here is my setup: 102" whip grounded to the body of my truck, cobra 18wxst II grounded to the frame and powered directly from the battery.

my problem is. . . its not working! I have no power to the radio! Weird thing is that it gets power if I plug it into the cigarette lighter.

I had almost this same setup a few months ago only with a 3' Firestick antenna and not grounded as well (antenna not grounded at all and CB grounded to the body) It worked fine! But I removed my radio thinking I was getting a Cobra 29 or 148 and ended up not getting one.

Then I ended up getting the 102" whip and hooked it up in my truck for a camping trip the other day and powered it through the cigarette lighter, and it didnt really work at all. It got power but I couldnt send anything and could only very faintly hear people talking sometimes. I assume it was due to not enough power being sent to the radio via the cig. lighter.

So here I am trying to get this thing fired up and to no avail. I need any help I can get. Is it something stupid I did? Is it the radio? or what??

 

Take the ground from the frame, and place it on the negative battery terminal. If your radio is not getting power then it most certainly has to do with a bad ground. TRace the ground wire all the way from the negative terminal to the radio.....looks ok well good...now do the same with the positive wire...looks ok well good. Now it's not the wires or the power supply so it must be the antenna. Make sure the coax is good, and completely screwed into the 102 and the radio. Ok it is well good. Now it can't be the antenna or the antenna ground becaue we just isolated that. The next step is to make sure your RF GAIN button on the radio is cranked all the way to the right....ok do that good. Now take the squelch button and turn it all the way to the left....great. Still nothing? Hmmmmm maybe you need to take it to a cb shop. Good luck.

 

wow... ok, its getting dark, but i REALLY want to get this thing going! I will go through your steps and see what I can see. Thanks!

Anyone else chime in if you got any ideas.

 

from an electrical standpoint, i echo those thoughts.... bad ground or such, somewhere... loose connection, something, just work back from battery, connecting cb and everything farther and farther back until it is in installed location, or until the point where you notice it stops working

 

well i gave up on it for the night, i will go at it again in the morning.

I know its not a loose connection, they are all tight as a drum. as far as the bad ground goes, its possible i guess, but why would the frame be a bad ground? yes i did grind it down to bare metal. Am I missing a step?

Its such a simple setup I am at a loss as to where it has gone wrong.
CB to battery
CB to ground
CB to antenna
Antenna to ground

did i miss anything?

 

your missing how the system works.

the antena needs a good ground PLANE. ie the metal pointy thing is the ratidative eliment and does NOT wnat to be grounded itself else your essentally shorting out the radio = bad.

for quick troubleshooting... (ie is it radio, is it antena wire, is it antena mount) go pick up (or borrow) a good ol fashion mag mount. drop it in the middle of the roof and run it to the radio.

IF you get good CB useage, you know your problem lies in the antean cable/mount/antena. if not youve got a radio problem.

IF its a radio problem your next closest problem is with the mike cord. There are some good steps you and find via google to troublshoot a standard 4 prong mike. (or 3 for that matter)

good luck
KC0TXH

 

does it have an in-line fuse ? if so make sure its not blown.

 

snap-on:

i dont really understand your first paragraph.
i am not about to go buy a mag mount to try this, nor do i have a friend to borrow one from, so this is outta the question.
i also know its not the mike cord cause i tried 2 mikes on it, one of which was brand new.

Ric:

thats obvious, that was one of the first things i checked, and no its not blown.


So now what people?? I am so confused!!

 

take it to a radio shop, have them check it out, maybe its just "done" sounds like you have checked everything.

 

i would love to take it to a shop, only problem is i have no clue where to take it. the only place i know closed a year ago. i wish i could get on the cb cause i remember hearing some truckers mentioning something about a shop they go to... of only i knew where!!

the other problem with taking it to a shop: that radio sucks anyways. i dont want to pay to get it fixed. I spent $70.00 on the radio and dont want to invest more. i could just buy something better but i just really love how it fits in my truck, and i know anything else would just require some customizing and not look as great not to mention having to add an external speaker

 

there are a few other radios that are the same size. or real close. but yea, taking to a shop might cost ya about $50, and you can get a brand new (cobra 18wxst II) at wal mart for $50

 

You've got the three basic points, and Snap-on also brings up a very good point, but I don't think it would specifically cause the radio to not work in this case. You definitely will limit your range by keeping your antenna anywhere but the center of your roof.

Basically the reason is that radio waves emanating from your antenna are most balanced and your radio transmits the best when the antenna is sitting perpendicular (straight up from your roof) to a flat metal object. There is a bunch of physics involved in the full explanation (I bet Snap-on knows it like the back of his hand ) but that's the gist of it. Most guys don't see enough loss in transmitting distance by putting their antennas on the back of their rigs, but the loss is there.

I think you really need to look at where your grounding your radio. I know it should seem good enough but you don't know how many times it is the cause of trailer lights not working, aux things in rigs, even horse fences.

A quick story... I worked at a feed store during high school and an old weathered farmer came in and said the horse fence power box he bought from us never worked out of the package.

I said, "OK, let me test it" and I got our volt meter out and sure enough it showed 12 volts. He said, "I don't give a damn what your tester says. When I grab that fence, it doesn't do a damn thing!"

I asked him if he had checked his ground and he said, "I know my ground is fine, it's hooked to my house waterline. I tell you this here thing is broken"

I said that sometimes the pipes need to be filed for fresh metal and he stops me and says, "I won't believe it until I can feel it!"

Well I said he could grab the leads if he wants to see for himself. He takes his old weathered hands and grabs the points. Nothing happens...

Then I look him square in the eye and tell him to lick his fingers first.

A second later he nearly jumped out of his britches and pee-ed himself at the same time. I don't think he's moved that fast since his 20's. Needless to say he took that same power box home and we laughed till we

That was a long way of saying to bypass your ground to the frame and just go to the battery for your tests.

Erich

 

Aloha robcogliani26,

I used to be into the CB craze in the mid 80's & mid 90's modding radios, etc. & now into the Ham stuff. I also used to service & install 2-way commercial radios, servicing HT's, Mobiles & building repeater sites.

I guess you're using the same radio before switching antennas.....?

First- Run your + & - power lines directly to your battery.
Second- Mount the antenna as high as "possible". Bumper...too low...signal gets shorted to vehicle body, tire rack...better than bumper. Roof rack...best. But drop the antenna before entering tunnels, parking structures, etc. hehe
Third- I hope you mounted your 102" whip properly. Mounting your whip directly to ground will surely damage the transmit side of the radio & poor reception. Make sure the antenna's bolt is insulated from touching any metal with nylon spacers/washers. I believe Radio Shack sells a kit for mounting the 102" whip.
If you have the whip mounted on a spring...the spring's base & mounting bolt needs to be insulated from ground.
In both situations, center conductor of the coax goes to the antenna's mounting bolt or the spring's mounting bolt making sure it doesn't come in contact with ground. Shield of the coax goes to ground near antenna, ie. bumper, tire rack...


Craig

 

An ungrounded antenna or an antenna without a good ground will have nothing to do with the radio not turning on. It would howeever keep your radio from talking and may even blow it up if the SWR is over 3to1

 

this is the classic symtom of a bad antenna hookup were its shorted to ground (when it doesnt want to be)

as for power problems when you dont plug into the cig lighter, sounds like a wireing issue.

what *I* would do. take the wire directly off the radio (there should be a builtin inline fuse within an inch or so of the radio), use some aligator clip test leads, clip it directly to the battery.

go by the mag mount (save the recipt) and test out the setup.

1) if you have NO power its radio problem
2) if you HAVE power, but no static or transmit its a radio problem.
3) if things work like they should, then you have both a power suppply problem in your permnat hookup location, and an antena problem in your permant hook up.

after testing return magmount antena get money back

KC0TXH

 

ok kids, all is good. i took the radio to have it tested, and it was running great. it turns out i didnt properly hook up my antenna. it was grounding out. also while i was out and about tinkering with my radio/antenna i went and bought a Cobra 29. so now to install that bad boy!

 

Reading through your post here, that sounded like the problem. The antenna itself is not supposed to be grounded!