swr at 3.5 with new firestik 2....help

[blue jeans]

Greetings all. I just replaced my old antenna with a new firestik 2, 4' antenna on a side mounted spring base. My old antenna was steel, about 3' long and had a couple tunable disks at the bottom of it where I was able to get my swr to 0...wonderful! But it broke, so I upgraded to the firestik. Now I can't get my swr to below 3.5.....nothing changed except for the antenna....the mount and wiring is the same. I have the firestik adjustable tip lengthened to as far as it will go. My ground goes straight to the battery like it always has. Any ideas what happened? Thank you.

[MDYoungblood]

Hello blue jeans,
Welcome back, You should make a post here just to get started on the forum, [Please login or register to view this link] .
Now for the antenna question, my guess is the springs are making the antennas too long, that is the reason they won't tune. Remove the springs and use a nut if needed at the mount. Try that first.

3's

Greg

[blue jeans]

Hi Greg, thanks. I just added an intro to the forum. It's only one antenna and I did remove the spring but no change....actually the antenna is "short" according to my swr meter, so I lengthened it (turn the adjustable antenna screw out) and that barely helped. I have the antenna ground wire going all the way to the battery and a second one jumped to the body of the truck right near the side mount.....I can remove either one and there is no change to the swr. Just doesn't make sense.

[MDYoungblood]

I'm not a FireStik fan but in my experiences they are usually long, and the adjustment would need to be turned all the way in. If you think it's short, you can try a short piece of wire, make several wraps to the adjustment screw and the rest straight up, trim it to an acceptable SWR, measure that length and you can use the nuts like mentioned before to make the antenna it's proper length.

3's

Greg

[blue jeans]

OK, I see what you are doing....adding length by the wraps. So how do I connect the new wire to the existing? And at that point, do I just leave the adjusting screw off?

[MDYoungblood]

No, wrap the adjuster but have enough wire to stick up a couple inches above it. The wraps should make contact, could even tape it to make a tighter connection. Trim the wire above the adjuster off a 1/4" at a time until a good SWR.

3's

Greg

[blue jeans]

Ok great. so it sounds like the added wire will be taller than the rubber cap....so just keep the cap off? Or poke the wire through it?

[MDYoungblood]

Yes, just leave the cap off for now, the wire is just temporary until you can find or make a riser to add the needed length at the mount.

3's

Greg

[blue jeans]

Thank you!