Hello all, I have noticed there are a lot of people with radio experience. This is my 2nd CB, I installed my first one in an Xterra - never got down below 2 but it had a crappy mount so it was to be expected. My problems installing in the JK are baffling me.

I have checked ALL continuity using my multimeter (just the beep function) and I'm almost positive everything is installed correctly. I have a Cooltech license plate frame mount that came with an 18' coax and a firering stud. The antenna is a Firefly 3' - it only comes up above the roof line on my soft top an inch or so, but I've heard several people say 3' on the license plate mount has worked for them. My SWR meter consistently indicates just under 5.

1. Antenna - continuity top to bottom.

2. Coupler - continuity with antenna, top and bottom, NO continuity with mounting bracket.

3. Stud - continuity with antenna bottom and coupler, NO continuity with mounting bracket.

4. Cable

HOT SIDE: I checked the radio end of my coax against the installation in the rear. I have continuity between the inner pin of the coax and the antenna base/coupler/stud. NO continuity between the inner pin and outer sleeve, or the inner pin and the mounting plate, or the inner pin and a ground bolt on the driver's kick panel.

GROUND: The radio end of my coax, the sleeve, has continuity to a grounding bolt inside the cab by the driver's feet. This tells me my mounting bracket ground should be good. Again, the ground side of the cable has NO continuity to any of the installation's HOT circuits.

The power to the radio goes straight to battery, and the ground to the radio goes to a stock grounding bolt near the passenger's side kick panel. Both are installed using a crimp on connector, and the radio turns on fine and picks up weather band very well.

I checked the 2' jumper coax, and the SWR meter itself, and neither one is shorted. There are no sharp bends in my cable, it is installed according to the Cooltech instructions, the max bend radius seems to be at least 3/4".

Anyone have any thoughts? This is really frustrating me...

 

I WOULD give you my advice....BUT everytime I have don so in the past, I get plowed over for being wrong. I've installed a bunch of CBs in the past almost 30 years and have always done it the same way....I still do and it works. I've even helped one or two folks on this forum do it the same way and it even worked for them.....but Lord knows, I don't wanna be wrong again so I'll just shut up.

 

Yeah I'm afraid of the length being the issue. That would suck but I guess I will try a quick disco first and then step up to 4 if that doesn't help. I do have the tunable screw pretty low so I'll try maximizing it as well.

A few people volunteered to help me this weekend during a camping trip so I will try different antennas and see what happens. If I find out another antenna works I'll look into doing the above, if not I may need to try another cable.

I followed the instructions on the SWR meter, and it seems the same as the one I had a few years ago. Set to FWD, turn the CAL knob until it indicates infinity, then switch to REF, all while holding the transmit button. When switching to REF it only dropped to just below 5 from the highest point. This weekend I'll also have some help from other people with SWR meters so we'll be able to rule out a bad jumper or meter hopefully.

 

5 to 1 is not because of antenna length.

An SWR Meter will will measure reflections on any impedance change - that includds shorts or a problem near the mount. Make sure you don't have a short between the center and outer cable. It should measure high resistance without the antenna connected.

 

I would still have to say you have an antenna ground issue. Just because you continuity to ground doesn't mean it is good. I am not familiar with the cooltech mount but I would check to make sure it is grounded good to the frame. Try running a "new" ground, just a piece of wire, secure it to the frame and then to the mount.

The antenna would have to be way messed up to give you a 5:1

Redneck,
What is your fix? I won't jump all over you.

 

If you KNOW you're coax or connectors, and mounts are not shorted, and if you KNOW you have a good ground, then the only thing left is your antenna.....(well, kinda...I guess you could have a bad radio).....There is a really EASY way to test that......just install, what is called, a "dummy load" in place of the antenna. If your swrs go down then it's the antenna. If they stay high then you have a problem elsewhere. Dummy loads are EXTREMELY useful to radio ops. It's like a tuned antenna. Google "dummy load" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

I've got the Galaxy 939 installed with the Cooltec mount and a 3' Firestick and my SWR is measured at 1.5 or better on all 40 channels.
My mount is the late one with the additional ground wire to the bumper-to-frame bolt.
Performance is better than you have a right to expect with such a short antenna, and even though I have a taller Wilson, I never bother to install it even for highway trips.
Make sure you are locking the tuneable tip down with the nut, my only problems stemmed from not doing that adequately tight.

Plain and simple, this is an awesome product that left my FabFour mount free for my Larsen VHF/UHF antenna.

 

Well, Kendall and I were baffled today. He checked all my wiring and grounds too and couldn't figure out what was up. We switched to a 4 foot with a quick disconnect and tried a different cable, it took a long time but loosening and re-tightening the connections a few times it got a little lower. It really seemed to fluctuate a lot.

Finally I tried his Radioshack SWR meter instead of my cheapo Fry's one and it gave lower readings. After fiddling for a while I got channel 1 down to 1.4 and channel 40 down to around 2.2. 19 is around 1.6, I think.

I noticed the hole in my license plate frame is a little off, toward the front of the vehicle - perhaps it's bending the mounting of the coupling to the mount and causing the ground not to be as good. I may enlarge the hole so everything sits straight and there's no stress pulling the assembly apart to see if it gets lower. But for now I'll leave it alone as it seems to be working OK.

Thanks guys!

 

You probably know this, but when you check the swr are you well away from the house, other cars etc? Are the doors closed?

I've had high swr readings with doors open before. HF frequencies are really picky.

 

Of course it's always good to have low swr anywhere you TX, but actually, HF is very forgiving as far as SWR goes....and the lower (mhz) you go, the more forgiving it gets. It's not until you get to VHF and above where swr starts to play a major part in performance. That's also why many VHF users go to 9913 low loss coax as well. Not a lot of room for bad swr way up high.