Not Putting out enough

[DirtyD]

I tried a friends antenna and it worked fine
both are "CB antennas"
and i used my antenna on a friends cb once and it got grerat reception i could hear someone on almost every channel
i went to the shop and they don't repair them
"you can buy a new one for what it costs to repair it"
they say
but i don't believe it
i really like this radio
maybe i will jsut abuy a similar one

[DirtyD]

So I bought a new radio
it's the same thing pretty much
it just has a compass on it
and i got a lil will antenna
i'll let you know how it goes.
if i tune the antenna can i expect to get at least 5miles out of this rig?

[BUZZSAW]

I would think so if the propagation (white noise is low) like at night or early morning . Sometimes during daylight hours when the skip is rollin' you can't talk much over a mile even w/ lots of POWER !

[DirtyD]

How would i get the power high?

[Roadkill48]

If you have a short ant. you want talk or hear very far, I have a short astatic ant. on my dodge and a Wilson 2000 on my mack truck and with the same radio i can hear and talk easy six miles on wilson2000 ant and a mile at best on astatic ant. Of course thats with a SWR of 1.5 or less on both setups.

[DirtyD]

Just an update
i got a new radioshack radio
it's a step up, but i measured it with my watt meter and it's still only putting out 2 watts
i'm on the hunt for a CB shop near me to peak it out and what not
i also got a lil wil, i love this antenna i can get a pretty good range with it
i can't wait to see what it will get with more power
the SWR on channel 1 is very very very low
but 40 is really high so i keep it in the low channels (under 20)
i tried cutting off a small bit of the antenna but i can't find anything to cut it.
and suggestions?
thanks for all your help guys

[BobC]

Just a note, a 1/4 wave antenna for cb is about 9' long. All other antennas are electrically shortened to act like a 1/4 wave in a shorter length. It's a trade-off between performance & practicality.

Another note, if it's showing only 2 watts, I'd suspect the meter might not be accurate or your not giving it over 12.5 volts.

What is hi on 40?
Isn't there a set screw or two to loosen so you can vary the whip length?

[k7aab]

A true power reading can only been made by a good calibrated watt meter such as Bird wattmeter and transmitting into a dummy load , a true 50 ohm termination. A good cb will key at 2-3 watts and modulate up to 4-6 watts when you talk. by FCC rules a cb tramsmitter from the manufacturer can only transmit up to 4 watts at peak when you modulate (talk). This isnt bad however since alot about being "heard" is actually in the audio quality, if a transmitter keys up at 2 watts but modulates up to 4 or 5 watts this tells me that this has a superb audio quality. I wouldask people how your audio quality is before I worry about the 2 watts. If your swr is good to the antenna than more than likely you will be fine. As far as you talk is as good as the person you are talking too's radio set up and antenna. Flat land you may talk 30 miles, trees buildings and hills maybe 5 miles. All depends.

[DirtyD]

I got a converter to run the power out of my ciggarette lighter
so i am not usre how much power that is getting to it.
the screw is only to make the antenna longer which i think is for when the swr is higher on 1 than 40 which isn't my case.