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CB Education
- Thread Starter HBIII
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Be sure to buy quality cable for the whip and once installed use a meter to adjust the antenna using the screw under the tip on the firestick.
those are great instructions for a permanent set up. buy the coax with the ends already installed. make sure you have a GOOD GROUND on the power supply and the antenna mount! if no ground no SWR. i have an SWR meter to adjust your radio to your antenna, when you get it all installed. if you do get a good antenna, get one with an adjustable tip on it as well.
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If you're willing to drive a bit D&R communications in Clackamas can help you with the tuning part.
D & R Communications Inc
11491 SE Highway 212 Clackamas OR 97015
(503) 655-4155
You may want to give them a call and be sure. It's a while since my Dad or I have been out there, but for the setups we are both currently running, thats where we got them.
D & R Communications Inc
11491 SE Highway 212 Clackamas OR 97015
(503) 655-4155
You may want to give them a call and be sure. It's a while since my Dad or I have been out there, but for the setups we are both currently running, thats where we got them.
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Definatley make sure the swr is set correctly.
Setting the SWR of Your Antenna© - Firestik® Antenna Company
If not, it can really hamper performance. Be sure to close all doors on the vehicle and if it has a cap like a firestick on top for the adjustment screw make sure it is in place before testing. If the cap is removed when tested and looks ok, when it is put back on, the swr will change.
Setting the SWR of Your Antenna© - Firestik® Antenna Company
If not, it can really hamper performance. Be sure to close all doors on the vehicle and if it has a cap like a firestick on top for the adjustment screw make sure it is in place before testing. If the cap is removed when tested and looks ok, when it is put back on, the swr will change.
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Ok lots of information to sort through. Thank you all!
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Ya'll forgot the three most important words in CB language...
Convoy (and) Rubber Duck.
Convoy (and) Rubber Duck.
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Perfect site, exactly what I was looking for, thank you.
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The Radio Shack SWR meter is good for the money and it has gotten good reviews. I use it and it works fine.
Bang
Bang
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We really need a sticky on communication stuff...
I will contain my complaints about CB and try to post something useful - just wanted to get that out of the way.
CB's put out 4W AM, you don't need to worry about burning up your CB with a bad SWR, the problem comes in in that you will not have good signal getting out.
First, Yes, firestix does make a very good toploaded antenna, I use several of them for 10m applications and they work great. My suggestion is get the tunable one (if you pull the little cap on top off, there's a screw where you can change the tuning of the antenna without having to cut)
Antenna location is a very important aspect of this, my suggestion is to put it dead center on top of your vehicle. If you have a pickup with a shell, especially if it's a metal shell, that's the perfect place to mount your antenna, you are creating a good groundplane, and now you just have to tune the antenna system so you get an impedance match with your feedline/radio.
I agree with buying pre-cut feedlines, crimping PL259 connectors is one of my least favorite things in the world.
The one thing you need to make sure you're doing is isolating the feed portion of the line (the center conductor) from the ground (the outside of the connector). Most CB mounts come with a little plastic washer that goes on the top part of the hole. if you don't install the plastic washer you are creating a dead short, and you will have all kinds of chaos and your system will never get into tune. If you go to one of the local ham-radio swapmeets you may be able to pick up a directional wattmeter (bird is a popular brand) for about $20. You don't need the big expensive one, usually there is a name-plate that says what frequencies it's good for. I have one that's 15mhz to 170mhz that I got.
You will also need a little pigtail of coax to hook up the wattmeter/swr meter.
Note: when adjusting SWR you're adjusting the whole antenna system, the SWR meter will have some affect, so your SWR will change once you pull it out of the system. So try to have everything as close to "same" as you can after install.
To get your feet wet, you may want to just pick up a magmount CB antenna, usually these things already have their impedance set, so you don't have to screw around with them too much.
I will contain my complaints about CB and try to post something useful - just wanted to get that out of the way.
CB's put out 4W AM, you don't need to worry about burning up your CB with a bad SWR, the problem comes in in that you will not have good signal getting out.
First, Yes, firestix does make a very good toploaded antenna, I use several of them for 10m applications and they work great. My suggestion is get the tunable one (if you pull the little cap on top off, there's a screw where you can change the tuning of the antenna without having to cut)
Antenna location is a very important aspect of this, my suggestion is to put it dead center on top of your vehicle. If you have a pickup with a shell, especially if it's a metal shell, that's the perfect place to mount your antenna, you are creating a good groundplane, and now you just have to tune the antenna system so you get an impedance match with your feedline/radio.
I agree with buying pre-cut feedlines, crimping PL259 connectors is one of my least favorite things in the world.
The one thing you need to make sure you're doing is isolating the feed portion of the line (the center conductor) from the ground (the outside of the connector). Most CB mounts come with a little plastic washer that goes on the top part of the hole. if you don't install the plastic washer you are creating a dead short, and you will have all kinds of chaos and your system will never get into tune. If you go to one of the local ham-radio swapmeets you may be able to pick up a directional wattmeter (bird is a popular brand) for about $20. You don't need the big expensive one, usually there is a name-plate that says what frequencies it's good for. I have one that's 15mhz to 170mhz that I got.
You will also need a little pigtail of coax to hook up the wattmeter/swr meter.
Note: when adjusting SWR you're adjusting the whole antenna system, the SWR meter will have some affect, so your SWR will change once you pull it out of the system. So try to have everything as close to "same" as you can after install.
To get your feet wet, you may want to just pick up a magmount CB antenna, usually these things already have their impedance set, so you don't have to screw around with them too much.
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