Advice on CB antenna for Pickup

No. The issue is mounting location. The truck cab acts like a deflector and it's injecting some of your transmitted signal back in the line and this is where the SWR issues come in to play. Having the antenna on the top-most of the vehicle allows for full 360 degree radiation with no reflect. You want the signal to go in one direction and not come back like pinging radar off of an object.

 

The top 4'8" or so of that is just the steel whip part of it, barely visible.

Good grounding is essential to good SWR. RF grounding is different than electric grounding. There is lots of information on here and around the web about it. SWR isn't everything. In theory, a 102" whip is the best performing mobile antenna you can buy, but the best SWR you can get with one, again, in theory, is 1.3:1. By contrast, my dummy load has a nearly perfect SWR, but is a terrible antenna. Most folks that try Firestik's end up switching to something else, I was just recommending the info on the website. I personally run Everhardt SOTT5 antennas (on my pickup and big truck both), which are top-loaded fiberglass antennas, and I would recommend them but they don't make them anymore. If you want a fiberglass antenna, a lot of folks recommend the Skip Shooter antennas, but I've never tried one. If you're going to mount your antenna anywhere other than the roof, a top-loaded fiberglass antenna would be a good choice because it will get the loading coil above the roof of the cab.

 

I am not a cb expert by any means, but I drive a chevrolet colorado pickup truck and I have a 5 foot firestik antenna attached to the front of the bed right behind the back window of the cab. It was really easy to do and it is a top loaded antenna. My SWR stays very low and I get out and recieve really well.

 

I have heard to many horror stories of perfectly acceptable radios being butchered by less than competent CB techs. The name of the shop is not relevent. Exactly who is doing the work is what counts. Any clown can call himself a CB radio tech. There is no license or training requirement.
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I just leave the radio in pristine stock condition. If I run a decent yet inexpensive antenna, okay coax and ground the antenna, I should be able to get out around 4 miles maybe more. While not the greatest, I can live with and be happy with that. There are people who swear by peaking and tuning. I am just not one of them.

 

I had a Wilson 2000 laying around. I purchased a magnet mount from a local truck stop. Installed the antenna in the mount, put it on the roof and adjusted the swr to were it needs to be using a radio chack swr meter that I had laying around. Plugged the antenna into my Connex 4300 HP and was talking across the county.

 

No problem....all you have to do is weld a tab on the roll bar on the very top in between the lights and run your antenna up there.

However I don't know if a 102 whip is going to work without being over the 13'6 limit. But you could run a smaller style antenna.

And if you think a 5 foot tall antenna on top of the roll bar is too big, have a look at the 102 I had in my truck....

 

This set up is alot like what i want to do expect i want dual fiberglass ones to attach to the toolbox (im only gonna run and tune one of em just for looks) but i can't find a good set of antennas. the only dual ones are from radio shack but i've had their antennas before and they suck. any advice would be appreciated. oh and i have a brand new cobra 29 ltd classic.