Why is my SWR so high?

Might not be the issue. I did that when I was having problems and still read over 4.

 

Run your coax from the mount through the window to your radio and check your SWR's again. I would go as far as to try a different cable and see what that does. Then unhook all of your grounds from the mount and see what happens.

Just trying to help you troubleshoot it. I had a bad cable resulting in high SWR's the first time around.

Good luck.

 

True but given that his mount is set up properly, and he's attempted to tune the ant. I guess it could be that the ant. isn't long enough but I would assume it cleares the top of his cab being mounted to the tool box. I had the same issue when I was mounting mine. I thought the wire I had was good enough and I thought the spot I had it attached to was good enough too.... it wasn't. I took mine to the frame and oila..... under 1 avg swr.

In all, You're right...but all indicators point to the ground. Heck, you can even see in the pic that where it's attached at the bed isn't bare and clean metal.

 

Yeah, there are a couple different things that could be an issue. I do know that you can't tune from 3 down to 1, it just doesn't work like that. You can go from 1.2 to 1.0 on a specific channel with tuning.

 

Exactly. And that also applies to "uncoiling" the coax. That's only going to get you .1-.2... Not from 3 to anywhere in the 1's. Could be the actual coax but I'd try getting a better ground first.

 

I did scrap paint down to bare metal on the bed rail.

Im going to try grounding the actual radio to the inside of the cab somewhere

Then ill trying running the frame.

Then ill wire wheel everything that needs to be grounded and make sure all the ground surfaces are good

 

For what it's worth....I wire wheeled my Elite bumper and ran my ground wire to that.... it didn't cut it. Save yourself some headache and time and just skip the bed rail and go right to the frame.......

 

I'm confused as to why you even need a separate ground wire. Is it because you have it attached to your toolbox instead of somewhere on the truck?

I thought running a ground wire would fix my problems, but it was only a bandaid for a week before it just stopped working again.

 

Problem solved. Went straight to the frame and grounded the little black wire to the mount. 1.06 on 1 and 2.6 on 40. Bingo. Thanks everyone for the input, and thank you Warped for the phone call

 

Trimmed the tip down a little to brong the 40 down.

 

Glad you got it. Bingo, Bango, Bongo

 

Eric...great job on getting the SWR down.