ScienceGuy: My mistake, I thought you meant receiving. The difference between using an external speaker and the hand-held is what I meant.

Now, as far as TX power, everyone transmits at 4W unless you mod the gear. I think most people don't have decent ground planes. I've heard my radio 3 miles away in a different jeep, and it was loud and clear.

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jeep movies: http://users.catastrophe.net/~eric/jeepmov/
other stuff: http://www.zischen.org/

I have that mount on my Jeep with a 4" Wilson fiberglass antenna. My SWR is 1.3 to 1 . It will work better when trans/receive to and from vehicles to the rear of the KJ, but depending on the terrain it "gets out" well to vehicles ahead of the KJ too. It works well on the trail but if your looking for the max performance from your antenna then you'd want to mount it in the center of your roof. I've used a mag mount wilson 1000 and it worked great on the roof of the KJ...only trouble was that it hit tree's and branches and got knocked over allot.

For those of you that mount to the roof rails or have clearence problems this has worked well for me on my ZJ
http://www.walcottcb.com/product_info.php?pName=-203ez-fold-over-adapter&cName=antenna-mounts-cables-quick-disconnects-foldovers

Hope that helps some

My biggest beef with the rear lug-nut mount is that there's a lot of noise. I'm not fully convinced there's total ground there, and I was experimenting with ground straps last summer but didn't leave them on. When I move over to the side of the flipper glass I'll test more.

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jeep movies: http://users.catastrophe.net/~eric/jeepmov/
other stuff: http://www.zischen.org/

If your talking about noise when receiving a signal it is probably from the fuel pump. This was another reason I decided to mount my antenna toward the front - I was getting noise that was S9 (really loud) on my HF rig on the CB band. I tried putting ferrite cores on the antenna coax and on the wires to the fuel pump but just couldn't get it to a bearable level. With the antenna up front I still get noise but at least I can use the squelch to dampen it out. If you want to try and figure out if its coming from somewhere on the vehicle and you have some spare coax you can check out this noise sniffer on the Wilson Antenna site. You should be able to narrow down what the problem is. Here is another site with info on detecting and suppressing noise. Hope this helps.

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Kevin
AD5VG
Just another red Jeep in the world...
L.O.S.T. #KB051963

I, running a Connex 3300HP Patriot "Big Radio", Astatic 636l Mic, 18ft. of RG8X (mini8) Hi-Performance coax and a Wilson 5000 trucker w/22" ant mast.
I set my SWR with a Vanco SWR1 meter at 1:3. Right now i can get about a 42 mile range. The Connex radio's are "takers" even though i do miss not haveing SSB (Like the 4800DXL has) . Lately i have been playing with the idea of a Magnum S-980, but i'm really happy with the Connex. BTW i DONT run out of the band!!!
For the time being i'm just setting the radio on the Pax seat mounted to a old Radio Shack center hump mount.
When the weather get warmer i'm looking about moveing the radio to somwere else. I just havent figured out were yet
Skymech

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2006 Renegade Dark khaki 4X4
Bridgestone P245/70/16 Dueler Revoes
Alpine, JL Audio, XM
Mopar light bar, full skid plates
BDS 2" Lift
In the works :roof rack, and lots more!!!!!