new to the CB thing need some help

You need to find a buddy with a radio and spend a little time talking back and forth to learn your radio. The best way to learn is by doing.

 

for static this is my way, some may disagree. Do not use the squelch, turn the RF gain up until the static is almost gone. then you are not squelching out people, but get minimal static. Oh yeah, I mean turn squelch off (all the way left).

 

I do my radio similar to monkeypuncher.

Squelch is "wide open"... the knob is all of the way to the left (counter-clockwise). My RF Gain is what I use to take out the background noise. Nine times out of ten it's setting around 3 o'clock.

 

You did not mention what radio.

If it has a squelch (most do) turn that all the way left. If it has a RF GAIN turn that all the way right.

The RF GAIN as said is your main reception control. You can turn it right to hear more, left to hear less.

If your radio is a Uniden with a switch that says DSC, turn it off.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. I've got a PC68XL, and the DSC (Dynamic Squelch Control) is worthless. It just takes up space on the faceplate.

 

alot of times it depends on what time of day . earley am you will be lucky to hear anyone ... also most truckers will not turn on the cb unless they are coming up to heavy traffic or big city. The buddy system works best for a piece of mind knowing you are transmitting and recieving...

 

The statement in bold is pure BS. Range is not limited to 4 miles by any means unless there is something seriously wrong with the trucks setup.

If the coax is in decent shape and the truck has decent RF grounding then 10 miles is completely possible, even out of a truck style antenna.

You don't need a 100+ inch whip or some other antenna to reach past 4,5, or further miles.

You don't need a bunch of fancy cr ap to get decent range either.

A simple SWR meter and possibly a multi ohm type meter is all that is really needed to get a radio and antenna to work on a truck.

The SWR meter will aid in tuning the antenna and the multi meter will help you pinpoint bad grounding.

The other is to know what type of Coax to use for your setup. Lots of different types of COAX out there but not all of them are what is used for CB use.

For CB use, the basic, is 50 ohm coax for a single antenna and 75 ohm coax for dual or cophased antennas.

Now don't get me wrong, it is hard to beat an Antron 99 that is more then 20 ft in the air. But 10-15 miles is absolutly possible in a mobile setup using a truck style antenna with using nothing more then an swr meter to tune the antenna.

Now truck type have alot to do with how a CB works. Alot of todays plastic trucks are hard to get a decent RF ground or groundplane out of due to the lack of metal being used in the construction of the truck. You are going to need alot of ground strapping to link every possible metal part of the truck together so you get a decent RF ground or groundplane.

If you own the truck and have the time then a spool of ground strapping, some thin steel and some epoxy and some time removing body panels and bonding the thin steel to the plastic body work. Ie to the roof of the cab, doors, hood and anything else then using the strapping to link it all together, will help in getting a decent groundplane.

I am lucky since I am still running a mostly metal truck IE a peterbilt 379. I just had to run a ground from the doors to the door post to jump the gap since the piano style hinges on the doors do nothing for any real grounding. I ran some extra grounding from the cab to the frame and some extra grounding to the hood etc and all was good. I get 15+ miles with 4 watts and a Wilson 5000 antenna. All bets are off when I turn on my little box though. Then 20 to 30 miles is merely a short jaunt.

I don't have any special high dollar coax, did not use any type of calculator for velocity factor etc. I walked into a truck stop, picked out the best coax I could find on the rack. Plugged all of it in, hooked up my SWR meter, did some trimming on the upper whip on the Wilson 5000 to get my SWR down to less then 2. Actually I got it too less then 1.5.

 

My great grandmother would say - Empty Barrels Makes the Loudest Noise!

She's is correct! I think that she really must know what she was talking about. When it comes to EMPTY BARREL!

 

Grasshopper& Monkeypuncher, yall know anything about a texas ranger RCI 2970? what type antenna is better for it other than firestick or francis. everytime i wire it to the fuse box in a freightliner instead of running cables to batteries. i get shorted out. its a smaller mobile ham radio. Digital readout, 12-14 buttons on front face, usb and lsb, configure and calirify, memory& standard scanners for channels. basic 40 channel radio with few more with usb&lsb. i have talked with people in new york while sitting in texas, etc. but can't figure out how to connect power surge protector(if there is such a beasty). it comes with 2 50amp fuses inline. and have one 50amp inline for the connections to batteries. but still the digital readout dissappears just before the radio stops working. not actually shorting out just stops working. had doen this 3 times. but i disconnect all wiring,, let radio sit for 15minutes to 1 hr,,then reconnect and its fine,,,help?