im wiring up a a cobra 18WXSTII and it has three wires. 1)acessory wire 2)constant 3) grnd wire. 1st question is do i need the acessory wire or can i just hook up the constant wire?. 2nd question can i just use a tap in connector to my radio's wires?

 

Yes the Yellow wire is just for memory.

Here check out my install for the same CB: http://www.mudrunner.ca/cb.html

and heres a good read for cb stuff (Wiring, antena's etc) http://www.can4x4.com/articles/comcorner/index.htm


also for best results you should draw power straight from the battery.
and DONT RUN your antena wire near any AMP wires.. trust me on that one.

 

thanks. so i should hook up the yellow=orange wire for the memory??. and ill run the red directly to the battery.

 

just slice the 2 hot wires (from the CB) together, then to a hot wire, like the radio or cig. lighter. and ground the black wire.

 

I wired mine off a dedicated power and ground circuit off the battery (fused of course). This way I can use the CB with the key off, like when you are in camp waiting for someone to arrive late:

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri....shtml#CBradio

 

i wont have any problems if i do this?

 

thats how i did mine, its been fine for about 9 months now.

 

If the CB has a memory function you'll lose that if you connect the memory wire to a switched power source. You could splice that to your radio's memroy wire (if it has one). I prefer to keep the CB power separate from the stock radio wiring, at least on my '85, that power was not very good (noisy, poor voltage, etc.).

 

so as far as you are concerned best thing to do is memory wire(orange) should go directly to battery then the red wire (igntion wire) tap in to maybe a cigarette lighter then ground it. honestly forgive my stupidity its just that i dont see why there should be 3 wires in the first place my other cb did not. it only had 2. the only thing this has a memory for i think is cause it is dual channel watch or something like that. btw thanks for the help so far guys

 

like others have said, i would wire it so its hot all the time. its nice to be able to leave it on and listen for people coming.

 

My old CB had 2 wires, power and ground. It had real knobs that clicked for each channel and that was it's memory feature, always powered up to the channel it last was on. My new CB has 3 wires, power, ground and memory. If you don't care about memory (like coming up on the same channel, etc.) then wire to switched power. If you care, hook it to the battery or something that is always hot. My CB has last channel memory as well as dual channel scanning, so those things need the memory feature to work. But the instructions say you can wire it either way, you won't hurt the CB but you may find the constant resetting of the channel is a PITA. When I use my portable CB of the cigarette lighter, it'll reset to Ch9 every time the power turns off and on (which it would do if you turned the key off instead of stopping at ACC). A few times when I had to use the portable, that channel switching was tedious. I have since rewired the lighter to be constant power.

 

thanks again im gonna try this tommorrow and see what happens. im gonna try it 4 crawlers way