cb wiring

[Grizzley]

I have the Cobra 75 with weather and I have some 10 guage running from the passenger's side all the way to the battery through a grommet on the firewall in front of the driver. Both the neg. and pos. go up there. Both are fused with 5 amp fuses. Yup, ground too. Any good shop will tell you to save yourself a lot of headaches, fuse them both. Any stray electrical amps or volts that start bouncing around for any reason, can go in either direction sometimes.

Highway and sometimes offroad I run a 108 inch fiberglass antennea. I do have a 48 inch loaded Radio Shack that run once in a while on the same sideball mount, rear passenger's fender.

 

[Country]

Haven't done one on an XJ, had a few on a S10 I had a way back. What I didn't see mentioned (i guess it would be considered part of wiring) was to check your SWR! With all these different antenna mounts I'd be curious to see what everyone is reading (or if anyone cares). I'm sure CharlesS knows his! Not trying to hijack....just important in CB performance...

 

[Grizzley]

The 4 footer is right around 1.5:1, and the 108 is below that by a little. Hard to tell with the radio shack meters. I think the final should last with those readings.

 

[speedycat3]

This is a good starting point. For a cb I would use at least 10 gauge wire.

It would be a VERY VERY VERY wise move to install a fuse in this line AS CLOSE TO THE BATTERY AS POSSIBLE. If anything stupid happens you sacrifice the fuse instead of the whole Jeep that way. Passing thru an existing rubber plug is definitely my preferred way to get inside.

I haven't wired anything up in my XJ yet, but in past vehicles I have used the big fuse holders from http://www.partsexpress.com/ and a distribution block that takes a 4 gauge wire in and 4 up to 8 gauge wires out, they are less than 5 bucks apiece. Rather than spend stupid money on the fancy colored wire I use 4 gauge welding lead. You want fine strands for DC current, not the heavy stuff like home wiring. running both leads to the battery helps avoid alternator noise. If you nose around using Google you can find what some of the hams are doing with their mobile installs and get ideas. My 50 watt 2 meter rig started giving me closer to 60 watts out after I switched to the system with the larger wires. Then you have a nice source of 12v for things you use often enough not to hang them all from the cigarette lighter.
Oh, I also prefer to use the dual terminal batteries and drop off the sideposts for the accessory stuff. Not sure what I'll do in the XJ, not much room for the terminals on it unless I go to a smaller battery.

Haven't done one on an XJ, had a few on a S10 I had a way back. What I didn't see mentioned (i guess it would be considered part of wiring) was to check your SWR! With all these different antenna mounts I'd be curious to see what everyone is reading (or if anyone cares). I'm sure CharlesS knows his! Not trying to hijack....just important in CB performance....

I second the inline fuse right next to the battery..
I run three different radios, two ham pieces, plus a ten/eleven meter (CB) all directly from the battery. If the CB is SSB and has been tuned for more power it will require a bigger than standard inline fuse. The thicker the wire the better for power output, as well as to run cooler when transmitting long. The cleanest power source is directly from the battery, and will produce the smallest amount of interference.
As for the antenna, I run RG8 coax... , the thick cable, but that is my choice for less power loss and more optimum SWR's. You can use the RG58 coax that comes with the mag mount. If you mainly use it for trail runs it will be OK... If you want to use it as a back up for emergency communications, I would recommend a better antenna like a K40, wilson 1000, or even a tuned steel wip. There are plenty of websites that will give you measurements for the coax and antenna wips. The coax is tuned in respect to your antenna, and cutting a couple of centimeters will make the difference to tune the SWR's. I had to trip one and quarter inches from the steel wip to tune the swr's on eleven meters, and run the antenna tuner for ten meters. I always ground the antenna mount to a good source on the roof if mounted there, or the bumpermounts.

Rgds
Angel / KF4THG