CB radio help

is anyone on here used to working with cb radios??? i just wired mine up with 2 whips and i was wondering if the cable length would effect the clarity of the cb itself.. its not to clear. i can talk to my buds that are parked next to me. Any help?

 

- Did you tune the antennas with a SWR meter?

- Some people say that you should use 9 ft or 18 ft sections of coax cable because CB wavelength is 36 ft tall. (18'= 1/2 wave lenght & 9'=1/4 wave length). I think its BS!

-Any extra coax cable should be wrapped in a figure 8 pattern (not in a coil).

 

my atennas are not tunable. they are just 1000watt whips (2) Im running a 18 ft coax cable from the cb to a double female.. (way to much cable) double female to my spliter which alows me to run 2 antennas. then (2) 8' cables to both antennas. I talked to a cb shop guy he said to run a 75 om coface cable instead of a double female with 2 different cable.. i dont know what to do.. its not bad now ive toyed with all the settings its ok i guess. maybe CB is just old

 

yeah i have a redicilious amount of extra cable.. i bought 18' for some odd reason believing that i wouldnt have enough cable with a 10' or 8'.. if i switched to a 8' i think ill recieve and sent more clearly. I have about 5 - 8' extra cable so i just bundled it up and taped it and mounted it away... would that harm my signal and clarity>?? Also i have a Cobra 138 model.. very fricken old cant even find it on google, if i were to switch to a newer but cheaper cobra would that help any? or should i stick with the vintage cb lol