Wilson Freightliner Cascadia grounded mirror mount

Your antenna is TRULY grounded on the mirror mount. But the RF ground is not very good and the reflection off of the cab causes the SWR to be high with most antennas. I use this. My SWR is below 1.5:1 across the band (and the band below and above if you're interested). BUT, I can only get that using a 7ft SkipShooter antenna. The 5ft is decent, but not that good. Both are kind of limber and blow around in the wind a lot and I don't think they will last long if left un-supported. I couldn't get that good of SWR with any Francis or Wilson antenna. From what my testing has shown, you have to get the load up above the cab of the truck to get a good SWR on these trucks. A counter poise is something I want to try, but haven't got around to yet. If you'll notice, I've secured the antenna to the mirror with a piece of lexan (non-conductive) to stabilize it. I used vice grips because I slip seat. This set up works GREAT! If I drove the same truck all the time, I would probably run a good, high quality, dedicated coax to the factory mount on the side of the sleeper, and put as long of antenna as I could get by with on the mount. Or, do what I did and use nuts and bolts instead of vice grips. Here is link that might be helpful.
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...-forum/249124-cascadia-antenna-solutions.html

 

Dont know how well it works but i did see the c bracket like ubove referrs to but it has a 40" shaft built on it....It should act as a counter poise and a way to get that ant away and above the cab...I just googled cascadia ant mount..Looked through the pics and saw it..

 

My understanding is it can only work as a counter poise if it is the same freq. as the antenna. I made a 4ft shaft and mounted a Wilson on the end of it. It didn't solve the SWR problem. I looked for what you referred to and didn't see it.......got a link?

 

http://www.ftldist.com/tall-freightliner-cascadia-cb-antenna-mount.html. l

Lets see if this works..

 

High swr may have been cause your antenna needed the whip adjusted to bring down some swr..Now im not 100% sure but with a 4ft shaft and your ant still atleast 3 feet...
Overall length might be your issue..
I had a 18" shaft made for my predator and it helped bit i still needed to tune the ant for approx 5' length...I also ran a 12ga(i think) wire from my mount to dor side of door hinge..A flat braded wire from door hinge to cab side of door hinge....Tuned again and all is perfect...
I also discovered with my mfj 259b ant analyser that the ant stud maks a diff to in reception..

 

I'm interested. What did the analyzer show?

 

how can i get a larger range for my cb?

 

Well as i said..Grounding helped..Tey running a atleast 12 ga wire from your mount to door side of door hinge..Another from door side of hinge to cab side of hinge..
What my ant analyser showed me was a better rateing for reception....I used stock volvo stud mount,then a bigger chrome stud mound then the alluminum colored wilson stud mount..Measurements increased my reception #....
Dont be leaning the ant any more than 10-15 deg forward cause all yoir doing is giveing the radio a false swr ...Swr is not the end all to ant setting either but you dont know till someone with a bit of knowlage can set it for ya..The higher you go with a shaft the lower the whip will have to ne to tune within the 26965-274050 mhz of your average cb....Dont be trusting those lil meters in the radios or those truck stop swr meters cause they can be off big time....Find a cb shop with a real ant analyser..There is a formula to calculate ant length but i dont know it..

 

If thats your ant mount pic,i would grab the beedy one,that one looks like it does more harm than good..