Need help with CB radio tune

Finally got my whole system together and was going to tune it today. I have a cobra 19, 4' firestik, bamf tailgate mount, 18' generic rg-58 cable and a radio shack swr meter. I have the power coming from the battery and the unit is grounded (it turns on). The pa system works but I don't hear anything on the cb side. I have had it for a few days before I could tune it and only tried to listen. I figured I just wasn't near anyone transmitting.

So I hook up the swr meter and I verify that there is power when transmitting. But when I tried to calibrate the meter I got nothing. No reading at all under any meter settings other than power. I checked the meter internals and they are good. I don't have my antenna grounded yet but I should still get a reading. I don't think the unit is bad because I'm getting a power reading. I think the line to the antenna is fine. What would cause the radio to not receive or transmit at all?

 

Do you have your mic hooked up? Cobras need the mic plugged in to work. Also you said nothing of a jumper cable from the swr meter to the radio. Just go back through the whole system and make sure everything is hooked up the way it should and give it another go. Is this a new radio?

 

Yes this is a new radio. The mic is hooked up because that how I am getting the radio to transmit and show a power reading. Same goes for the jumper. I used a 3' radio shack cable from the unit to the swr meter. Wouldn't see a power level reading if both of those were done incorrectly.

 

You said it was a Firestik antenna, Do you have an isolator and is it in the right spot? I would double check your coax again also and make sure it's not pinched or kinked anywhere. SWR meter is hooked up correctly? Did you cross any power wires hooking it up? If your SWR was too high you may have just blown something in the radio. I bought a Cobra 25 once and it didn't work right out of the box, ended up returning it. These things break quite often.

 

That's what I am thinking.

I have the isolator on incorrectly but the mount is pc'd so it shouldn't conduct anything. I was going to flip it but I'm pretty sure there is something else going on. No power wires crossed and I don't know if I blew the swr meter or not but the power meter feature still works on it. Its either the antenna mount, cable, radio or meter. I am going to reinstall the antenna and isolator, exchange the swr meter and radio and then test from there.

 

At this point I am thinking the antenna isolator or the radio itself.

 

Got everything and will update once I get to test it out. Now, do you think it is better to ground down the powder coat on the mount or use a wire to ground the antenna? My concern is that the three bolts that hold the mount to the bed are not a good enough connection for a solid ground.

 

Yes. You want metal on metal contact on the mount. Check SWR then if it's high try a ground.

 

New cb, new meter, and I dremeled the mount to bare metal near the bolt holes. Used washers between the mount and the truck to ensure a good connection. First swr reading was about 1.2:1 and 2:1. After a little adjusting I am at about 1.3:1 on both ends. I don't think I need to run a ground wire and if anything I will redo the mount-to-frame ground by exposing a bigger area.

Thank you for your help! I'm getting transmissions from 5+ miles away with my little cobra 19 and stik.

 

Glad you got it up and running!