Cobra 29LTD Black Chrome!

This is a great radio. I have several of them. Use a Wilson 1000 or 5000 with it. If you can, a 102" stainless steal 1-piece whip is best. With that SWR you have something wrong with either the connections, coax or antenna itself. An SWR that high means that something is seriously broken and you won't be able tune it until found and fixed.

 

What are you using for an antenna now?

3 is actually not real bad but I would not transmit with the swrs being that high. I have seen the needle pegged when there is a real big problem with antennas or coax.

I have been able to tune some antennas down from 3 to less then 1.5.

But most any wilson whip style antenna will do you just fine. With that setup would would not really need to go higher then the 2000 series Wilson whip.

I have also had some good performance out of the Wilson fiberglass antennas. I am currently running 2 5ft fgt series wilson antennas and they perform very well. The only issues I have had with these antennas is the main wire breaking off of the antenna base which sends the SWRs through the roof. Easily fixable and much more durable when properly fixed. Both the ones I am running now had to be resoldered and I have hit many trees etc with them and they are still working great.

 

One of my friends just bought one and we noticed her talkback is pretty quiet too. I don't know but I am guessing there is an internal adjustment to turn it up a little.

 

You're kidding, right? Something is physically wrong with either the coax, the wire, antenna or something. Also check your grounds. The fact that you even keyed that radio to find your SWR is that bad is bad for the radio and will be terminal if you continue to key it with SWR that high.

 

Hit a CB Shop and ask them to change out the resistor to a 100ohm one. That will sauce it up nice and loud. in fact you will want to buy one of the speakers with a volume control on it because it is going to be cooking pretty good. That is why I like the Galaxy model I have. It has a talkback knob on it so I can turn her down a tad. If I were where I could get everything out and here enough I would say stop by but I aint and caint!

Some shops are good enough that they CAN put a variable knob on there for you to be able to turn it up or down. Ask about that as it would be about the same price as buying a new speaker anyway.

Make sure the antenna mount is nice and clean. I always recommend to put a new one on any time they start to look like they are getting dirty. They are cheap enough and then you have no worries. Another trick is to put some clean silicone around the coax real good after installation.

Hope it helps....