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Cobra 75 WX ST

riverfever

riverfever

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Woodland Park, Colorado
I just got one of these today and an antennae. I hooked everything up but have not tuned the antennae with a meter yet. The antenna is a roof top magnetically mounted model approximately 4 foot. I have the antennae mounted behind my roof basket. I can't put it in the center b/c of my spare. Now this model comes with a small box that the cord on the handheld CB plugs in to. To try and make things as clean as possible...I slipped the box in behind my center console (It's not screwed to the firewall or the tranny tunnel). When I turned the CB on, I was able to hear a few guys for a second but not much. I'm about 25 miles from Interstate and I'm up in the mountains at 9000 feet. Should I be concerned? How far would a typical setup be able to transmit? Thanks.

-Chris
 
Go to www.firestik.com and look at the FAQ and tech sections. These will answer all your questions. The antenna tune up (SWR) will help your recieve and transmit, both. Most CB's have a range of about 3 - 5 miles on flat ground. The best range is with a full size permanant antenna. Mountains or even hills between you and the other guy will reduce your range. You will do just fine on road trips and on the trails with what you have.
 
I decided that if the manual says to mount the box on the firewall...it's probably supposed to be. I just couldn't find a good spot that would allow the cord to reach. So I used some 10 gauge wire and ran the wire from the box (with a nut/bolt) through the firewall and then to ground in the engine bay. I figure it's gotta be just as good as mounting the box to metal. I still don't hear anybody. The guy at Radio Shack says I should be able to hear people up in Denver. It's almost an hour and a half from my driveway. Seems kind of far to me. Thanks for the link...I'll check it out.
 
I've got that exact CB (okay, 2, and both need to be fixed now......) and IMHO, there's no way you'll go 25 miles. Best I ever got out of mine was about 5 miles.

BTW, don't toss the hand held part in the dash and forget about it... both of mine seemed to want to ride button side down, and destroyed the button internals.
 
You will NOT get 25 miles.

The theroetical range of a CB (flat ground and a perfectly placed antenna that is full length - we're talking twenty feet long I think?) is 20 miles...
 
My understanding is that you should expect about 1mile/watt running barefoot

Also, if you were hearing them and now you get nothing I gotta ask, did you key the mic?

If you did, and you don't have your swr set, you may have cooked the transmitter.

(don't ask how I know that last to be so, just trust me on it lol)
<sheepishly looks over to the stack of 3 cooked boxes>
 
I'm going to buy a meter today. It's just strange though. I remember being 16 and about 5 of my friends and I bought CB's b/c we thought they would be like the poor mans cell phone. We hooked them up together one day, not knowing what we were doing. We did not tune anything, and did not use any electrical connectors. Just stuck the bare ground wire under a seat bolt and jammed the hot into the fuse panel. That thing worked great.
When I turn the motor on I do get a bit more interference. It gets worse when the blower is on. It is not effected by engine rpm's though. Search said this might be caused by bad ground. Might put a meter on it and then head down the mountain and get on the highway and see if I can hear Jerry Reed talking about his schedule.
I still don't think it's necessarily a tuning thing. I'm at 9000 feet. The closest town up the mountain is 5 miles and it's over a mountain and another 1000 feet of elevation. If you go down the mountain you're looking at about 20 miles and through a Pass with an elevation change of nearly 3000 feet. I've wanted to live in a mountain town since I was a kid but...now I just want to hear a voice...any voice...on my new toy!! :mad:
 
If you are on top of a Mtn with a clear line of sight you will be amazed at how much range it will get.
 
Well I mounted the box as it is supposed to be and then took a reading with the meter. It was at about 3.5 which, according to my book, is poopy. I was losing about 35% of my signal. I moved the antennae around a bit (ended up with it right in the center of the roof and got a reading of 1.5. I'm interested to know what those of you with firesticks mounted on the bumper have for numbers?
 
1.5 to 1 is excellent. You may never get any lower reading on that antenna. I have a 1.3 to 1 on my XJ (center of the roof) and 1.2 to 1 on the the base station antenna on the house. CB is line of sight radio. Anything in the way will block signals to some degree. Elevation lets you "see" (transmit and receive) longer distances. My mobile CB on a really quiet night can trans and recv about 8-10 miles.
 
never really got into cb's, so i don't know how they opperate or what frequency or anything, but i know that with the FM radio's in our helicoptors (ARC-209 by Rockwell Collins), on a slightly overcast, cold winter night, we can talk to guys in CA from VA and talk to guys over in europe somewhere and everything between here and there. i'm flightline, not avi, so i don't know, but it has something to do with the signals skipping off of the clouds and the atmosphere or something. so maybe if you try your cb at night with slight clouds, you may get farther range outta it? just a thought.
 
CB is 27 MHz AM and does have the ability to skip the signal over long distances. Sun spots have an effect on the Earths' atmosphere and this allows a 5 mile signal to bounce between the Earth and the upper atmosphere multiple times. Temperature and weather conditions can also cause CB signals to travel over 100 miles. I am in Minnesota and have talked to people all over North America and have heard people from Europe and Australia.
 
I dont know how to figure all that stuff up. But I live in southwest VA and have talked to people in WV near alderson and as far away as winchester. And could talk about a 40 mile radius daily.. And when the "skip" came through I could talk to people in florida... strange but true.. this was with a cobra 21 LTD (can't really remember the model) and a fiberglass whip antenna and with a base in the house 1000 watt linear (neighbors loved when I keyed the mic on that...lol ) talking to NC OH WV KY an advantage to living in the mountains...lol without the linear on range was bout the same as the car,
 
lol, oh, no, you can find them at many truck stops, however, legal? that's a grey area. need a licence for that sorta stuff i think. not sure, so don't quote me.
 
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