CB issues in an International Pro Star truck

The coax cable will be marked "belden" the chrome end will say "amphenol"

 

I drive a 2012 prostar, I use a cobra 29 lx with a wilson 2000, had my radio tuned and I have pretty good reception and transmission from it, I have heard other drivers complain about the very issue that you stated.

 

Rg 58. They splice them. They co-phase them without using the same length coax. To them SWR is plural...

 

You have to throw away the factory coax and antennas they are garbage get some mini 8 coax and a good antenna

 

i replaced stock with 4.5 francis as well. i even went as far as replacing coax with a true co phase coax. had to tear truck apart to do it!!! still have a ground issue with right side mirror. im gonna put my 10 k on the back bar with a ground strap to to frame. hope it works!!!!

 

What's involved in replacing stock coax in a Prostar? What needs to be disassembled and about how long did it take? This is obviously my next step getting good signal in my 2011 Prostar and a step-by-step would be hugely appreciated.
Frank

 

I've never replaced a coax in a Pro Star. I just run my own from the radio thru the door to the antenna. I slip seat so all my installs are temporary.

Ref. your question: Just start at one end and follow it to the other is the way I would go about it.

 

All modern CBs, and most "vintage" ones as well, put a small diode across the power leads just inside the radio, set "backwards" so that under normal conditions it's ignored. But when someone hooks up the power backwards, the little diode conducts and shorts out, making the fuse in the CB's power lead (on the outside of the radio, the one that came with the radio) blow. As long as the user doesn't replace the stock 2.5 or 3 amp fuse with bigger and bigger fuses until he finds one that *doesn't* blow, then everything is good. He takes the radio to his shop, tells the tech what happened, and the tech opens up the radio and replaces the inexpensive (I mean like 15 cents) protection diode, tests to make sure the radio is still happy, and hands the radio back to the owner, with the strict instruction to never put in a bigger fuse than the one that came with the radio.
So that's probably all that's wrong with your Uniden. What happens when people keep using bigger and bigger fuses is that, at some point, a big expensive component inside the radio, or a bunch of circuit traces on the circuit board itself, melt down to protect the 25 or 30 amp fuse. But as long as you stopped when the stock fuse blew, you've got an inexpensive fix on your hands. Even though the part is less than a dollar, remember that some shop is still going to have to open it up, put it in, and test the radio. And part of what the shop's minimum charge is for is to cover his/her having the part on hand and knowing where & how to use it, and to make sure there's nothing else wrong, so you might still have to pay a couple of bucks unless you want to fix it yourself.
As for the Uniden having supposed been tuned to improve the transmit and receive range to 5 miles plus, the operative word there is "supposedly". Most stock CBs come out of the box nominally meeting the specs that they're required to be able to satisfy the FCC's specs, and any tech who's familiar with a specific AM radio can make it do what it's supposed to in 5 minutes, both transmit and receive. There's no advantage to strangling a 4 or 5 watt radio into putting out 6 watts; all it will do is shorten the life of the components, but it sure won't talk any farther. And aside from replacing one or two components in some receivers, there's little that can be done to increase their useful sensitivity without bringing up their noise level, and digital signal processing is beyond the cost most people will pay to put into a CB rig, I believe.
IMHO, the best $$ to be spent on a mobile CB installation is in the antenna installation, by ensuring there's an adequate RF counterpoise for the active antenna element to work against, and suppressing vehicular noises at their source. Money spent on "tweaks and peaks" at the time of purchase of a radio might better be spent on a more effecient antenna system, which will aid reception as well as transmission.
Handlebar

 

hey i tried hookn up my radio in the prostar today and i saw the factory power wires one white one brown i think. I think i reversed polarity and got a spark. didnt blow the fuse since i had to big a fuse in theere whoooopss.. i smell a lil burntness in the radio. im assuming a diode fried. anyways imma take it apart and soilder in a new diode. back to the factory wiring.... is the white wire ground or power?

 

Consider yourself lucky if you only burned a diode. When I managed to do that, I burned the PC board trace as well.