Ok so I got one of the swr radio shack meters and I kept gettin infinity... I'm running a cobra 19 w a 3' firefly with the fire ring and teraflex mount, mounted to my swing arm and grounded to the frame.... I did a continuity check on everything before hooking up the meter. Good to go. The. The meter was saying infinity,would would lead that it's grounding out somewhere right? So I tested everything again with my multi meter and good. But on the meter itself is where I found the ground to hot short... The outer ring on the connection point is ground and the center "hole" where it ties in is the hot right? So why would there be continuity between the two?? Does anyone else that this meter and does your do the same thing? I'm lost!!

 

There have been quite a few reports of bad meters right out of the box. if you have continuity between hot and ground then yes, there is a direct short. Take it back.

 

Lol I took it back to radio shack this morning and took my tester with me... EVERYONE they had was bad. That's why I was confused and thought maybe its supposed to be that way... Guess not lol

 

i got the radio shack one also a while ago, tested mine and the needle pegged to the right. but, after I ground to bare metal on the cable side of the mount and everywhere the grounding strap attached, i got a 1.2 swr and the cb performed great on the trail this weekend. i have a uniden pro 510xl and before the grinding to bare metal even the meter on the radio was maybe two bars, but after the grinding it's all the way to the max.

maybe a bad meter, but maybe more work needed on the grounding to bare metal.

 

Mine isn't grounded. I get 1.1

 

What meter did you use? Do you still have it?

 

not sure who the question is for, but mine is the radio shack sku-2134. i also have a ham that it won't work on, so i also bought a diamond SX-200 from ham radio outlet that covers the frequency range of both the cb and ham. it was only $89, so if you're looking for a different brand you might try it. it worked great on my ham, haven't tried it on the cb since it already tested great. They also have a Diamond SX-20C that's simpler with crossed needles and smaller for the same price.

 

Either of you would work... Could you do me a favor and test it like I did... Do a continuity check on the swr, touch one lead to the center "hot" and the other to the outer ring "ground" and see if there's continuity between the two on your meter.