CB Problems

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:40 am

Perhaps one of you CB experts out there can help me with a CB problem that I am having. I installed a 3 ft Firestik antenna with a Dodge truck fender mount (fits the KJ well) and a Cobra 75X this past Saturday. I went out to Canyonlands NP with some of the LOST Rock Stars on Monday and Tuesday and for some reason, I could receive like a champ, but no one in the group could hear me.
After I did the install, I used an SWR meter to tune the antenna on Channel 1, 19 and 40. This meter also showed power in Watts and I was getting 4 Watts on each channel according to the meter. If the SWR meter is showing something, doesn't it mean the CB is transmitting?
Today, I grabbed a known working 75X from one of my retailers and still got no response from my requests for radio check. Does any of this make sense to anyone out there? Where could the problem lie?

NjjeepKJ · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:43 am

did u use all 18 or so feet of cable? did u make sure the ring of the coax cable is touching the metal plate of the mount? ummmm trying to think..... u can always put a call into a cb shop. i've done alot with Walcott CB. walcottcb.com even tho u may not have purchased from them they know their stuff and may be able to help u

2006KJSPORT4x4 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:01 am

what they said...^^^^^^^ walcott cb is a very helpful crew...

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:34 am

I used all the cable, the co-axial cable is touching as much as Firestik intended and I did buy the antenna from Walcott, not the CB[/i]

NjjeepKJ · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:44 am

call them... they know their stuff, they helped me fix my dad Cobra 75 it was a dumb oops on his part that i found with the help from them.

Fulltimer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 11:21 am

It sounds like you have it mounted on plastic. That won't work.

Terry

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 2:36 pm

What, the antenna? No. it's mounted to the fender lip under the hood with a steel bracket. There is also a ground strap on the bracket.

I e-mailed the Walcott peeps and they were not able the lend much insight except:

You can't go by SWR alone

Your mouth may not be close enough to the mic

Both CB's you've tried may be bad.

The suggestion was to test it with a friend listening on another CB. I did that earlier this week on the White Rim Trail (this is how I know it does not work). Five other Kj's did not hear a peep.

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 11:43 pm

Tried two more CB's no transmit (unless peeps were ignoring my radio check). Must be something to do with the antenna. I verified continuity was correct and everything checked out to the Firestik instuctions. Can antenna really be defective? And if so, would not I see that with the SWR meter?

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 27, 2007 11:47 pm

JL Rockies wrote:

Tried two more CB's no transmit (unless peeps were ignoring my radio check). Must be something to do with the antenna. I verified continuity was correct and everything checked out to the Firestik instuctions. Can antenna really be defective? And if so, would not I see that with the SWR meter?

Most poeple(truckers) will ignore other traffic unless they know the other person.Not to many poeple running cb's anymore.

Fulltimer · **Posted:** Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:17 pm

If it happened with other radios then it's got to be the antenna. If there is paint between the fender and the antenna, that could be the problem. Any radio/mic combination will work without swallowing the microphone. Who ever the techs are at the rip-off joint don't know what they are talking about. That means they don't know what they are doing either. DON'T GO BACK THERE!

I have mentioned this before: go to www.thequackshack.com and register on their forum. You can ask any radio related question and you WILL get an answer. an electronics engineer from Galaxy Radio answers questions on their products. There are techs from all over that use the forum also.

Terry

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:46 pm

OK, I figured out that is was a bad Mic in the original CB I put in Cobra 75X. The second 75X does work great. Basically, I got a mag mount and installed the original CB into a friends car temp like. He was able to hear me but not transmit. We swapped the CB's again and I was in the same boat.

Conclusion: the mic in the new Cobra 75X was defective.

One of my retailers is going to send it to Cobra for repair. I drove home today on the hi way with the used 75X a friend gave to me installed and asked for a radio check, I got a response of loud and clear.

N / A · **Posted:** Sun May 06, 2007 5:06 pm

an SWR meter does not tell you what you are transmitting. SWR should be as low as possible, def below 2. If the SWR meter was reading 4, it would not work very well. You can have a CB completely out of tune and it will still receive fine, it's transmitting that will suck.

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