CB Radio Information and Installation

Possibly, but test it to make sure. You don't want to run a radio with high SWR for long. If your mount is grounded, the antenna is probably grounded. But if the mount is painted, it may not be well grounded.

Yeah NGP antennas are hard to get low SWR readings on. If your using a standard coax instead of NGP specific, you could also be having performance issues from that.

There are some nice NGP kits out there, but they are usually for boats and come as a complete NGP specific kit. No NGP kit will perform as well as a grounded one.

 

Correct, that is NOT a NGP antenna. You will need to confirm that the mount is grounded. If it's not, just run a ground wire from it to a ground point on the truck.

 

Where the hell was this thread 3 weeks ago! lol Mine works great now, but I had to look hard for the right information. Great write up OP!

 

I have the one I linked, It's the Antenna, bracket, cable kit. I like the location and would rather not change it..

Here's the 3 sets of readings I took while adjusting it.
Ch1. 3 / 2.3 / 3
Ch19. 1.4 / 1.3 / 1.4
Ch40. 2.7 / 3 / 3

 

hmm. ok. thanks, i'll keep that in mind. im probably gonna tape off the area where it mounts to the hood and then put a piece of tape around the antenna hole before i paint it. hopefully that will help me catch a ground.

 

Troubleshooting an NGP antenna is not my strong point, but I would try to move it around and see it the SWR improves. You could be reflecting back from a surface. Check these links and see if you find something useful:

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/ngp-critical.htm

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/NGP_Install.htm (check the "Tuning" section)

 

Nice effort and very good overall, but there's misleading info and several inaccuracies in sections 3 & 7. To get a better understanding of how a CB antenna actually works, and why both a ground and a ground plane (placement of the antenna on a large flat metal surface) are important, I suggest your readers pick up a good CB book (from eBay or wherever) or view some of the ham radio sites describing/discussing vertical dipole antennas in mobile applications - exactly what a CB antenna is.

In fact, if you keep an eye on eBay, you can even occasionally find older military training manuals discussing radio fundamentals, including mobile vertical dipole antennas similar to a CB antenna.

The CB books are often written for beginners, so are usually the easiest to read and understand. They're also written directly for CB, while you can only use the general theory from the other sources mentioned, which will have to be converted to CB, since they're discussing other radio services, other frequencies, and similar.

 

just get a ham radio.

 

It looks sorta like learning Photoshop. I got some good general knowledge from this thread. If i wanted, i could take up this new hobby, devote all my time, buy some books and study, and blow tons of money...for?...A CB?. Good thread OP, i have the time and money just not the patience to follow through on 90% of what was posted after you.

 

Right, but this isn't written for a target audience of amateur radio guys. It's for the general CB user who doesn't want to spend a bunch of time looking up all these different threads. This was written as a simple set of the experiences I have taken from others on the site and compiled here.

If you want to go argue your heads off about what antenna is going to let you bounce off the ionosphere better, feel free to start another thread about it.

 

Exactly. I subbed this for a reason. I don't care for all the tit for tat bs about a better plane for the CB. If they truly loved CB's they would buy my Duck's (shameless plug) because they would recognize it from "CONVOY"!!!!!

 

Once again, "there's misleading info and several inaccuracies in sections 3 & 7." If you don't care about that, fine. My advice was (and is) intended for those who do. Have a nice day.

 

Nothing is misleading, I just didn't go into detail about placement because everyone has a different truck setup. And mounting on the roof is not practical for everyone.

Try contributing to the information instead of just a blank statement of "it's wrong".

 

Well OP all i have to say about this entire thread (minus a couple of post that IMO should never have been posted) is that it is fantastic for someone wanting to know the basics to get up and running. Sure, like others have stated, if you want to go all obsessive over cb stuff then this may not be the thread for you, but heck if you are like most of us that have posted in here and just want some basics to understand what we need to do and how to do it to make our cb's preform properly its perfect! so I say good job and thank you!

 

Oh, you've made it very clear throughout that you don't want conflicting viewpoints. So, to avoid an argument (as had happened in other similar threads), I recommended more independent, more authoritarian, sources of information instead. If anyone likes, they can argue with those instead.

Anyway, I've said enough - except to again say your information is very good overall. I'm not here to nitpick and there's very little to nitpick about. However, antenna placement on a vehicle is important. The ground plane that provides is effectively one-half of the antenna. The antenna will work without, but substantially better with.

 

But good thing this information has been regurgitated over and over again in this forum.

 

Lotsa good info in here Frogsauce. Thanks for putting it together!

I did a comprehensive write-up for my CB install, which may be useful to some people as well: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/223025-hidden-cb-install-pics.html

 

Cool, nice install. Threw a link to it in mine also.

 

Nice write up. +1 for taking the time to do it.

 

Good write up - thanks for the information.