Al Gilliland

I have my cb hooked up straight to battery. Have new coax. New firestik 3'. New antenna stud. Hooked up swr on channel 1 keyed mike while in calibration. Moved dial to rest on calibration word and then while still holding mike keyed move switch to swr. The needle actually went further to the right while doing this on channel 1 and also on 40. So something is seriously wrong with my setup. Have the antenna mounted up front running coax inside of hood through large rubber grommet on drivers side and behind centre console to passenger side. Any thoughts Cheers Al

Just checked. Not even getting weather channels. Could a poor ground mount cause all of this

OH9JK

Can you explain how and where you installed the antenna mount? Pictures would be fantastic too

Al Gilliland

I have my antenna attached to a bracket that is using one of the bolts for A pillar. See pic. I'm convinced it must be the bracket not giving me a good ground. Heading to the local cb store today to see if I can get a true hood cb bracket as opposed to a home made one. I even took a disk to the bolt points on the bracket to ensure that I had a good ground. I guess it all hinges on the fact that the bolt connecting to the A pillar has. Good ground itself. Never realized hooking up a cb radio could be so difficult

Cheers
Al

yellowtj02

Amazon has a hood mount for like $15. They also have some cheaper and more expensive name brand ones. Once all my stuff gets in next week I will post up the results.

MrKenmore

Do your best to move the antenna away from the metal A pillar. That is going to mess you up in SWR.

rsmwrangler

Sounds like a grounding issue for sure, but let me ask you about your antenna, is it the adjustable one, or the one a fixed shaft ?
I had a very similar issue with with another vehicle, and the problem was the antenna. i simple changed from fixed to adjustable firestick, and after that my SWR were working the way they should.
In the Jeep, I just went with a Rudge Ridge mount for the spare a couple of days ago, using the same 3" Firestick adj antenna i had, and a hard spring, despite what i've read about that location not being ideal, i didn't do anything other than brushing a little paint from the holes in the mount, plus i didn't drill anything, as i routed the cable underneath the spare tire vent, then inside the jeep underneath the carpets. Connected the cable to my SWR tester and CB, and after turning the adjustable pole a little from where i had it before in the antenna, my SWR is 1.4 in both Channel 1 and 40.

20150822_191007 by SilverFJ RSM, on Flickr

Al Gilliland

I have a mount on the tire and with all the problems with the front mount decided to use the tire mount. Ground the mount to the tailgate and the tailgate to the tub. It's a 3ft firestik adjustable. With the screw all the way in I get 1.3 on channel 1and 20 and 2.1 on 40. Being I'm using it for around channel 19/16, I'm happy with 1.3. The adjustable screw is all the way in. In fact I took the screw off to see if I could lower channel 40 and my values in all channels jumped into the 3's. Put the screw on and all the way down and back to 1.3. So don't think I'm going to mess with it any further unless anyone has a suggestion.

Cheers
Al

jdavis2nd

Did you try removing the jam nut and then turn the tuning screw all the way down? My antenna was too long as well. I had to remove my jam nut and replace the original tuning screw with one from home depot with a smaller head to get 1.3 on all channels.

Al Gilliland

No I didn't but will give it a try

Thanks
Al l

rsmwrangler

You should be ok at 2.1SWR on channel 40, but you can try the other suggestion to make the antenna a tad shorter, i used to transmit ok with 2.1SWR in the higher channel as well, anything from 1.5 to 2.0 is considered acceptable.