Let's see your cb antenna location.

should be good now

 

Thanks, pic works. What is that a 2 or 3 foot? How's the reception?

 

Here is where mine in now with super high SWR.



My SWR is through the roof. I just ordered my own SWR Meter and a BAMF tailgate mount. I am hoping this helps to fix my issues. After swapping out a bunch of different pieces the issue seems to be with my antenna, mount & or Location.

 

When you put it on the back of the bed just tune it and you'll get a much better swr. I had mine in your location, even a 4' firestik.
I relocated it to the back of the bed and now I have a perfect swr.
I found the problem with the bed rails is they don't provide a ground. If you wanna keep it there it'll need a grounding cable.

 

I use the Relentless Fab hood mount and love it. Wouldn't dream of mounting it in any other location.

 

I have mine mounted on the bed rack


CB on one side and HAM on the other side

 

Thanks for all the pics and positive comments on the hood mounts guys!
They're always in stock too for quick shipping.

 

I have it grounded already and the continuity is right everywhere. I also put it on a SWR meter. It was still through the roof. I am going to go ahead and relocate it to a tailgate bracket. Should be much better once I do that. If Not I am going to swap out the Coax. If that still doesn't work. I will make a thread about it and sick all the Tacoma World Geniuses and smart a$$e$ at it.

 

If you have a truck stop in town off the highway, go see if there is a CB shop inside and have them tune & tweak your set up. I paid $15.00 to have mine set up

 

Hmm wierd. only other thing could be the short antenna isn't getting high enough over the cab. I bet moving it back to the tailgate will fix it.

 

Almost done with the new setup, waiting for it to stop raining so I can meter and adjust it. I'll post back the outcome when done.

 

Still not sure what I want to go with, but found a good deal on one of these:

So, I'm gonna play around with this for a little bit, than get something better. Really just a toy, not a necessity, so this will do for now I think.

 

I don't see why that wouldn't work. Especially once you put that antenna on the roof. At least you wont have to deal with all the BS I am dealing with trying to get mine tuned up.

 

x2

Finally had decent weather to get outside and tune everything... ran into some high SWR so I metered everything and one of my fire-ring connectors is shorted out

Going to cut the ends on both and put on a regular

$43 PL259 USA Made PL-259 Improved Double Shielded RG-58u for FireStik Antenna K-8A 18-Foot Single CB/Ham Coax Cable

PL259 connectors. This is the 2nd fire-ring that has gone bad on me. POS.

 

How can you check if it is shorted? I am starting to think this could be my issue?

Edit:
Looked up how to check for a short in the Coax. I will test that out this week.

 

subbed for future referance.

 

Yeah, I don't have a lot of time right now to mess with all the potential issues, so I figured, can't really screw this one up. Looking forward to play around with it. I'll be getting it on Wednesday, so I'll see how it works.

 

its a 2 foot firestik. Works well! I have reached out approx. 8 miles, normal NH terrain with hills and mountains and shit. I was also under a parking portico when i tested it. i really only care about how it work when on the trail though, and for that, its perfect, and not too obnoxious, can barely notice it.

i havent had mine tested with an SWR meter, but i will tell you that it wasnt easy getting mine to work correctly. I have a cobra 75WXST, and hooked the antenna mount up all wrong like twice before i got it right. Then, because im not sure what our bedrails are made out of, and thats what its attached to, i ran a wire from the mount, to a ground on the truck, and that made it a lot better. I just use it on trails, and it works well for that.

 

Nice, and good to know you can get that kind of range on a shorter antenna. I wouldn't want something too tall.