i just installed my cb. i needed to run a 20' cable and needed every 1/8th " of it to make it work. there is a inline fuse on the power wire going straight to the batt. and the ground goes straight to the batt as well.

ant. is a 4' radio shack ant. just for now mounted on my rear bumper tire carrier. cable goes under and through the weather stripping of the rear door. up through the roll bars down the pass side apiller along the windshiled to the cb. cb is mounted to the top of the dash over the radio.

it has not been peaked and tuned, i ran the self check that the cb has and all power and ant. pass.

i key out and it stated transmitting but i dont pick anyone up even scanning for 20 min on all 40 channels. i switched to the weather bands hoping to pick that up and i still didnt get anything. did i do something wrong?

 

Make sure you have a good ground for the antenna, tailgate by itself is marginal. I ran a ground wire from the mount through tailgate following tailgate wiring and then grounded mine on one of the subwoofer mounting bolts.
Also, don't key the mic a bunch till you tune the antenna or you will ruin your radio.

 

Turn your squelch down and try Ch 19

 

If you're not even hearing air noise (static) then as was mentioned you may have the squelch turned up too high. You should at least be hearing air noise. Are you? Also, don't worry about getting it peaked and tuned, just make sure your antenna swr is good. If your coax is shorted, or you don't have a good electrical connections in the antenna system, then you won't hear anything. This is also where knowing your swr comes in handy.

 

i hear static but made it so i dont hear it anymore. as for the ground on the ant all i have is the bumper so i will try to run a ground today. as for the coax it was brand new 20' and i needed every inch but both sides are connected very well and there is only one cable from ant to cb.

 

About the static....what do you mean you "made it so I don't hear it anymore"....???

 

Hopefully, he just turned the squelch up and not something went wrong with the setup.

 

there is a knob that makes the static louder and if i turn it half way or more clockwise it goes away and its quite. so thats what i did. today i drove onto the high way and i picked up truckers talking so i guess it all works with out grounding it. i was also told at a truck gas station that it doesnt have to be regrounded that the bumper is the ground

 

That knob is called squelch, if you turn it up and nobody around you is pushing past it then you won't hear anything. In my area it really depends on where I am in "town" on how high my squelch needs to be to get rid of faint signals and just static. It also may help to ground the radio closer to the radio, IE run the wire into your dash and ground it there instead of running it all the way out to your battery. In my truck that I had a cb in, the shorter the ground the better my tx/rx was.

 

Ok.....understand that in your first post you said "i dont pick anyone up even scanning for 20 min on all 40 channels". If you turn up that "knob" which I assume is your squelch, so that it's quiet, then it will not allow you to hear any weak signals. It will take a strong signal to, what they call "break the squelch" in order for you to hear them. All others will be "squelched" out.

And if you have a lot of vehicle noise, which the JK is known for, then you have to turn the squelch up even higher to get rid of that noise. So essentially you are squelching out any signals that are not strong enough to break that threshold you have set to get rid of not only normal air noise, but the noise emanating from the jeep as well.