Bonedoc

Interesting to know and read. I have very little experience with CB's. My fiance just bought me Cooltech's all in one package with the license plate holder mount and a 4ft firestik for my birthday. Hoping to get it installed this weekend. I'm going to have to request help on how to tune it. Hope yours works out, curious to know to see what issues I may run into.

firecapt

When mounting the mount, did you clear the paint( grind to bear metal) where the reinforcing back plate makes contact with the inside, making that a ground point?

BlackRockBurner

I ran a 6" ground strap to a 1/2"bolt I drilled into the tub. Used star washers to bite into the metal. I thought of clearing the paint behind the rear fender but to make good contact, the surface area would have to be 1"x3" or the area of the M2 mount back plate.

zstairlessone

If you do let us know. I've been looking at putting the antenna there too. Got my CB, haven't installed it yet cause everything I read about how bad mounting them between the tire and body is.

firecapt

Well my original antenna was not one of the Firestiks with a tunable tip. After speaking with a tech at Firestik he felt that the 3 ft antenna I was running would have worked if it had a tunable tip. He felt based on his experience that being on a Jeep, the best I could hope for would be in the swr 2 range and distance would still be an issue, but would be fine for trail purpose, if it were a tunable tip. I ordered a 4 ft firefly(very light weight) with a tunable tip. I also ordered a heavy duty 3inch spring. Well now instead of 6 inches above the roof, I have 21. The SWR, using the tunable tip, tuned to 1.5, channel 1 thru 40. I believe for those not looking this much antenna above the roof, a 3ft firefly w/tunable tip and a 3 inch spring would be perfect. The techs at firefly were awesome , helpful and patient. Hats off the good customer service. As mention in an earlier post, I did not have to grind paint off to bear metal behind the support plate of the mount.

I did run a heavy ground wire as mentioned by "BlackRockBurner" as an extra ground. Thanks for all the good advice!

cmcraig

Slick install. I have a similarly sized radio I was thinking of mounting the same. Your pics have just pushed me to do it tomorrow. Thanks!
And on a side note.............where did you get the decal on your back window in the 2nd pic?

firecapt

I got it from "runyoustickbastards.com.. But it appears he may have gone out of business. But just type in "run you stick bastarsds" and a lot of others have came up with similar designs.

mbanik

I think you will be good to go with a 4' tuneable. My current SWR readings:

Ch 1 - 1.8
Ch 19 - 1.2
Ch 40 - 1.6

I need to play with it a bit more and hopefully bring 1&40 in a little bit.

tribulation138

Is it weird that I only have a scanner in the jeep? Not cb.