just switched from an aluminum mount too, i think thats the main problem. i added a stainless steel mount

 

Wow...

I run a firestik firefly II and have the stainless steel mount bracket behind cab on drivers side. ground the bracket to frame. Took it to a cb shop cuz didn't have a swr meter. Guy hooked it and barely had to tune it, said he was suprised how well the radio and antenna worked together. I've had good luck and no issues with mine.

 

im not saying i know everything, but i had the same problem, and the ground solved it. however the question to why his antenna wont tune properly is not because its a firestik. to sit here and talk shit about firestik antennae is plain arrogant, its a very popular cb antennae brand name and not for no reason. its decent quality at a decent price. i even took the liberty of posting the url to the first firestik antenna review i could find below. 27 out of 27 people reccomend the firestik firefly. so even though you can get better performance than a firestik, people who buy them obviously are happy with what theirs does for them. my firestik tuned wonderfully after i got the ground right. so fine call me ignorant as well as the other 27 people in the review. i dont really care, but just see where im coming from. and bfoster good luck, i hope you find the problem.

Firestik Firefly 4' Antenna review:
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f204/firestick-firefly-4-antenna-769670/

 

got this with my firestik II

 

well ill be damned. take a look at that lol congrats bud.

 

my channel 40 is at 1.2 and my channel 1 is at about 2.2 and raising the antenna screw gets them closer, but i ran outta screw, do you think this is good enough?