New to the CB thing, need some friendly advice!!

4 feet won't cut it. 6 may work decent, but 7 is going to be the best. Don't waste your time with duals.

Nope. It's just the wrong antenna for the truck. Those antennas have to be mounted high.

 

Your best way is to stop driving that ugly ### orangr schneider truck. Lol. Jk well good forum so far hopefully can find something out and we can get your stuff fixed cause it was interesting last time we were at the loves and it looked grounded but it didn't ground until i put my hand on the bottom of the antenna. Keep up the good suggestions.

 

When your SWR [standing wave ratio] is a reading of 3 or higher measured on an external meter, you most likely have an antenna ground plane issue. What you need to do is called BONDING. Basically, what you want to do is interconnect the large metal components of the vehicle into one really large metal antenna ground plane [or counterpoise as some prefer to call it] for RF [radio frequency] purposes. This has nothing to do with electrical grounding.
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.You use a short ground strap from the antenna mount to the door. Then another short ground strap from the door to the truck cab frame. Finally, a short ground strap from the truck cab frame to the truck chassis. Make sure the points you connect the ground straps to are shiny metal and not painted. Paint is an insulator not a conductor.
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.Do not run a wire from the antenna mount to the truck chassis or battery because that will act like an additional antenna. Remember, the purpose is to use short ground straps to interconnect large metal components into one large antenna ground plane. Search for "Bonding" or "antenna ground plane" in this forum for more specific information.

 

After reading the response so far, I tend to side with Jesse on this. Probablt a bad connector, or coax cable, you may need to tune the antenna, 3 nd over indicates a short or open connection.
By the way the SWR meter built into a cobra that has not been open tend to be very accurate. You do not need to go buy a extranal meter.

 

I'll still say a ground problem

 

As far as 1 or 2 (phased antennas) depends on the trailers you pull, tall vans block signal tankers do not.

There are posters here that have no idea at all of what there talking about.

 

Remember Frightliner cabs are made of alumni with steel reinforcements.
High iron content steel is best for an antenna magnet mount ground but will rust like anything.
You need to run ground wire from the mirror to the door, door to the body, body to the frame, frame to the negative battery cable.

 

Ive been trying to tell them that been doing cbs in trucks for 20 years swrs are high over 3 across the board almost always is a ground problem unless like jesse said bad connector but percentages are its a grounding issue.

 

Re-reading the thread, this sounds like the problem I used to have on my ProStar, which ended up being rectified by something rather silly.

Which brings me to a question: does your Cascadia have the chrome mirrors or the black mirrors?

Also: the door should have a good electrical ground already. For RF ground, try using counterpoise (basically creating a dipole)



This works very well for me.