Advice cb range limited to 2 miles

Welcome to the world of composite-body trucks. Was much easier to establish a good ground plane for the antenna system with metal body trucks. (Ground plane, RF ground, and DC ground are all terms in use. Not the same, but there’s overlap).

Sounds like nice equipment.

The latest Cascadia is subject of several current threads. I have one with “2017 Antenna Mount” in title, and another from just today has a Magnetic & NGP in title.

The antenna system is everything. If that’s good a garage sale CB will perform. If it’s poor, NASA couldn’t get out on it.

 

From what you are describing it sounds like the antenna system is setup right and there is nothing to fix. It may just be that stations that are 5,10 or 15 miles away are just not replying or cant reply because of their less than perfect setup. When I was in a 2016 Cascadia I had the identical setup with a Bearcat 980 radio which has a carrier of 4 watts and pep to 12 watts, compared to your Stryker which has 4 times the power, and I routinely was able to transmit and receive 10+ miles, so there is no reason you shouldnt be able to easily have a range of 10+ miles. The long distance stations you are hearing is called skip and is an atmospheric condition that allows cb transmissions to travel 500 to 3000 miles. Next time you hear another station asking for a radio check reply back to them and ask for their 20 ( location) and try to figure out distance between you and that station, but from what Im reading in your post I cant really see anything that needs to be fixed.

 

If you sound good and you can hear good radio is fine.

For more range you're going to need to upgrade the antenna system. Quite a few people here have had good results with some of the 7' fiberglass antenna as well as the stryker antenna.

I've gotten 5+ miles in the hills with a wilson 2k that was properly grounded.

 

The distances achievable by radio communications equipment is a topic of great interest and great frustration. There are so many variables involved, especially with a mobile radio setup that is in constant motion over constant terrain change, that it is difficult (a colossal understatement) for anyone to expect any particular range at any particular time.

Throw into the mix those radio operators who cherry-pick (and, oh-the-horror, even exaggerate) their reported results in terms of distance, and who manage to make it sound like others should be achieving as much distance or there must be something wrong with the others' equipment, and you have a situation fraught with frustration.

It does make for great debate and sells a lot of equipment, however.

 

I'd like to know where they are powering the radio from (fuse box/battery). You should have 10ga. Cable all the way to the battery depending on how far your batteries are from the radio.

I had 12ga. Wire from my batteries now I run 8ga. Cable from my batteries to the Galaxy harness. I have doubled my power output just by using the larger power cable. The stock Galaxy harness is 10ga.

If that's not it you may need to ground the antenna mount to the firewall.

 

Valid points you raise, however if one is not able to consistantly Tx and Rx 10+ miles with a dual final radio capable of a 14 watt carrier and pep to 55+ watts then it really isnt necessary to purchase one and just use basic 4 watt radio and be content with 5 to 10 miles.

 

Antenna is where I would start...Not sure you said what length the antenna is, but "taller the better" when it comes to CB Antenna's...Me personally, I only run Predator 10K antenna's, mainly because of all the antenna's I have used over the years (1973-to date) I have yet to find one that works any better. There are several different versions of the Predator's so that they can be ran on just about any application so if there is a over-all height issue Predator should have a antenna that will work, although IMO the best one is the original single coil 10K...Problem with it tho if your mounting it on a mirror bracket, the thing is about 7' tall...The (SW) dual coil 10K tunes at around 4.5 to 5'.

As for grounding doors and the radios case, usually you do that to try and get rid of engine noises, not to boost signal...If your SWR is low (1.1 to 1.5 then I doubt the antenna needs any further grounding or SWR would be much higher)

In some cases, 2 miles on a CB is not too bad, if the channels are just jammed with traffic, but on a clear day with little noise you should be able to get out at least double that with just a regular 4w radio...

As for your radio, I had one of the first generation Stryker 440's, which is basically the same as the one you have only it only had one color for the lights "blue"...Great radio.

Two things I would do to be able to contact those stations you hear that are hundreds of miles out, or even 10-20 miles out, is change antenna's to one that is taller (not shorter than 5') and install a Amp that is rated 300-400w's. (4-pill) something like the Texas Star 350 or 500V would be perfect...Or check out some of the custom amps like XForce, Davemade, Fat Boy(if you can find one)...

Just to give you some idea of what a amp can do, in my Toyota Tacoma I run a little Uniden 520xl radio that keys 2w's and only swings to about 5w's...I have a Predator 10K single coil antenna mounted on a riser (pole) in the back of the truck which puts the antenna mount even with my roof top...I also have a 1x2 amp hooked up, so that little Uniden radio is putting out over 300w's...I can talk to some of my buddys with this set-up over 25 miles away on channel 19 in the late afternoons on my way home from work with no problems. (they are on their base's on the other side of town) I can also get my name called in DX with the same set-up

Uniden 520xl is just a small $50 radio...similar to a Cobra 19...But when you hear it, you wouldn't know it, plus it has as good of a receive as just about any other radio I have had at triple that price. (or more)

Point is, I highly doubt there's anything wrong with the radio you have, just need a different antenna and a amp.

 

You want the top of your antenna as high as you can get it. On a Cascadia, a seven footer is no problem if you are using the mirror mount that most all are using for the Cascadia. I used the SkipShooter. I've never used a 10K. Thing to remember about a high dollar antenna on a Cascadia is it can be removed standing flat footed on the ground, i.e. too easy to steal.