It may seem weird that my first post on yotatech has nothing to do with my (or any other) Toyota. But Rather a cb radio. anyways...

I have a friend who has a Uniden from the early 80's. It has the built in swr meter on it. When i was talking to him the other day he told me that to tune his swr's he uses this meter to tune them. Not checking the swr's and changing the length of the whip.

I have only been around cb's since i got my license three years ago but i have never heard of being able to do that. Does anyone else know of radios that can do this? Or is he just mistaken?
My thought was that he is just wrong and will eventually fry his cb cause he doesn't realize this swr's are off the charts...

Input would be great! thanks.

 

If there's a meter built in, that's great. Are you sure it's an SWR meter and not a just a signal strength meter? Tuning the antennae has to be done by the length and usually requires cutting it down unless you have a "tunable tip" like on a Firestick. I would either buy an SWR meter from Radio Shack, or find a radio shop that can check it for you.

 

It is a radio with the meter. That will actually tell you what the swr is. He says that it can be used to tune the radio to the whip. I have never heard of that. I was wondering if anyradios were like that or if he is just wrong. My radio is the standard way where you have to check it using the meter and then tune the whip itself and check it again.

 

Wonder if he is getting confused with the SWR meter calibration knob. You use that to calibrate the meter reading prior to testing the antenna and turning that knob will change the meter reading. I have a Uniden Grant XL radio w/ built in SWR meter and it has the "Cal" knob that you can turn to calibrate the SWR reading (SWR knob in the CAL position):

 

I think he is. Because it looks exactly like my Uniden 78LTW... Thanks for the input!