Modern tractor and factory fitted cb Antenna

I recently got moved into a cascadia. It came with those fm/satellite/cb antenna, that was mounted on the roof. My cb was throwing antenna problem light with the stock one. I bought a mount and the predator 10k and it got alittle better. I had to move the predator forward to get better swr. I think the stock antenna mess up my cb. Tomorrow I'm installing a new cb and testing it again

 

Wish I had seen this post sooner as I just pulled everything out, waiting on another truck. I've had my 10K and bird perch mirror mount going on a couple of years now and very happy with it. Not grounded and with it ####ed just around 65 degrees (0 being parallel with the ground and 90 degrees being straight up) getting between 1:2 and 1:4 SWR. Used RG-8X coax and wired it directly from the radio and snaked it through the pillar posts down and thru the the door jam up to the thread.

I don't plan on changing anything either as long as I get another Cascadia. Rest of the system is a 24 y/o Uniden PC76, Fatboy Amp and an Astatic 636 Mic. Receives well, transmits clean. No bleed over, not loud and have had many compliments.

 

Truck was 2011 Cascadia. No additional grounding used (Like bonding or straps) Never had any static hum or any other noise or interference.

Additional devices in the truck were also a SiriusXM Radio (No issues) Rand McNally TND 720 GPS (No issues) MP3 player (No issues) Blue Parrot BT Headset (No issues) 19" Skyworth LCD/DVD HDTV (No issues)

One thing unique was the Fatboy amp. Wired up to the exact same pos/neg leads that powered my CB. No interference and no excessive power draw from the amp either whenever the radio was keyed up.

 

I installed a new radio and my swr is staying at 2 now. It was around 1ish with my old one. I'll looked into it later. Btw my truck doesn't have antenna sticking out from the sleeper like this schneider. So I had to get a mount. If you get a condo maybe you can unscrew the factory antenna?

 

Instead of pinching the coax in the door you can run it behind the panel just below the A pillar and through the grommet in the firewall that is just above the clutch fluid reservoir. That is how I run mine and it works out very well.

 

Several threads here about the Cascadia antenna problem. One guy ran a new coax to the factory mount on the driver's side, replaced the antenna, and had good luck. I use the mirror mount bracket and a 5ft SkipShooter. As soon as I can get one, I will put a 7ft SkipShooter on the mount. It will still be just under 13'6". Longer is better when it comes to antennas.