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One piece of advice I can give is do mount your antenna to the body. If I was to do mine differently I would use one of those mounts that come out of the back hatch area just next to my rear drivers tail light. I mounted mine on my tire carrier as I wanted it to look cool (Right?). Found out later when I went to tune it that it is best to ground it directly to the body. The body is a larger base (mass of metal) to bring in the signal. We could only get the lower half of the channels low enough. the rest pushes it to close to 3.0. http://www.jcroffroad.com/product/XJCB-PC.html
I was struggling so much trying to tune I went to about the only Ham/CB shop I could find. The old timer helped me out. He also said for $50 he could tweak the tuner give it more power. It works great out on the trail as long as it is in the lower channels.
If the same person told you to mount the antenna on the side of your XJ on the rear quarter panel as he was to offer to "Turn up the power on your radio" that should tell you something.
One you need the base of the antenna to be close to the roof or the hood for the ground plane (horizontal only) to work properly using the type of antenna your using.
Second for him even to make an offer to modify a CB if in fact he was even a Ham was grounds to lose his license and receive jail time and a hefty fine FCC rules. If in fact he is a ham I hope he does get caught we don't need that kind of hams giving others a bad name.
chops quote-- "I wondered about that. My thought for a handheld was if I was standing along side a trail and to talk with others while just outside of the jeep. So, let's say I have the mounted and a handheld. Would the handheld use the antenna of my jeep? "
sounded like he was talking about having two units--a handheld and a regular cb. I was thinking he could use the mobile antenna with the handheld using the adapter. Although you are limiting the distance you can walk away from the jeep with the length of the coax. You may as well just get a long mic cord for the mobile and scrap the handheld.
Yes, I was thinking two units. One while I'm in the jeep and one while I'm outside of it. I'm not looking to get a mile out of the handheld or anything like that. Just a couple hundred yards plus.
chops quote-- "I wondered about that. My thought for a handheld was if I was standing along side a trail and to talk with others while just outside of the jeep. So, let's say I have the mounted and a handheld. Would the handheld use the antenna of my jeep? "
sounded like he was talking about having two units--a handheld and a regular cb. I was thinking he could use the mobile antenna with the handheld using the adapter. Although you are limiting the distance you can walk away from the jeep with the length of the coax. You may as well just get a long mic cord for the mobile and scrap the handheld.
I'm not a CB "newbie" but I figured I'd share my install, might give the OP some ideas or anyone else looking to put one in. I had some time over the weekend to install the CB in my XJ, it came out pretty good. I might have the radio tuned as well to squeeze a little more out of it. I used the JCR Offroad antenna mount, a 4' Firestick II antenna and a Uniden Pro520XL radio. I got a new SWR meter today and was able to get it tuned to 1.3 swr on channel 1 and 40. I wire wheeled my bolts and I ground some paint off the mounting holes on the backside of the antenna mounting bracket, as well as around the mounting holes on the body so that I would have a good ground.
I am still having some engine running noise though while driving. At first I ran my power wires to the fuse panel, I had engine noise with the antenna unplugged and plugged in, so I ran new wires, twisted together directly to the battery. I still have the same engine noise. The "ANL" button on the radio helps cut some of it down, but it still bugs me, I might have to look into some kind of noise filter.
so how do you tune a CB radio if you don't get the numbers you want? i get that we want a good antenna ground to the frame and also direct electrical connection to the battery, but outside of that what else can be done to ensure good range?
also, where is everyone mounting their raidos? i have an older one that is a bit larger than some that i have seen on ebay, but i cannot find a good spot for it.
On a larger radio, just mount it on the passenger side of the console, that's what I had to do in my '92 for my Cobra 29, then I put a General Lee in there.
As far as getting the numbers you want, I've never had one that didn't tune out. Use a good quality antenna like Wilson or Firestick, mount it good and try to use the recommended 18' coax. Don't coil up any extra coax, that can cause problems too.
On my '92 I went with a Wilson 500 magnet mount, it was huge, but I could twist off the antenna at the base if I needed to.
When tuning the antenna make sure it has a good ground to bare metal. Then pick the channel you run the most or in the middle of the radio span like channel 19, on a 40. Then tune for the best VSWR there using a good quality bridge and trimming just a little at a time.
Very seldom will you ever see a perfect VSWR and just look for something in the 1.5-1 range. Make sure that you are not standing near the antenna or are parked near a building while tuning the antenna, both will affect the standing wave.
When running the pos. and neg. wires to the battery use a fuse at the battery but run both wires. The engine noise could be several things alt., plugs or wires and the ignition cap rotor, all of these can give off noise but easy to trace down from the sound.
The "ANL" switch on the radio does remove some of the noise but only by reducing the signal strength of the radio (not good). Best way is to find the cause and take care of it not install a Band-Aid.
or 5' or 10'... 12'...17.5'...if the antenna has a proper ground plane the length of the coax is irrelevant. If you have a poorly mounted antenna, the 18' of coax will hide the issue so it looks good to the radio but the antenna won't perform any better.
Originally Posted by Jeepy2013
Don't coil up any extra coax, that can cause problems too.
maybe if wound too tightly causing damage to the coax, but other than that no problems.
When tuning the antenna make sure it has a good ground to bare metal. Then pick the channel you run the most or in the middle of the radio span like channel 19, on a 40. Then tune for the best VSWR there using a good quality bridge and trimming just a little at a time.
Very seldom will you ever see a perfect VSWR and just look for something in the 1.5-1 range. Make sure that you are not standing near the antenna or are parked near a building while tuning the antenna, both will affect the standing wave.
When running the pos. and neg. wires to the battery use a fuse at the battery but run both wires. The engine noise could be several things alt., plugs or wires and the ignition cap rotor, all of these can give off noise but easy to trace down from the sound.
The "ANL" switch on the radio does remove some of the noise but only by reducing the signal strength of the radio (not good). Best way is to find the cause and take care of it not install a Band-Aid.
Yeah I definitely don't like having to use the ANL switch. The engine noise can be a booger to get rid of, the fuel pump and electric fan can cause noise too, one can drive themselves nuts trying to get rid of a noise problem. I'm almost willing to bet my noise is ignition or injectors because of how the noise sounds, it's not a whine, but like a buzz with a slight popping noise that increases as the throttle increases.
Messed around with a little more now that it's kinda quiet around here. I can slightly hear the fuel pump with my radio on, when I first turn the key on, then when I start it I get the rest of the noise. Not sue what else can be done except try a inline filter of some kind. Was looking at the Workman NF-20
Try running a couple of braided ground straps from the hood to the body. I had some ignition RFI and did the braided ground straps to increase the ground plane and it quieted the RFI down some, still a little there but not nearly what it was.
It's worth a short and more ground plane isn't a bad thing either.
Thanks, I'll probably give that a try, I'm not sure if there is a ground on the hood, like some vehicles use. I also read somewhere about grounding the exhaust believe it or not. Hopefully I can cut some of it down this weekend. It's not unusable, just annoying.
or 5' or 10'... 12'...17.5'...if the antenna has a proper ground plane the length of the coax is irrelevant. If you have a poorly mounted antenna, the 18' of coax will hide the issue so it looks good to the radio but the antenna won't perform any better.
maybe if wound too tightly causing damage to the coax, but other than that no problems.
Not True...The length of coax is a factor with some antennas and required like with the 102" stainless whip that I run the coax is part of the antenna and if a shorter than required coax was used the antenna would never tune, nor work properly.
My antenna has a very good ground bolted to my tire carrier bumper and a ground strap to the frame from the base of antenna. I bond all my body panels the same way to the frame including the exhaust for my ham radios.
Originally Posted by prerunner1982
Try running a couple of braided ground straps from the hood to the body. I had some ignition RFI and did the braided ground straps to increase the ground plane and it quieted the RFI down some, still a little there but not nearly what it was.
It's worth a short and more ground plane isn't a bad thing either.
This is an excellent idea and using the hood as ground plane for low clearance antenna is also good idea, I have done this with UHF/VHF antennas on a lot of my trucks using the inside fender mount.
05-29-2016, 11:11 AM
