Who knows CB radios?

The people I'm talking to, say they can barely hear me.


Is the problem something to do with the settings?

Would help to know of if they mean garbled or volume.

What's your SWR? Some radios fold back power with a badly matched antenna.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8hGcOUTQuw

Turn your Dynamike up. Maybe 55%.

hold the mike about 3 inches from your mouth. turn up the dyna mike. that green light when you key the mike means your antenna is fine. you can put the top left toggle switch down to calibrate. key the mike. adjust your swr calibrate knob so that the needle on the meter only moves about 1/16 th of an inch on channels one and forty. you want it to move the same on each channel.

Id crank the Mic gain to the max,if it's too much you can always turn it back.

normally you turn the mike gain and rf gain clockwise as far as they go.

I thought that's what I used to to,but it's been awhile.

Well it kinda depends on the mic but he can always turn it back until he get's good signal reports if he's overmodulated.

I'm a struggling radio operator and I need all the breaker one-nines I can get.

It might be the antenna.


When I key the mike it goes red, and nothing I fiddle with will make it turn green.


?

1) change to some oddball channel that nobody listens to - like something in the 30's
2)Turn the mic gain up to about 50%
3) Turn the upper left switch to "SWR" (stand for Standing wave ratio)
4) Key the mic and say a strong, steady tone like "daaaaaaaaaaaa"
5) Watch the dial in the upper left corner. The SWR line should read less than 2.0. Lower is better, 1.0 is perfect. Beyond 2.0, you match a mismatch (poor connection probably) in the line to the antenna...

And I think the red LED means your transmitting, the green means you receiving (i think)

And looking that unit up, I think the 'SWR cal" is like an antenna tuner, so you might be able to tune out some of the mismatch. Again, shoot for 1.0. The tuner will improve a good setup but it won't fixe a poor one.

If the red light that says ant comes on your antenna needs the swr set. The calibration in the radio is very limited. If you just bought an antenna and hooked up you need the swr set. When the antenna is the correct length the green light turns red when you key the mike and the second light does not come on.

This is the mike not keyed




This is the mike keyed with a properly tuned antenna




You should be able to find someone with an SWR meter that knows how to trim your antenna. Its not hard. I have seen guys try it using the meter in the radio but it never seems to work real good. I am sure there are youtube video's on antenna tuning. A CB shop can do it in just a few minutes if you have on e close. truck stops usually sell swr meters and they come with instructions if you cant go any other route. They are not expensive.

P.S. my dyna mike knob, as you can see, is not turned up real far. My radio has been souped up a bit. Unless someone is several miles away they can not understand me if I turn it up.

Thanks for the good info.

Its most likely an antenna issue.


Ill update you guys if I get it working.

Its a 29ltd
That meter is about as accurate as a brick
Turn your mike gain up
RF gain is used to receive if the radio is tuned properly.
If its box stock have a shop put it on a meter,then do the SWR on channel 1 & 40
Anything under a ratio of 1.5 is normal for that board
Cobra radios are more forgiving than say a galaxy or a connex

BTW what antenna is hooked up and how long is the coax?

Danny got it right.
EreYou can not adjust the SWR with the radio that is a function of which co-axial cable you are using and the length of your antenna. To find out what your standing wave ratio SWR is turn the Chanel selector to ch1 move the SWR switch to calibrate with the mike Keyed turn the knob until the needle is over the little red trianangle. Unkey the mike and move the switch to SWR key the mike and note where the needle is. Turn the channel selector to ch40
and repeat the previous instructions. This is where my memory quits if ch 1 is higher SWR than ch 40 the antenna is to long or to short I can’t remember which. If you look on the back of the package a good quality adjustable antenna it will tell you which is which. After you make the adjustments until 1 & 40 read the same with calibration then the middle chanels 17-21 will not move on SWR much at all meaning you have a SWR of 1 to 1
Which means that nearly all the RF signal the radio is producing is going out into the air. If you have a SWR of 2 to 1 it means one half of the RF signal the radio is producing is actually getting out. Translation your hard to hear.

The needle doesn't move no matter what i do.

I should have more time to mess with it tomorrow.

Is the toggle in the center of the cluster pushed up to CB or is it pulled down to PA? PA mode requires an external speaker and is a loudspeaker.

Is the RF gain knob turned clockwise as far as it will go?

What position is the toggle on the top left at when you key the mike and the needle in the meter wont move?

Dont try adjusting or trimming the antenna using the swr meter in the radio.

Is that 2way new or used? What about the antenna and what type of antenna is it?

You have some pros advice up front and I was never anything but an armature. However, that being said, I got a big mouth and I like to be heard so this is what I did. 1) Take radio to a shop and have it peaked and tuned, 2) install a good antenna, and then 3) shore up the ground.

IDK anything else but if I could her someone I could talk to them.

Oh and 4- noise canceling mike

If there was a shop nearby I would take it there in a minute, and get it hot rodded for sure.

Whatever I've done trying to follow the helpful info here, has at least made it so the nice lady in the elevator can hear me, and I'm good in the other trucks to about 400yds.



After that I can't hear them, but they can still hear me faintly.



I need a rain day now so I can have time to work on it.

If your radio is set up with the correct coax and the antenna is the correct length you should be able to hear and talk approximately four miles in fairly flat terrain. Peaked and tuned will gain you a couple miles. I had a 148 and currently have a Grant xl that will talk fifteen miles on the salt flats in Utah lol, doesn’t get much flatter than that!
By the way If memory serves me you need AU9 for two antennas AU8 for single antenna. This is necessary for low SWR. And as stated before low SWR = high output.

Can't wait for the CB craze to come back. Good times.

Low swr just means low reflected power. Signal strength depends on a lot of thing like antenna efficiency and placement. You can transmit into a dummy load with no swr and not radiate any signal at all. You could have all your power radiating out of the antenna but bad antenna placement could affect your radiation pattern causing nulls. Transmitting your full 4 watts is important but only part of the big picture. People tend to compromise on to many things on a mobile setup and performance suffers.

What you are describing is a bad antenna, or a loose connection to the antenna. I had a pickup that I could not keep the antenna connection tight on, it did just as you are describing. I also had another antenna fail, and I found that my range was only a few hundred yards. If you key the mike enough times without an antenna connection you can ruin the CB. Good luck.

Had a radio just like that 25 yrs ago. Had a K-40 whip antenna with a magnetic base. Didn't know anything about tuning one but it always worked pretty good. On a clear night and on high ground I could talk to people several miles away.

Those Wilson K40’s are still one of the best antennas you can get.

Anybody seen Marty B ? Stuck in traffic ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqYTX7parRw

Traffic?



More like 90k head of cattle.