school me on CB radios

Pawn shop. Just make sure they have a return policy. Not a "no-return" policy.


Matt
 
IF you live near Fayetteville, Knight's Electronics at 1575 McArthur Rd., 910-488-2257 has everything you need for CBs to include a tech on site that acutally knows what he is doing. I had some problems with my Cobra WX and they put it on the bench and tested it for me free of charge. They have everything you could every need for trail rig set up. Hope this helps. Allen
 
look man, your radio is only 10% of any cb set-up. the antennae is the other 90%. if the swr's (standing wave ratio) are over a 3, you wont get out over the hood. a low swr like .0.5-1.5 is ideal. the best way to achieve a low swr acurately is to use a metal whip antennae that can be trimmed or raised. i know the trail can wreak havoc on an antennae, but you can get a heavy duty spring at any truck stop that will help with that problem. any radio will work just fine if the swr is low enough.
if you want to have that big radio power, just take the radio to the cb shop and have them peak and tune it. costs about 18.00 and takes about 10 minutes.
all radios come from the mfr. with no more than 10 watts output. most are more like 4 watts. peaking and tuning removes the limiters and gives you an additional 20-30 watts with zero negative affects to the functioning of the radio.
the cobra 25 or 29 will work just fine when peaked. the 25 is obviously cheaper. any cb shop will have one
 
how do you tune an antena? on mine there is nothing to turn or move or change. it is what it is. so how would you even change the srw
 
Take advice from a trucker. There are only 2 REAL CB radio manufacturers. Galaxy and Cobra. Everything else is junk. If you buy a CB and take it to have it peaked and tuned, make sure it's by a reputable CB technician. After this process, your radio will be illegal. Just so you know. Most of the antennas you can buy are already tuned. 108 inches is the magic number. There is only one length of co-axial cable you should buy. 18 feet. All 40 channel CB radios are made to work with an 18ft co-ax. If the co-axial cable has hand soldered terminals, you're good. Once you have a good radio, a good antenna, a good co-ax, the #1 factor that makes a radio sound good or sound like shit....is everything MUST have a good electrical ground.
 
Jellybean said:
... Most of the antennas you can buy are already tuned. 108 inches is the magic number. There is only one length of co-axial cable you should buy. 18 feet. All 40 channel CB radios are made to work with an 18ft co-ax....
Click to expand...

http://www.stu-offroad.com/misc/myth-1.htm

I am no cb expert by far, but since you brought up the 18ft thing I figured I would share this link I was sent to last time I asked a question about the 18ft rule.
 
i agree. i know jack crap about cb radios but i have had a few and i have used all kinda lengths, cut them and put them back together and what ever and they work fine. now there might be somethin to the antenna thing.
 
In response to post #13. Electronix of Greensboro is closed. I was hoping that the shop would hang on just long enough so I could get my rig tuned but as far as I know they are gone. If someone knows otherwise please feel free to correct me.
 
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