Troubleshooting mylack of distance, receivng and transmitting.

Francis antenna's need 18ft of coax.

 

I hate to tell you this but 18 foot of coax if the antenna is working will do nothing ......

18 foot is the wrong length even if your tryng to use coax to tune it ....and 50 ohm coax is the wrong type anyway ...

 

Thus is the reason so many antennas are leaned forward. But at the same time it throws your donut thingy off too. Its a catch22

 

Crap!

what about with this meter? Still not an expensive one...

Workman SWR3P & CX-3-PL-PL


[ame]http://www.amazon.com/POWER-METER-Radio-Watts-Jumper/dp/B002LZB0J2/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1337042365&sr=1-1[/ame]

Mikeeee

 

I use this one and it tracks my BIRD#43 nicely ...

 

Here is the picture......... finally. (My lean looks greater in this picture than what I remembered when I wrote the above. I also made a mistake when I said 45 degrees......changed it here, couldn't in the first post.)

 

I did the same thing and am using some RG-58 coax from my 2 Meter rig I had. Getting about a 1.3 SWR and about a 5-6 mile range with it on a 09 Cascadia.

My coax is about 25 feet long too. And home made

 

Everything is a long way from perfect on these new trucks. So coax length does change the SWR. Doesn't solve the problem, but it will change the SWR making it safe to use your radio. You guys that keep scoffing at the coax length thing obviously don't do any installs on trucks with bad rf grounds.

 

Yop, don't know squat about doing installs.

Just got a ICOM 2m rig installed in the car. Tried to install my Kenwood TS-480SAT into the truck and the Cobra 18 was not an easy install either.


but hey, using 600 feet of RG-8 coax to 10 or 12 meter bands works pretty slick too.