102" whip vs top load for cascadia

Would a 102" whip work well on a 2019 cascadia? I've been experimenting with different antennas and I want the clearest receive I can get as well as a good 10 mile or so range.

I started with a sirio bull trucker 5000, and then after some reading (and a lot of static on receive) I decided to try out a couple different 4' top load antennas. The k40 was utterly crap, couldn't manage to get a workable swr rating after hacking together all kinds of configs to raise it higher so more of the antenna was above the cab. I actually had better SWR readings with a cheaper 4' "trucker spec" brand top load I bought at a TA.

If you're not familiar with the cascadia mounting options, they are really limited to either a bird perch or lower mirror adapter mount (not on top of the actual mirror, but using the bolts that a bird perch uses on the mirror assembly)

Height is not a concern for me as I maintain a pretty consistent route. I've read the thread about using the 7' skip shooter, but afaik they aren't in stock anywhere that ships, and they aren't in stock at the one place I could go to on my route (andersons radio supply off 85 in sc)

I understand that a tall enough top loaded antenna would put a good portion of the antenna above some of the cab, but would a 102" whip be an improvement?

Also I've not really grounded the antenna because I don't know what I'm doing in that regard. I have a few short braided grounding straps, and one 12" one that I wired to some metal inside the engine bay (close to teh firewall) but when I hook it up I get the red light on ANT on the cobra unit when txing and it throws my swr off. I know I need a good ground plane, but I don't quite understand how to get it, and reading about grounding a cb is a nebulous topic that usually brings up a very basic explanation of what a grounding plane is, but nothing contextually specific for my application. Other results simply tell me to daisy chain pieces of metal until you reach the frame, but that is not a grounding plane, but actually just a ground afaik. Mind you, a lot of online resources are specific to 4wheelers as well, so that makes it difficult to figure out exactly what I need to do. Is it possible this area could be giving me crappy rx?

I'm also not sure it isn't the radio itself. Its a walcott "tuned and peaked" ltd 29. What are the odds that they rushed it and did a half-assed job? Can tuning/peaking a radio to their supposed 30 watt output rating cause you to get very staticy rx's? Everyone sounds like garbage... --very noisy. I just want decent rx distance and clarity. I can hardly understand anyone. I generally keep the squelch at around the 9/10 o' clock position. Is this a high amount of noise? Anyone have an example of how a nice cb setup should sound?

I also wonder if maybe everyone has a crap setup, and its all on their end. Either way, I can hardly understand people and I question how far I'm receiving because of how rare it is to hear anyone ever use the cb.

 

Yeah, just not sure about this radio or my grounding setup. I opened the hood and as far as I can tell, the grounding strap from the mount is connected to metal that should be conductive to the frame, but I added another grounding strap lower in the engine bay to connect to a bit off the frame as well. I can tell no difference in noise output or any audible sign that anything changes when I disconnect or connect either strap.

My SWR meter reads 1.2 on 1 and 1.6 on 40. The thing that bothers me though, is that whenever I key down with dead air, the db meter jumps all the way up to the beginning of the red, like I have no head room whatsoever. I can't hear any noise on the talkback circuit but there is barely any swing when speaking. The speech sounds relatively clear on talkback, I can hear audible echo, etc. I toyed around with the modulation pot (vr4) and lowered it and it just lowered the needle a bit, with still no real major swing, so I cranked it back all the way up and then set it back just a hair like it was.

Ordered a skip shooter as well as a new untouched radio. Maybe the tech at walcott biffed the peak and tune, or perhaps the radio meters are just off completely. Despite my eagerness to try the skip shooter, I don't think its the antenna. My ant light comes on very lightly when speaking, but I can reduce/eliminate that altogether simply by lowering my dynamike to the point where the needle doesn't swing slightly into the red from dead keying to speaking. That very minimal swing and the really high dead key output on the meter have me thinking this thing is cranked up way too high in some way or another, but I don't know enough about what they did to it to know if that is normal or not when a radio is pushed and tuned up as much as this was advertised to have been.

 

Thanks! For the external speaker I'm using a wilson -> Wilson Electronics 305600 Black Steel CB External Speaker

I was messing around with a noise filter that goes inline between the antenna and the radio, but I noticed it was not sensitive enough to distinguish between some radio signals and the actual noise so some people were being reduced in volume when trying to speak. The likely reason for this, is most people I hear sound very scratchy... --their tx's are very noisy to begin with. So thats basically what I'm trying to fix.

As for the stock radio I ordered, it is this one: Amazon.com: Texas Ranger TRE-797 Professional 40 Channel AM/SSB Mobile CB Radio: Automotive

 

Yeah, I'm super excited to try it. Theres a really in depth video on it here Exclusive New out of the Box Texas Ranger TRE-797 AM and SSB 40 Channel CB Radio. - YouTube

I've only ever used 29s so it will be interesting to try something different. Couldn't find a galaxy and I like the simple, clean interface of this one which is similar to the 29

Yeah, I'm using an external SWR meter, but its an el-cheapo one so being that I'm a cb newbie I wasn't sure which I should really trust. Good to know the radio meters are generally off and that I should trust the external one instead.

And I'll probably be avoiding the peak and tune from here on out. I've learned from this that its probably better to buy stock and if its not good enough THEN you can look into modifying it to suit your needs. I'm probably savvy enough to figure out some of the basic mods if I need to in the future, but being that I just want a good clean rx/tx with decent range I probably won't need much more than what I can get stock.

Thanks for linking the site, I'll check it out, and yeah I've had a glance through that thread and a few others here that are specific to cascadias. Gonna try that 7' skip shooter

 

This is the source of my confusion. Am I still trying to get a ground from the frame when doing this? Or am I just trying to connect as much mass of metal to the antenna as possible? Right now I have a 12" strap going from the mount to a bolt under the panel that covers the door hinges. This bolt is on a big black piece of metal just under the windshield that spans all the way to the other side of the truck and connects to the fire wall... --the fire wall appears to be some kind of aluminum but I may be wrong. There are tons of other metal bits connected to it, however, just about everything I see looks painted or coated with something.

I've got 5 6" straps to work with, but can get more.

Also, thanks for taking the time to explain your setup. It seems you prefer the 102" whip, but your setup probably a LOT more solid than mine. I have much more weaker links in my chain meaning I probably got a lot more work to do to do before I would be able to start comparing the 102 vs the skip shooter