Little Tweaks

What do you have the power wires run to? From the wiper comment I'm guessing a cigarette lighter socket? What type of vehicle? A better antenna will definitely work better if setup properly. Antenna is 95% of your setup and it needs to be properly setup. A $500 antenna is as junk as a $20 one if it's not setup right. The whole vehicle needs to be GROUND GROUND GROUND with the proper ground straps.

 

i am so glad none bothered to respond to me

 

Sorry post #15 wasn't sufficient,nor personally directive

 

Yep, useing the lighter for power. I have in a Freightliner. Does it matter where the antenna is on the mirrow. I have it close to the cab or should it be out ?

 

Until you upgrade a few things like your antenna and power supply"source" there is likely to be little improvement regardless of what you "do".

Moving the stick further out on the mirror will help your receive"a little",but the "fix" will cost a few more coins.

 

Well there is your first issue. Get that thing hard wired to the power leads by the fuse panel to start with. Depending on which Freightliner you have, you will need a lot of ground straps ran. The farther out on the mirror the antenna is will help also. If the door skins on that truck are not metal you will also need to run a ground strap from the antenna bracket to the nearest metal grounding point or think about getting a perch mount insted of using the mirror bracket. That should get you started on your way.

 

Thanks to Outerspacehillbilly and FriedTaterfor the advice. I had an outhouse cb tech giving me advice on how to put it in. Guess you could say it stinks. Always help to ask experts that knows what he is talking about. Y'all be safe out there.

 

Well going by your age, I would say that I have more then likely being doing this stuff since before you were born.


I have tried the "snakeoil" extra grounding and it does absolutly nothing unless you have a poor ground in the first place. Grounding the - wire is exactally the same as grounding the chassis of the radio. That is as long as the vehicle chassis is properly grounded to start with.

Also no need to run extra ground wires to the antenna bracket unless it has an improper ground to start with. If the antenna is mounted on a door mounted mirror then just make sure the door is properly grounded to start with. Usually a strap jumping from the Door to the door pillar is more then enough. Just make sure all the factory chassis grounds are in good condition and then nothing else will be needed.

I run a Pete 379 with no extra grounding other then a strap jumping across the door hinges and my radio works perfectly.

In the Volvo I had to do some paint scraping and surface cleaning to get a good ground to the mirror mounted antennas. Once that was in order then I had no problems with transmitting or receiving over many many miles. Hell I was reaching 20 plus miles with two Wilson 5 ft silverloads and a stock untuned cobra 29 on the Volvo.

Right now I am running a little bit of juice out of a Connex 4300HP into 2 wilson 5000s and have absolutly no issues and am only running straps across the door hinges of the 379. I get no alternator noise what so ever and can easily talk across the county and even skip as far as the solar flares will let me.

 

Rat ....

I agree overkill ....

Not that a good ground is a good thing but there comes a point of little return ....

 

Your right that if you have a good ground to start with you don't need an extra bunch of ground straps, however since most of the newer trucks are 95% plastic it is very hard to have a good ground without running a bunch of extra ground straps. I think that was pretty clear in the whole discussion above, if it wasn't someone might need a new prescription in their lenses.