Hey guys I just bought my 2nd toyota, it came with a cb, but the guy I bought of, said some kid ripped the antenna off, its a Radio shack cb and it turns on but has now antenna. Im just wondering what antenna I should go with and wondering if I can purchase a magnetic antenna just to see if the cb still works and then take back or if there is an easier way to find out if the cb is still good.thanks

 

No offense intended: If it's a Rat Shack radio don't spend a 80 bucks on a Wilson or Monkey Man antenna. Firestick makes some great fiberglass whips that seem to be very popular around yotatech. I personally prefer either a 102 steel whip w/ an 8 inch spring, or the Wilson Trucker 2000. If you'll be offroading a lot buy a fiberglass antenna and mount it low. Fiberglass modulate really well without having to be up above the vehicle. Steel antenna's require height above the truck because they use the vehicle as the groundplane. The groundplane is in essence part of the antenna and an improperly mounted steel antenna will not perform as well as an improperly mounted fiberglass. Reason being, the fiberglass antenna has a coil wrapped around the antenna. This coil acts as the ground and thus eliminates some of the importance of using the vehicle's natural ground. Start of slow...I did. Make sure you like the cb stuff and if you do be careful. It gets expensive. There are only a few states I haven't talked skip to, and I commenly talk to Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Nova Scotia all on citizen band.....
ps- do NOT key your radio without an antenna attatched. You run the risk of frying the internals.

 

Thats unreal man, basically I need it to talk to truckers to find speed traps, road conditions and I think it would be nice just to shoot the ˟˟˟˟ with sombody on the long rod trips. also do I need to hook anything up to the magnetic antenna to see if mine works.

 

The easiest way to find out if the radio is good is to ask for a radio check. Truckers are good about giving replies. Ask them how it's sounding. If they talk back to you, you most certainly have a working radio. If you act silly or immature on the radio no-one will ever get back to you. Ask truckers what they left behind. They'll tell you of every bear withing 50 miles and at what yardstick they were seen.
G'luck.

 

I guess I need to buy the antenna first and get everything rig up first before I ask.

 

yes. If you have a local cb shop you can take your radio in there and have them bench test it. A shop can tell you how many watts it's talking and can tell you if it's functioning at peak performance. My local shop doesn't charge to bench cb's but some may.....if you live off of an interstate there will be a shop close by.

 

you could probably put on a dummy load check the radio with a meter.Just make sure you DONT KEY UP without an antenna.

 

Thanks guys for the info, Iam going to get it tested today and find out if its good before I get the antenna.