The Great SWR Meter Pass Around

Anyone in line next? Just ordered my new radio as my last one died. So I will need to be tuning again.

 

Hey guys sadly I still have it. Wondering if y'all could help. I'm tuning it right now and on both channel 1 and 40 I get maxed out in the red when I flip the meter to swr. Any help?

 

Bad ground plane? Have you made sure you have a good metal on metal connection to sheetmetal on the truck?

 

Well I'm using shmellmopwho tailgate/ taillight mount. I scraped the top of the mount paint off. You think I should just scrap all the different connection points?

 

Well you definitely need at least one bolt to contact bare metal on the bracket.

 

Alright I'll take some sandpaper to it and test it out. Thanks man!

 

No prob, good luck!

 

Same happened to me. I gave up

 

You need to scrape the bottom of the mount. That's your prob

 

something needs to make contact for sure, be it the bolt or the underside of the mount but since Id imagine it is up against a painted body panel the underside won't do much good.

 

He was mine

I did t want the antenna sticking up too high

 

Okay so I scraped all contact points on the mount, I did not scape anything on the truck it's self. I'm using the stock bolts and all. Does the way the washer stack make a difference?

 

Yeah has to be mount then nylon washer then flat then lock washer

 

Also make sure the nylon is in the hole

 

Yes theres a certain order. Google firestik washer mount order and it should pop up

 

Okay well I have the right washer order and scraped some paint off. Tried it again this time channel 1 gave me 2.5 and channel 40 gave me right where the infinity sign is. I think it's Becuase I'm right next to my house and when I was trouble shooting earlier I unscrewed the antenna thing out a bit.
Okay so making progress, if anyone needs the swr let me know since I'll be done by the weekend

 

I tryed mine in the garage lol

 

You could also try making a better ground using ground strap.
If you have any cable for a cable TV box you can strip it down and basically make a high quality ground strap for a few bucks

 

Like with ring terminals and all? From base of antenna to bolt?

 

Grind off a little paint where it mounts to the bed and use a ring terminal there