wire length matter?/ my CB setup..

[Cockatoo]

ok, thisis my first CB.

does te length of the antenna wire matter, cause where i mounted the antenna on my roof rack i used 22 feet of coax cable from the antenna to the CB.


also is this a decent setup? i have a cobra 19 radio and a diesel brand 3 foot fiberglass antenna (same as a firestick). got it mounted to my luggage rack and i ran a short 8g ground wire to the antennas mount.

should i take it to a cb shop and have them tune and tweak the radio and tune the anteanna as well? what does somthing like this cost>?

 

[IZwack]

http://www.crompton.com/wa3dsp/hamradio/antcalc.html

A good read: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question490.htm

 

[niteshooter]

ok, thisis my first CB.

does te length of the antenna wire matter, cause where i mounted the antenna on my roof rack i used 22 feet of coax cable from the antenna to the CB.


also is this a decent setup? i have a cobra 19 radio and a diesel brand 3 foot fiberglass antenna (same as a firestick). got it mounted to my luggage rack and i ran a short 8g ground wire to the antennas mount.

should i take it to a cb shop and have them tune and tweak the radio and tune the anteanna as well? what does somthing like this cost>?

If you have a multimeter, continuety meter etc check and make sure the whip is isolated from the ground. You'll be putting one probe on the stud the whip is threaded into and the other to the bracket. 99.9999% of problems occure when folks forget to use the plastic insulators or they don't get a good PL-259 connector. You need to get a zero reading on this type of setup. If you get a reading you have a problem and can damage your radio. Then check the continuity of the ground from the part of the bracket your ground wire is attached to the frame of the truck. Normally the rack is grounded to the truck so you should be able to check the conductivity from the bracket to the rack and the rack to the chassis.

A radio shop will use an SWR meter to test the match of the setup, in some cases an antenna may need to be trimmed to achieve a perfect match but you can probably get close by doing the above.

Re wire, you probably have RG-58 which is fine for short distances. I run RG-8 mini which has a bit less loss and higher power rating. RG-8 std is getting a bit thick unless you are running linear amplifiers. :thumbdwn:

Kevin

 

[Sandy]

Cockatoo,

How did you make out ?

Ltr,