Cascadia antenna help

**rollingradios** · 06.16.2012

I was helping a customer today with his cascadia. He broke the top of his oem antenna and wanted it replaced inexpensively. It appeared to be a 3' fiberglass. He also wanted the new antenna to *look like* his other so it would match. Put a generic 3' up there. It showed too short int he tuning, and it was physically shorter than the original. The oem antenna is actually 3'6" long.

I tried several fiberglass antennas to see what would tune and what wouldn't. The 3 and 4' k40 superflex antennas tuned at 1.2. The 4' Firestik firefly tuned at 1.3. So I decided to use the Firestiks on both sides to keep uniform appearance. Guess what? Swr not is 2.0. WHY??? Ok, let's back up. Firestik tuned 1.3 when the oem antenna was on the other side. So I switched the pass side antenna to a generic 4' whip that looked the same as the Firestik. Swr is not 1.3 again.

It seems most non-adjustable antennas show short on this truck so a tuneable top load fiberglass will have to be your choice.
Just remember that the antenna on the other side (despite being for the FM not the CB) will affect swr on your driver's side CB antenna.

I know many cascadias have coax woes. If yours does not, hopefully this info will help you with antenna solutions.

**Outlaw CB** · 06.16.2012

Do not know if you have tried them or if you can even find any but the Astatic AST-36 on each side was made for that truck. I have been amazed at how well they work with tuning rings locked together about center of range on each. You can view it below but like everywhere I look lately especially for the 48 they show out of stock.

http://www.wearecb.com/store/astatic...na-p-2225.html

**mike5511** · 06.17.2012

I've occasionally had great SWR readings with the Cascadia factory stuff and also using a 4.5ft Francis on the driver's side, but you still won't get out very far or hear very well, at least on our trucks. The reason being the coax runs through at least 4 different junction points before getting to the radio.....too much signal loss!!

**double yellow** · 06.17.2012

Originally Posted by mike5511

I've occasionally had great SWR readings with the Cascadia factory stuff and also using a 4.5ft Francis on the driver's side, but you still won't get out very far or hear very well, at least on our trucks. The reason being the coax runs through at least 4 different junction points before getting to the radio.....too much signal loss!!

I have 1.125-1.25 SWR on my factory antenna/wiring cascadia & cobra 29 and I can receive transmissions from anywhere from 2-15 miles away. I can't get out more than .5-1 mile. Is it worth replacing the antenna without redoing the coax? I don't want to tear out a bunch of panels to run new coax on a company truck...

**mike5511** · 06.17.2012

Originally Posted by double yellow

I have 1.125-1.25 SWR on my factory antenna/wiring cascadia & cobra 29 and I can receive transmissions from anywhere from 2-15 miles away. I can't get out more than .5-1 mile. Is it worth replacing the antenna without redoing the coax? I don't want to tear out a bunch of panels to run new coax on a company truck...

I think the Francis is a better antenna than the factory one, and I believe it will do better and would be surprised if it didn't, but I haven't really tested that theory. I know a lot of our drivers have replaced the factory antennas and at least think it was an improvement. Given the fact that the factory antenna is a multi-use type antenna, I believe it to be an inferior antenna to an antenna like a Francis, Wilson, etc.

**wjm1129** · 06.22.2012

I slip seat in a Cascadia day cab and have been reading the forum about poor cb performance. I went to my local Pilot and got a vice grip mount, 2 4ft Truck Spec fiberglass antennas, a stud\SO239 connector and 18ft. of R\G 58 A\U coax. I drilled a hole in the vice grip mount next to the existing hole in the horizontal part of the antenna attatchment and put the studs and antennas on it to make a dipole. I wrapped the vice grip jaws with electrical tape to insulate the mount from any groundplane and attatched this rig to the air hose hanger bar on the back of the cab. Ran the coax through the passenger door jamb with a piece of tubing on the coax to prevent pinching. My swrs are 1.7 on ch 20, 1.5 on ch 40 and 1.8 on ch1. My radio is a barefoot Uniden PC 68LTW. This setup works very well for me and the range is bettter than i expected. I have heard base stations from 20 miles away and can transmit an average of 5-6 miles. I posted this to help anyone else out who would like to try something different to get the most out of their radio with this truck.

**mike5511** · 06.24.2012

Originally Posted by wjm1129

I slip seat in a Cascadia day cab and have been reading the forum about poor cb performance. I went to my local Pilot and got a vice grip mount, 2 4ft Truck Spec fiberglass antennas, a stud\SO239 connector and 18ft. of R\G 58 A\U coax. I drilled a hole in the vice grip mount next to the existing hole in the horizontal part of the antenna attatchment and put the studs and antennas on it to make a dipole. I wrapped the vice grip jaws with electrical tape to insulate the mount from any groundplane and attatched this rig to the air hose hanger bar on the back of the cab. Ran the coax through the passenger door jamb with a piece of tubing on the coax to prevent pinching. My swrs are 1.7 on ch 20, 1.5 on ch 40 and 1.8 on ch1. My radio is a barefoot Uniden PC 68LTW. This setup works very well for me and the range is bettter than i expected. I have heard base stations from 20 miles away and can transmit an average of 5-6 miles. I posted this to help anyone else out who would like to try something different to get the most out of their radio with this truck.

So take a few pictures and post them too!!!!!

**wjm1129** · 06.26.2012

Here are the pics of my dipole.

**wjm1129** · 09.22.2012

I have done a bit of upgrading. I discovered that the day cab has a fairly good ground plane. I made the dipole a single antenna and rerouted the coax so it isn't pinched in the door. SWR went down to 1.5 and lower. Got the itch for a better antenna and got a K40 trucker and RG8X coax. Mounted it on the back of the cab with the vice grips. The lowest SWR was 1.6. Decided to relocate the antenna to the top of the passenger door using a 4 bolt 90 degree mirror mount. Did some fine tuning and got swr down to 1.5 1.1 and 1.6, sounds like a good place to stop. I really like this antenna the recieve is very good and i get good radio checks on transmit.