trying to get a good CB ground plane

In the old days I ran a 102 whip on my Dodge D50's rear bumper. It worked fine. Why not just do the same on the Taco?

 

To be honest I probably won't be using the cb a heck a a lot....most likely will use the PA and amplified speaker more then the PA....I'm kinda adding to the truck just to add it and play around. Call me vein but since I won't be using it a hell of a lot, the antena look and placement is important.....I don't want to run the antena on the back of the bed because I think I looks terrible. Just being honest.

 

If you have to run an extra ground wire to make it work your basic ground is bad. Now if that is true and you start running ground wires they can become part of the antenna if you feel you have to do this make them as short as you possibly can otherwise you will be taking a step backwards. SSB is an option for CB it will definitely increase your range but unless the person on the other end has a SSB radio it will not do you much good and the price will probably double. CB standard radios are AM there total output is 4 watts a SSB radio transmits on a side band either upper or lower side of the AM and it has no carrier this will give you maybe 12 watts but most of the people out on the trails will only have AM radios and you will sound like Donald Duck they will not understand a word you are saying. You biggest benefit would be to move the antenna. As I said before it will still work no matter where you put it but the results will suffer as far as range both with receive and transmit.

 

I'm still questioning how that rear bed rail is grounded...in only touches the synthetic bed.

 

Question all you want but it is bolted to the the body work. The rail is against the plastic but the bolts that hold it on are machine threaded and attach to the body. if you have an ohm meter check it to a known good ground.

 

Ok I'll take your word for it. So a short 10g wire from my mount to the rail should be ok? What if the metal mount is already touching the rail....I should be ok....?

 

Adding a wire will not hurt any thing but may not fix any thing, antennas at that frequency do some strange things so keep it as short as possible and try it. I'm not sure what you are trying to fix if you don't know what if any thing is wrong. See if one of your friends owns an SWR bridge and talk them into hooking it up and see what it says any thing bellow 2:1 if fine. If it is than to optimize your out put you'll need to move the antenna also be advised you may never get a match being that close to surrounding objects no matter what you do. Check ebay or some thing like that SWR bridges for CB can be had for cheap money.

 

I have a meter on order...I'll keep you posted...thanks for the help.

 

go to camping world and get a thru the glass cb antenna. I have one on my motorhome and it works great, the distance isn't the greatest but it works for about 5-6 miles.

 

Like I said despite how any antenna is installed they still work as long as the SWR is within reason how well is a different story. A dummy load will transmit and receive to some extent but you had better be pretty damn close. The glass mounts don't work well on the ham bands either and they cost a lot more. The fact that they work at all leads back to the ground plane/grounding debate. There is a tunable circuit in the base that matches the antenna in other words it makes the antenna look like a good match to the radio to make up for its extremely short length.

 

Just looked at your picture again and noticed the metal tool box. Drill a hole in the center of that lid and mount the antenna there. You will be worlds better than where you have it now.

 

Be aware a thru the glass antenna won't work well with many types of tint. I've had good luck with lip mount antennas, such as one on the driver side hood, but that's for ham VHF/UHF. I'm currently investigating an antenna mounting bracket for between the hood and fender. I had a Bandy mount on the door hinge on my FJ that worked great, no such solution on Taco.

 

They will not work on any type of heated glass either.

 

They will not work on any type of heated glass either.

 

Got the SWR to 1.5 on channel one and 2.5 on channel 40. Shortened the antenna 1/4 inch with a hack saw and not the SWR is at 2 on channel 1 and 3 on 40....still thinking the rear bed rail needs grounding...the whole back wall of the bed is fiberglass...I don't see ANY metal back there.

 

I could not make an antenna work mounted there, the main issue is it's too close to the cab. Tried Wilson 2000 Trucker and a 102" whip in that location. I ended up mounting mine on a side rail tool box about 14" rearward from the cab and it works good now with 1.1:1 SWR, 102" whip.

The best alt for these trucks IMO and based on my experience is roof mount, either mag or better yet drill a hole for a real roof mounted antenna. I'd choose and recommend the Wilson 1000 or 5000.

 

No experience with this product, but the below product page and the installation guide it links to has some tips and ideas for achieving either DC ground or a ground plane via Tacoma rail system. Have not tested any of this, but seems to make sense looking at my truck.

http://www.repdesign.us/gpage2.html

 

Thanks guys...in the link above it looks like they are linking the bed rails together with grounding wires? Also...you are saying I'll get better SWR results by moving my antena out to the side directly behind the cab...instead of in the middle?

 

The rails are all ready well grounded so I don't think one would gain any thing by linking them together but what would work is a counterpoise what he was saying was run wires from the antenna mount to the rails in a fan pattern. It would improve the radio performance but make it a bit of a pain the put stuff in the bed. The ideal there is to reduce ground losses not truck ground but earth ground. There comes a point of being ridicules on antenna installs putting grounds every where or a huge aluminum plate in the bed makes very little difference in the over all performance.

 

No, move it away from the cab it does not matter where just get it away from the cab. You can connect the rails together if you like but nothing you do will help it if its against the cab.