2016 freightliner cascadia - newbie needs help w/ antenna

No you're right. This antenna does flop around a lot and I don't see it being a long term solution unless I do something to brace it. I'm just not big on the idea of having a piece of plexiglass going from the mirror to the antenna.

Ideally I would spend some time and rerun good coax to the mounts on the side (it's my assigned truck) but it looks like a pretty intensive project.

 

Running new coax would be labor intensive, plus you would have to use shorter antennas....and everybody knows, "longer is better!"
You wouldn't need much for a brace if you were mounting it permanent. I just cobbled mine together from what I had laying around. I neater brace would be to cut a dogbone shaped piece out of a cutting board (usually about 3/8" thick) and drill a hole for the antenna and then a smaller one for a bolt on the mirror end. You could make it look nicer that the piece of Lexan I used..

 

You will probably want to run a separate ground. You can tell when you adjust the squelch. If the static breaks the squelch when you take your hand away from the radio you need a better ground.

 

I don't run any extra ground wires using the mirror bracket. It wouldn't hurt if you did right though.

 

Ok I have an issue that I never ran into before.
2016 Freightliner Cascadia Day Cab. it is only 2 weeks old.


I am running a Cobra 29 Harley Edition Radio That DTB in Carlisle, Pa has made sure that it was good.
I am using 18' of Wilson Coax
Mirror Mount (Made by Wilson)
Wilson T-2000 Antenna.

Here is where the issue lies. I can not get the SWR down below 2.5 All equipment used is Brand new and swapped back and forth with different coax and different antenna used multiple meters to check SWR.
A ground is run from the frame to the mount. I have a ground every where I check. if I have the door cracked just so it rests against the hook not closed but not open just pushed shut. My SWR will remain at 1.4. the minute that I close the door the SWR proceed to go back up. if I open the door they go up. But I can not leave the door unlatched while driving down the road. And the COAX is NOT run thru the door. it is run through the firewall. I have spent approximately 30 total hours hooking things back up and trying different things. and have now exhausted every avenue of my limited knowledge with no success. I can receive a lot but I can not transmit more than two miles without my transmission ending dead. I have for 20 years used the Wilson antenna line with not one issue on getting the SWR set to where I needed. But now at this point I am out of time and options. Can someone please help as I am at my witts end.
No I can not take the truck to a cb shop as I do not own the truck and I never run by a trusted CB shop and I am paid hourly so when I am in the truck I am getting paid. So I can not stop while in the truck. All my testing has been done in the yard on my own time.
No I can not drill anything as it is a leased truck and my boss would flip. It is his equipment
And during testing. I took a Wilson magnet mount antenna placed it on the frame behind the catwalk. the SWR were at 1.2 with a magnet mount placed on the rear frame. Which since I haul a trailer that sure wont work it was just a test to see if the SWR would be low Behind the cab with a magnet mount on the frame.

 

It was mentioned in this thread http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...antenna-solutions.249124/page-13#post-5018238 that a Wilson antenna will get you poor results on a Cascadia.......It was also mentioned what antenna works best. RRS44 shows a mount that follows the same principle. You have to get the antenna load up as high as you can for best results. Thus a top loaded 7' fiberglass whip performs the best...and is still under 13'6".

 

No power problems with mine. Says it draws up to 30 amps had a volt meter to test it

 

Where do you buy those RP?

 

Unfortunately, this quoted post (many are similar, not singling out FS613) has *two* myths in it: the one he mentioned about 18-foot feedlines (or substitute 9 feet, 12 feet, or any fractional wavelength chunk of coax -- they're very frequency sensitive, and velocity factor of the coax, and even then only at one specific frequency; and the old saw about not coiling up spare coax because it "will cause a choke" -- several posts even testify to a coaxial choke being a detriment to the radio. For one thing, merely coiling coax doesn't make a choke..... here, please take a couple of minutes to read a post I put in awhile back about this very topic:
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...eed-a-good-clean-powerful-radio.273659/page-8

The only thing to avoid when installing coax is not bend it tighter than its "minimum turning radius", i.e., how tightly the coax can bend before it deforms its internal dimensions and skews the characteristic impedance.

<whew!> I think my fingers are smoking now....
73