I bought a used Pickup with a Cobra CB already installed. Judging by the way the guy wired the sub and amp he probably didn't really know what he was doing...

Anyways, I'm now trying to figure out if the CB itself is bad or if it's just a tuning issue. Here's the run down:

On the receiving end I can only get weather on the weather channel. If I get on the main trucker channels in the area I don't hear any transmissions. All I get is dead silence on all channels.

I don't think I can transmit either as I've done several radio checks on the aforementioned trucker channels and I get nothing in response.

I'm almost positive the PO didn't tune the antenna (Firestik II). I'm planning on getting an SWR meter to tune the antenna, but I'm just wondering if this sounds like a tuning problem or is my CB shot from transmitting without being properly tuned?

Thanks!

 

my friend had the same prob with his cg it turned out to be a his cb radio mount was grounded i think

 

sounds like youre antenna is grounding itself out.

check to see if there is a little plastic washer on where the antenna is mounted. it might be in the wrong spot.

 

Update:

I took off the electrical tape that was covering the antenna connection wires and found that the previous owner had used the metal shielding as a ground wire. I don't know much about this kind of stuff, but that doesn't seem right

Spanky, you can see the plastic washers in the attached pics. I believe those are in the right place as they're preventing the bolt holding the antenna from touching ground.

Based on this, do you guys think I need to buy a coax with a ground cable built-in? I did buy an SWR meter and on Channel 1 it was 1.5 and Channel 40 it was 2. I didn't try and tune the antenna though, I want to at least be able to receive/transmit before I mess with that. One problem at a time...

 

According to the picture, all is well with your ground.

One thing to check, and sometimes it is easy to overlook.
Make sure the squelch is not turned to the right thus blocking any signals from coming in.

I had mine all the way up one time simply by cleaning the rig one time when I was wiping down the whole interior.
I had spun the squelch knob all the way to the right, and it blocked all incoming sound.

 

Thanks all for the ideas thus far.

Corey - the squelch has been on minimum and I still get nothing.

We've got a semi at work and it's got a CB in it, so I tested mine with the one in that. Turns out I can transmit just fine as I could hear the guy in my truck loud and clear. When I responded on the semi CB the guy in my truck said he could just barely hear me, and that was with the volume all the way up and his ear to the speaker.

Again, the weather comes in nice and clear and if I can crank that pretty darn loud with the volume all the way up. Seems to be a problem with my speaker when on the CB channels though. I'll email Cobra and see what they say, as a faulty CB unit is all I can think of at this point. Or could it be something else?