help with setup

im an 88m (truck driver) for the army. yes im licensed on a 915 (the armys auto tranny rig), but i mostly drive hemmits, 1115 and 1151 humvees, the new mraps, and lmtvs.

im a ''do it your selfer'', but i know nothing about cbs, so i went to a shop. i insisted on helping the installer, so i could learn from him. worked out for me because hes prior service and we got along..

anyways, to keep it short..

i bought a ...
used cobra 29ltd. (guy said it was already max tuned)
wilson 1000 magnet mount antenna. (supposedly comes pretuned)
wilson short load adapter


i have the rig mounted under the dash in the middle.

the coax is ran along the pass side, under the carpet, and up and out of the back door of the suburban.

the antenna is mounted in the middle of the rear of the roof. i was told this would give me good signal to the front and sides, but not as good to the rear.

now, heres the nitty gritty.

the thing works. i tx and rx fine (from a newbies prospective).. but of course i want to make sure this thing is smoothe....

after getting home and downloading the instruction manual for the cobra 29, i see that i can check the swr on the radio, and while not being the most accurate, will give me somewhat of a baseline of where im at.

heres the problem...

when i switch the radio to calibrate, put it on channel 20, then key the mike, i can tune up the swr dial all the way, but it wont get the meter all the way to the little part where it says ''CAL'' and has an arrow. it only goes up to the beginning of the red.

the manual says this is where you have to put it to get an accurate reading of the swr...

so i know i can go to radio shack and get a swr meter,

but does this mean my meter on the radio is broken, and the rf meter reading is also inaccurate?

or does it mean something else?

also, when i talk into the mic, the ant light goes red. when i key up its fine, but when i talk it goes red. the install guy said something about it not being reset when they tuned it, and that as long as it doesnt go red as soon as i key its ok.

so anyone have any ideas??

i dont really trust these guys now, and the closest cb shop to me, as far as i know, is about 80 miles away. im near magnolia tx.

the rig seems to work fine. i get out ok and recieve fine.. as far as i can tell, but im a newbie so what i think is fine might be b.s. to someone else.

thanks.

any critiques on my setup are welome.
sorry for the long read

 

well,

called the cb shop i got it from to ask about the swr meter... he said it was tuned and peaked to be ran safely with an amp, so the meter is off... and not to worry about it. said come in tomorrow and he would show me how many amps this things at... so im looking foward to that

also said he would test the swr himself for free... said might be a bad antenna.

this place is about 30 mins away, so i swung by a ham shop close to the house today... he hooked up a meter and said it seems that the antenna is shorted out, or has a bad connection...

so i called the cb shop and asked em about it, they said theyll check it out and replace the antenna free if needed.....

i guess wilson 1000s arent all theyre cracked up to be...quality wise....

we will see. im going in tomorrow am.. ill update..

 

alright went to the cb shop.. they tested the swr for the antenna.. waaay off. it was the 3ft wilson stinger. think the coil was bad.

they put the big whip that came with the wilson 1000 on it.. and yep, swr was 1.4 on the cobra built in meter, and 1.8 on the big pro meter they had there...

also they took out the cb and recalibrated the meter since im not running a linear... and also they hooked it up to a watt meter..

im pushing 35 watts.... of course i had them undo the peak and tweak so i could abide by the fcc mandated 4 watt max limit. i would never tx on a rig over 4 watts..


got awesome rx and tx on the way home from the shop.

im thinking about leaving the longer whip on there, although they did order me a new 3ft wilson stinger, as they didnt have another one in stock.

guy parked at a krogers 8 miles away on the way home told me to get out of his sleeper cab, and didnt believe me when i told him i was on a 29ltd barefoot with a crappy diesel power mic 6 miles away heading in the opp. direction at 70mph.

im happy with the setup.

 

lol... yeah....wish i would have kept it peaked at 35... lol

i guess i should have put more sarcasm into my origional post that i would never tx on a rig with more than 4w... i forget you have to try hard to potray sarcasm on the interweb

but ya hopefully someone searching on some problems on their cb will find my post and get some ideas