hey all, i first asked about cb radios, well i got one, installed it, but i'm having trouble with it, unable to pick any signal up. got a few questions do the antenna mounting brackets have to be grounded to the frame because i have them mounted to some tough plastic that is sitting in the bed.

how can i go about tuning the reciever? because i get some voice but its covered by tons of static, and if i play with the sq knob it gets better but about half way on the dial it dissappears, no sound no voice, no noise. i never installed one before, just used one.

any ideas?

thanks
spencer

If you have a truckstop in your area go by there and see if they know of a local CB shop and let them tune it for you. You might want to google "cb tuning" etc and see if you can find some answers about the grounding the antenna thing.

Be careful using it until you get it set up correctly because I believe you can mess some stuff up if you don't have it grounded right....

Oh, and by the way, what the heck is that thing in your avatar???

For example:

Check out #16.

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/63Things.htm

that thing is a tractor lol, its called big roy. heres the website to it.

http://www.ag-museum.mb.ca/attractions/equipment/index.html

If you have your mounting stud in a piece of plastic you have no ground plane. :eek: To answer your question, yes the antenna needs to be grounded.

Drop over to http://www.cbradiotalk.com/. Those guys are a pretty good bunch and will help you out. Sounds like a ground problem to me also.

Most antenna mounts ground to the bracket they are mounted to. As mentioned earlier, if you have mounted it to plastic, the antenna isn't grounded. If you want to leave it mounted to the plastic (which may not be a good idea since the first auto car wash you forget to remove the antenna will probably remove it for you permanetly) you could ground the antenna by running a wire from it to a metal part on the body.

ground the antenna. pick up a cheap SWR Meter to tune your signal

The antenna must be grounded. And the radio antenna should be adjusted to get best signal, but it will work without being adjusted. I worked for radio shack back when their was the cb boom.

Can you send me a photo of your antenna set-up? I'll help you get it straightened out. An antenna does not have to be grounded at the mount. It is grounded through the shielding of the coax such as a magnet mount antenna.


hey all, i first asked about cb radios, well i got one, installed it, but i'm having trouble with it, unable to pick any signal up. got a few questions do the antenna mounting brackets have to be grounded to the frame because i have them mounted to some tough plastic that is sitting in the bed.

how can i go about tuning the reciever? because i get some voice but its covered by tons of static, and if i play with the sq knob it gets better but about half way on the dial it dissappears, no sound no voice, no noise. i never installed one before, just used one.

any ideas?

thanks
spencer

[Oh, and by the way, what the heck is that thing in your avatar???]

I have seen Versatile farm tractors before and even though we have big fields there, my gosh what do you farm with there. Or is just for demonstrations?

its a demonstration tractor, the only one built, 600hp and still todays equipment are no match for it. its a great machine. and its a ol 1976 tractor to boot. twin engines, drove it, and she just purrs along, engine doesn't hessitate when you do the air seeder. good machine, except there was no demand for it back then and the demand isn't big enough to put it back on the drawing board, or even finish it ( yea its not finished)