Baystate Jeepers

As some of you may have heard (or had trouble hearing) I've been having trouble with my CB. It was old and cheap so I replaced it. When I checked the SWR with the new unit I find that it is way off. Channel 40 registers about 1.5-2, but Channel 1 registers around 3+. This could have been what damaged the last CB assuming everything was the same. I've checked it in the past but never got results this bad. I swapped the antenna with my 4 footer and got the exact same results. Anyway, I checked the grounding of the antenna and everything is cool. The cables and connectors look ok, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything wrong with the cabling (short of pulling it all out.) Since 40 registers lower than 1 this indicates the antenna is electrically short. Both antennas are pre-tuned Firestiks and I already have a heavy duty spring on it and I can't cut it to make it longer so I am thinking I have a couple of options. First, I could purchase a new Firestik with a tunable top. Second, since both pre-tuned stiks register the same and I've never had any issues with pre-tuned stiks before, there may be a problem with the wiring. The CB is new, but the cable is old. I could try replacing the cable first and see if that makes a difference.

So I'm thinking option 2 first, then option 1. Does anyone have any other experiences with this that might save me some time and/or money to help resolve this issue?

Wait, what?

Radio broke.

Dude : You hit the nail with that description . I would first try moving the antenna mount to a different location. If you have it on the right rear it sends the signal toward the front left side of the vehicle and Vs. Its called ground plane. See if that will change it . Remove the spring as sometime they loose ground when dirt and rust get in between the coils. Or , do you know how long the cable is ? Shouldnt be under ten feet and two foot increments after that. Let us know how that works. FjR68

Thanks, Frank. I didn't think of the spring as being a potential problem. The mount is a spare-tire mount, so moving it really isn't an option. I bought new cable (20') and am planning to replace the old one tomorrow night. I'll check the spring at the same time.

Update: New cable seemed to fix the problem. After installing the cable the SWR readings actually flip-flopped making my antenna too long. This makes much more sense because of the presence of the spring. I cut it down a bit and now have 1.75 on Ch 1 and 2.2 on Ch 40. I'm happy with that!

Thats very well matched . Good for you. FjR68

It would work betterer if you stopped running over the cable.....