Bearcat 880 issues

I have a 2015 freightliner cascadia just installed the bearcat 880 new cable and ant but im getting a fail on the ant and rf out if i go to factory cable i just get fail on ant

 

Can you give us more information like what kind of bracket, mount, coax, antenna, drivers side or passenger side. Did you check the swr ? The swr meter on my 880 is pretty darn accurate.

 

Is the radio stock or has it been aligned ( peak and tune) ? My 880 was pretty anemic out of the box only 3 watts carrier and about 60% modulation level, after tuneup 5 watts carrier 20 watts pep and 100% modulation. Obviously the antenna fail indicates that the swr is 3 or higher, and the rf fail indicates that the carrier or deadkey is below the legal 4 watts. I would get the radio checked on a bench and have it adjusted to legal specs and then check swr and address the antenna system.

 

That's a surface mounted radio as are many. Most shops will turn the power up a little from 4 watts but that's about it.....

 

My 880 sounds muffled. What would cause that?

 

What credible bit of information did you use to arrive at that conclusion, did you ask for a radio check and the responders told you that? Or is that what you are hearing through radio talkback? Is the radio stock or did you have it tuned and possibly the modulation limiter circuit was tampered with? Are you using the stock microphone or using a cheap noise canceling mic like a roadpro, from my experience, if anything the stock modulation on a 880 is low but crystal clear, have never heard one muffled, I would try a different mic and if same result something obviously wrong with radio.

 

I had same issues with my 980 I got the firestick still had issues til I did some research and learned if I took red Cap of it would work better so once I did it worked perfectly

 

Well thats a new one, its called a protective cap, thats all it does is protect top of antenna and keep water and moisture out dont really see how it affects the function of a radio, boy Firestick engineers must of had a liquid lunch that day at the local watering hole. I run dual Firesticks ( WITH REDS CAPS) on a T680 and my 980 is as crystal clear now as the day it came out of the box, but if you researched it and believe it to be true, rock on, all that matters is that it works for you.

 

I had just seen a few places where some had taken it off and it worked to get the swr reading lower and it did for me not saying it would work for everyone just helped for my situation

 

Appreciate it, that information may help someone on here who may be having the same issue, I do notice that similar type antennas like the K40 line of fiberglass sticks dont include a cap, so maybe it isnt necessary.