Hello,
I'm a delivery driver in a day cab (usually an International 2009. I have an out of town route that involves going out on Monday,staying in a Quality Inn overnight, coming back Tuesday. Same game Thursday/Friday. So I work about 44-45 hrs a week in 4 days. HOS shouldn't be a problem but I had a close call about a month ago. I checked in to the hotel with less than a half hour of available time left. The reason I ran late was an I 80 slowdown due to an accident. If only I had known before that last exit!!! Three miles in third gear. Trying to avoid going off route and staying in different hotel (which requires phone calls and authorization,blehh).
So I decide to get back into the CB. I grab my Uniden 68xl, attach my SWR and an old antenna with a magnetic base and hop in the truck. The truck appears prewired with a socket for an antenna built into the passenger mirror. I didn't use that. I plugged into the cigarette lighter, ran my coax behind my seat and out the door to the roof and started moving my antenna around,checking the meter. I couldn't get below 2.5 anywhere on the roof with the CB in the slot between visors. When I put the radio on the floor behind the shifter,less than 1.5. I road with it yesterday but wasn't happy,inconsistent performance. I thought about getting an antenna for the mirror mount,hoping it would be better. My roof has the XATA transmitter (to satellites?) in the middle and I don't know if that affects things. Waddya think? I'm not looking for tremendous performance 3 good miles would be fine. I think I can get that if I can tune that (fiberglass?) mirror mounted antenna. But are they tunable? Thanks,RJ
prewired truck, slip seating problem
Discussion in 'CB Radio Forum' started by omaharj, Aug 7, 2013.
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Just came over to CB section and noticed your thread w/ no replies in a week. My condolences. I'll respond, tho it may be all lies & bs.
I slip-seat also (hate it), in a KW T800 (love it). It has fiberglass roof, so my magnetic mount won't stick anywhere on it. I run a mirror-mount 5' Wilson top-loaded fiberglass antenna. It is tunable via a setscrew and final 3" rod tip on the end, however my peak swr requires that I run it without any rod tip (just the drilled brass antenna top).
In any case, be weary of preinstalled International mounts, as some run thru a multiplexer and have crappy cb cables, both which adds problems.
Your swr change by moving the radio is weird, tho I'm no cb expert. Be sure your doors are closed, and be away from close obstructions, when comparing swr readings. Many trucks, especially Internationals, are notorious for having bad grounds to the doors & mirrors. Check yours for grounding. A good ground plane for any antenna is key. -
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