firecapt

Installed the CB today. Tomorrow I'll go to an open area and hook an swr meter up. Happy with the mount. Check it out!

Compact CB in the console



Side mount antenna on rear.

DesolationMania

Nice job. Looks very clean.

Vuck Roger

do you want to share how you did it?

firecapt

Pretty simple really. Drilled small hole in bottom of console. Ran power and ground forward along bottom edge(hidden) of console, through firewall to battery. Antenna wire hidden under carpet, under driver seat, along threshold, then under carpet along top of tub to the rear tail light. I mounted the side mount antenna mount in the taillight compartment. The CB itself is for now mounted with heavy duty Velcro. I will mount with a bracket later. The drill I had access to, to make the pilot holes for the bracket was too big to fit in the compartment. I have smaller drill at home.

firecapt

Also mounted a small wedge snapped external speaker. I used a long Velcro strap that I attached to the speaker with a couple of small screws. I then wrapped the strap around the roll bar area.

bfdfreddie

Thanks for the post.

What brand did you get? I like the size. What in your eyes were your other options to mount it? Also does anyone know if I get rid of my radio antenna will I lose only radio am/Fm? Since I never really listen to radio anymore. Thinking of mounting CB antenna there is why I ask.

firecapt

It's a Radio Shack brand. A friend had it in his garage. There are a lot of compacts out there though. All about the same. The have the same legal transmit power as the larger expensive ones.. They just don't have all the bells and whistles.. I will so seldom use it, I didn't need all the options, just wanted small. That was about he only place I considered. I wanted it hidden and still convenient

firecapt

Well swr was horrible. Went to a large empty parking lot. Hooked up meter and went through channel 1 and 40. 1 was at 4.2, 40 was at 5+. I came home got on the Firestik web page (mount is a Firestik side mount, antenna a 3ft Firestik) they have a swr troubleshooting section. Most all of the suggestions dealt with checking continuity and good grounds. Everything checked perfect. I called Firestik for suggestions. They were very helpful. After verifying my ground and continuity checks, he asked about antenna location on my Jeep and how much antenna was above roof line. He felt the problem was likely due to it being mounted on rear and only six inches of antenna above roof. He said the fiberglass top would not be a huge problem, but the jeep has vertical and horizontal roll bars and they are in such a proximity to cause swr problems. His suggestion was a 4 foot antenna. This would put more antenna above roof and roll bars. Anyone else with a similar set up have this issue.

BlackRockBurner

I did a bit of internal brace trimming using a flexible extension on a Dremel with a cutoff wheel. I was able to get the base of the antenna high on the tub. My SWR is 1.2 across all channels with the hardtop. I have a 3' Firefly.

Did you unscrew the tuning tip then back it in a few threads? Make sure to replace the rubber tip when taking the reading too.

firecapt

Mine was not a tunable, I ordered a 4 ft tunable today. The guy at Firestik did say if it were tunable, I might be able to bring the SWR down some.