How can I get better reception on my CB radio?

I am a company driver for a mega. My company won't let me install my own antenna on my truck. I have to use the lousy factory antenna that is built into the interior of my truck. I have a Cobra 29 LTD Classic CB radio.

When I am driving down a highway, I seem to only be able to hear and communicate with drivers with CB radios within about 300 yards of my truck, and even when I can hear another driver, everything is fairly muffled.

Here is a photograph of the front of my CB radio so you can see all the various dials and switches on my CB radio:



Is there any way I could adjust the dials and switches to get better reception on my CB radio?

 

What does "Key the mic" mean? Does key the mic just mean press the "talk" button on the mic down? If so, do i need to speak into the mic when i do this?

 

But after I do this, shouldn't i move the channel back to channel 19?

 

Done. I calibrated it. I'll find out how much this improved reception when i get back on the highway.

I now have the RF/SWR/CAL switch on SWR. However, before I calibrated it, the RF/SWR/CAL switch was always on RF. Do you think how i used to have the switch on RF might have been part of my problem?

 

No. I did not read the directions. I threw the directions away several months ago.

By the way, do you notice that what you wrote contradicts what dave wrote?