SWR

You might be surprised if you try it, as far as SWR goes. Sometimes the bumper mount works pretty good, do to the location of the mount in respect to the earth ground under it. Plus if the body of the camper isn’t metal, that sure helps. Just don’t forget the tennis ball.

 

Hell rabbi, I forgot the

 

Some have glued steel plate to roof. Or to underside where accessible.

 

Not that I'm a CB genius or anything, but. You would run into the same problem or not be able to send or receive more than a 1/2 mile. The antenna still has no ground.

 

I thought this was a funny thing to say, until I came across this guys RV video.

 

Just remember 2 and 440 don't need much ground play. While 11 meters requires about 9 feet.

leon
lc0iv

 

I was just surprised that someone would consider doing that to a very expensive RV. Guess it was a lot easier than tearing the ceiling apart and mounting the sheet metal under the roof.

 

They should have had copper foil lining the walls and ceiling before they installed the interior. Extra $$ but worth it.

 

OK I run a ham radio in my truck and a CB of course I am somewhat a expert at these things I was a broadcast engineer for 25 years so I know a little about this here is what I would do. First get a new coax jumper for a test go from the radio straight to the antenna bypass all the coax that is in the vehicle and see what that does for it.

Now as your transmitting grab the coax and move it around if the swr starts changing as you grab it or move it around you have a grounding issue. Craig in a earlier post is exactly right when he said electrical grounds are different from RF grounds they are different although one will affect the other a little.

Also try tilting the antenna as so to make it horizontal to the ground if the match got better you don't have enough ground plane for the antenna to match up. If this is the case here is what you need to do.

Go to Lowes or wherever got a roll of copper strap at least 1 and a half inches wide go from the antenna mount to the frame of the vehicle and MAKE sure that the power leads going to the CB that the ground cable of the power leads goes to ground straight to ground. In fact wire the radio right to the battery and see if that helps because a lot of prewired circuits in vehicles these days are floating a few ohms off the actual ground which for power works ok but RF is another story,

 

I will repeat this - the OP is using a no ground antenna mount which is using the outer part of the coax for the second half of the antenna system.