Peak & Tune?

Again to each his own. I don't need to have a radio that'll talk out 6 miles and only receive from 3.

 

That's why you talk to other people who can talk as far as you.

 

Yeah like 26 miles out off a 100 watt amp??

 

I've done that!

 

Deleted. Ignorance isn't worth starting a fight.

 

No need to delete. Your opinion is just that yours. As mine is mine. But a few of y'all can't seem to stand it if someone else posts there views. You must spend your weekends with Wonder boy.

 

No, the problem is you seem to act like 26 miles is somehow not doable with a 100 watt carrier and comment like I'm full of crap.

 

I've also did it with less. It's quite doable with 100 watts.

 

With the correct antenna, an SWR at or less than 1.5:1, no hills or buildings or other obstructions, a stock cobra 29 can talk more than 1-2 miles.

I personally have talked 10-14 miles on nothing more than stock 4 watt Cobra 21 that was built in '79. I also had a 102 whip mounted in the bed of my pick up truck. And I was sitting in Missouri.

Now for a semi truck obviously a 102 is a bit too tall, the point I was trying to make is the antenna is what makes the radio. The coax is next. You also want a low SWR of 1.5:1 or less.

Terrain also plays a role in range. Buildings, trees, hills, mountains, etc. all suck up HF. You can talk farther in the flat lands of Kansas than you can in the hills of Kentucky on your CB.

Ever wonder why radio station towers are so tall yet you can hear the station for 30 + miles? Because they "see" over everything. Yes the power does help, but first and foremost, the further your antenna can "see", the further it can send and receive signals.

So if you're only getting 1-2 miles on a stock Cobra 29, first you need to verify the SWR is low, then look into your antenna height (run the best/tallest for CB you can) and then look into the coax (again run the best you can).

HTH

 

Sorry this reply is late, but I've only just gotten back to my home after several months out of state for a serious injury.
Colorato -- what you describe in the above quote is oft times referred to as an "alligator station" -- all mouth, no ears. (The converse is a "bunny rabbit station": all ears, no mouth.)
Gotta remember that doubling your output power doesn't double your range, nor any other such ratio. I've got a power/height/range calculator here somewhere, I'll post the link when I find it. I live in moderately hilly terrain in the North Carolina piedmont. With my stock Cobra 25, talking to a base station, I can get about 12 miles with the 2-ft Barjan/Diesel fibreglas antenna mounted in the center of the roof of my minivan, about 14-15 with the 4-ft version of the same, and between 15-20 with a 102" whip with spring mounted high on the left rear quarter panel, depending upon the direction I'm facing (the strongest lobe is diagonally across & out the passenger-side A-pillar).
When I say it's "stock", I mean that I haven't added any parts, clipped the limiter, etc. However, when I got it, I tested the transmit and receive specs on my service bench (NIST-traceable service monitor, spectrum analyzer, etc.) I popped the covers, and two simple adjustments quadrupled the receive sensitivity, meaning I went from needing 2 microvolts of signal for usable receive to needing just 0.7 microvolts. It apparently shipped from the factory being just "kinda close" to correctly aligned, maybe enough to pass a simple go/no-go tester. Output power was 3.6 watts deadkey, and 4.8 watts with average voice levels into the mic. I *did* change to a noise cancelling mic, and had to increase the mic gain pot inside just a bit to bring the modulation up while holding the mic properly (rubber lip guard, facing my mouth instead of talking across the windscreen). And by leaving the modulated transmit signal at that ratio to the dead carrier, I was able to keep the signal clean as the proverbial whistle on the spectrum analyzer. It also makes it so that people listening to me don't have to keep fiddling with their squelch knobs, as even in-between syllables, my carrier holds their squelch circuits open. Dunno why lots of folks seem lotsa "swing" is a good thing; overmodulation takes up lots of space on the band and can be hard to listen to.
If I *did* however, take my modest RM KL-203 off my HF radio and put it on my CB, it wouldn't help my receive sensitivity unless I had the kind with a pre-amp, and it would help me be heard by a slight margin if I was right at the fringe of my transmit range to someone who had a lot of local noise, but then I'd have to turn down the deadkey power on the CB so as not to overdrive the amp and burn it up (RM's specs call for a much lower input level).
So in my case, a quick T&P did help my radio, because the increase in receiver sensitivity was the equivalent to adding a much more efficient antenna, and made the radio capable of talking about as far as it can hear.
Remember, too, when you're talking to someone coming towards you on the road, and can make contact at, say, 10 miles out, you'll be alongside him/her in about 5 minutes, and out of range in another five if everyone is on a clear roadway. Putting on a 150-watt amp, if he doesn't have one too, means he'll hear you for another couple of minutes after you can no longer hear him.
I don't know how many shops do what I do, but even a new radio out of the box gets "benched" and checked, and adjusted if necessary, before it goes out my door. As long as the service gear is warmed up & stable, it only realistically takes a few minutes to check everything, and even add heat sink grease to the chassis side of the mica insulators on the finals in any of the Cobras sold in the past 10 years (they leave it off at the factory).
The best warranty is the one that doesn't get exercised because the equipment runs right in the first place.
Again, sorry for the late post in this thread, but I've just gotten back to town.
Cheers,
-- Handlebar --
diddly dahdidah