Anyone used a SWR Meter used to tune CB?

[lorne]

I did install the ground on he antena as the instructions indicated and this helped. But, I think the output should be a little better. Seems the other day when we were riding out the the country near no buildings, etc we could only reach about 2-300 years.
Even whenwe ride with the HOG group, the distance for all radios seems to be pretty short. May just be a wattage thing, I just don't know. Sounds like I need to get a meter and check things out.

if you bought your ant and it is a cb ant then it should already be tuned. check the connection to the radio. follow your coax if this has been on the bike for a while heat can get to the cable and melt it. run your hand along the cable, make sure the cable is still flexible. i have found burnt cable where it has melted an sections of cable that felt hard.

one more thing to check is to look at your connection to the ant. if it is hard wired check to make sure they are making good contact with out any corrosion.

the most problems with radios is the connections. and your cable is part of your connection

i would hate to see you go out and buy a meter for something you may only use once. if there is a professional (Motorola, Icom) radio shop in your area, ask one of the techs to check your swr. they would probably do it for free.

if your radio is burnt out get your ant and coax checked out before you install a new radio or you would blow out the new one as well

good luck and please let us know what you found

been messing with radio ant since i was 15 so always interested if there is a new problem to learn from

 

[dangerdan]

I found this site very informative Measuring SWR

 

[2006blueking]

Head on down to your local truck stop and talk to a cb radio installer. he can tweak your radio for you. maybe he can turn it up in the wattage dept . and set your swr's you might need a different antenna

 

[bc45]

I have always had a CB shop set up the antena in my truck, 2 to 300 yards seems a little short the radio in my truck goes out for miles and it has not been boosted.

 

[dcfatboy]

I went to a single 3 ft CB antenna on my tour pac, and I receive over a couple miles.

Swyped from my Evo 4G using Tapatalk

 

[lorne]

Head on down to your local truck stop and talk to a cb radio installer. he can tweak your radio for you. maybe he can turn it up in the wattage dept . and set your swr's you might need a different antenna

I have always had a CB shop set up the antena in my truck, 2 to 300 yards seems a little short the radio in my truck goes out for miles and it has not been boosted.

best and easiest! plus you don't get stuck buying something that you wont normal need.

 

[themmd]

Turning up the wattage is a really bad idea. About the most you'll gain is 2 watts over the legal 5 which in practical terms will get you nothing and in return the radio signal will be spread out all over the place causing interference primarily in the 10M HAM band and perhaps on some of the Fed government freqs.

The problem on a MC mounted CB is the lack of a good ground plane. CB's transmit in the 29 Mhz range which requires a slight under 10 meter antenna for a full wave, 5 for 1/2 wave and 2.5 meters for 1/4 and 1.25 M of 1/8th so they put a load coil in the antenna to make the antenna electrically appear longer to the radio but even then the other half of the length electrically speaking is made up of the metal surface the antenna is mounted to.

On cars and trucks with fairly large flat metal surfaces this works reasonably well, bikes are another matter entirely. At 5W and a decent antenna you can talk 15 miles but on a bike you are essentially using a slightly improved hand held, probably 1-2 miles under ideal conditions.

BTW, SWR stands for standing wave ratio. The output transmitter looks for a match in Ohms to the coax/antenna and when there is a mismatch some of the transmitted power is reflected back on the radio output. At about a 3:1 ratio, you can put to much back into the radio output it damages the radio.

You can check the SWR easily enough and it might very well be an issue in ther coax, most likely or a bad coil in the antenna. But don't expect miracles because of the problems that exist on the ground plane.

 

[lorne]

Turning up the wattage is a really bad idea. About the most you'll gain is 2 watts over the legal 5 which in practical terms will get you nothing and in return the radio signal will be spread out all over the place causing interference primarily in the 10M HAM band and perhaps on some of the Fed government freqs.

The problem on a MC mounted CB is the lack of a good ground plane. CB's transmit in the 29 Mhz range which requires a slight under 10 meter antenna for a full wave, 5 for 1/2 wave and 2.5 meters for 1/4 and 1.25 M of 1/8th so they put a load coil in the antenna to make the antenna electrically appear longer to the radio but even then the other half of the length electrically speaking is made up of the metal surface the antenna is mounted to.

On cars and trucks with fairly large flat metal surfaces this works reasonably well, bikes are another matter entirely. At 5W and a decent antenna you can talk 15 miles but on a bike you are essentially using a slightly improved hand held, probably 1-2 miles under ideal conditions.

BTW, SWR stands for standing wave ratio. The output transmitter looks for a match in Ohms to the coax/antenna and when there is a mismatch some of the transmitted power is reflected back on the radio output. At about a 3:1 ratio, you can put to much back into the radio output it damages the radio.

You can check the SWR easily enough and it might very well be an issue in ther coax, most likely or a bad coil in the antenna. But don't expect miracles because of the problems that exist on the ground plane.

themmd you sound like a Ham??? are you?

 

[Porter]

Any chance you could stop by a truck stop?
I am sure they have and SWR meter. Perhaps they would take a quick reading for free? (Couldn't hurt to ask)

 

[tcass]

SWR's are adjusted by lengthing or shortening of the antenna (in this case you can't) or the coax. Since the antenna length and design is predetermined by HD i would think the only way to adjust the swr (unless the radio has an internal adjustment) is to trim the coax. I always hated doing that. I don't think you'll ever get the distance that a car or truck will get. However, if the swr's are good, you could always add a linier for extra power boost and transmission range. Not legal, but certainly helps get you out there. Used to run one on my Pace 2300 in the mid 70's...with a pair of 102" steels. Man that thing would talk. Don't think the swr's do much for reception as that is a function of distance and the other transmitter.

jmho

cass