2012 Cascadia Woes

I went to T.J's cb shop off of I95 ex 104 in Virginia to have them install my antenna (Monkey Made long shaft) and run coax. We were going to use the CAS1 mirror bracket, but he could not get a SWR below 3 (that was the best...most readings were in the 5-7 range.) What we tried:

Tilting the antenna
Changing out the antenna with 3 others. A Francis, a Hustler, and a Wilson 2000.
Replaced coax
Replaced the CAS1 bracket, and the mount
Mounted to both drivers and passenger side
Tried a ground plane
Ran a ground strap to several grounds...including straight to the block.

At First we thought it might be a reflection issue because he could place his hand between the coil and the cab and the swr's would go down. Well we debunked that theory when we tried the top loaded Francis and were still getting very high swr's.

The only thing we didn't swap out were the mounting bolts that hold the mirror in. One thing that I saw him doing that I have never seen done before was that he put a lock washer between the top half of the mounting stud and the plastic washer. I commented about it, but he said he always does that and never has issues. We spent almost 2 hours trying to figure it out, but had no luck.

I need to figure this out. Temporarily, I have my 65w Mirage running through the stock system. With that power, I'm going to end up frying the multiplexor.

Any thoughts would be very greatly appreciated

 

I don't own the trailer, and I'm leasing the truck. The CAS1 mirror bracket was supposed to be the solution to the Cascadia grounding problems, but either the '12 Cascadia mirror mount is different (i.e: nylon nuts) or the installer wasn't doing something right. I don't know.

Here is the CAS1 mount:


I have seen other Cascadias running them, so I know it can be done. I guess I will have to find another shop.