OK her is my dilemma, I have a 2002 Chevy s-10 Pickup truck.. I have ground just about everything I can get to... If you put an Ohm Meter anywhere on my truck and then touch the frame with the other half it reads good... Meaning everything is grounded to the frame... (I hope that's right).. well I have installed a 18ft Belden RG8x coax and mounted my antenna... I just ordered a 4 ft fiberglass Wilson Silver Load Antenna... As per another post I do tons of offroading and need fiberglass...
Well I hook up my SWR meter and it screams RED, with an old fiberglass antenna, but it still works on another setup... Now if I hookup a 102" whip from a buddy, my SWR reads 1.2 across the board... This is really frustrating because i need to use the fiberglass antenna, but get good readings with the 102"... Now will the new Wilson antenna be a lot easier to tune or is something way wrong... I want to get this figured out before the new antenna gets here so I have a better idea of what is going on...
Any advice is greatly appreciated... I will also be ordering a cobra 25 from sparkys as soon as i can get this figured out...Don't want to chance screwing the radio up by messing around with the SWR
Dream
Another SWR Thread
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InADream
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SmallTruckBigRadio
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Phaze91460
Yeah, May have to live with higher SWR.
Never met a fiberglass antenna I liked.
You might be suprised with some metal antennas and their flexibility. My main truck is running a Monkey Made 8 foot tall antenna mounted to the top of my ladder rack. I top out at about 1 inch over 14 feet. I hit stuff all the time with no problems. Forgot a few times and went under things that I knew I couldnt clear and it did anyway.
Never met a fiberglass antenna I liked.
You might be suprised with some metal antennas and their flexibility. My main truck is running a Monkey Made 8 foot tall antenna mounted to the top of my ladder rack. I top out at about 1 inch over 14 feet. I hit stuff all the time with no problems. Forgot a few times and went under things that I knew I couldnt clear and it did anyway.
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InADream
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Well the problem i have is I do a lot of offroading and continually hit branches and low lying stuff and high speeds... I dont want to have to worry about the magnet coming off...
Why are there higher SWRs with fiberglass... I am hoping with the tuning of the Wilson I can get the SWRs out of the red zone...
Do the Monkey MAde and Predators screw into a standard mount like the mirror mount or do they need special mounts...
Dream
Why are there higher SWRs with fiberglass... I am hoping with the tuning of the Wilson I can get the SWRs out of the red zone...
Do the Monkey MAde and Predators screw into a standard mount like the mirror mount or do they need special mounts...
Dream
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jessejamesdallas
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InADream
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I will have to try and tune the Wilson in a little and see if i can get the SWRs out of the red area for now...
Will the predator be good even if i am only running like 30 watts from the radio with no amp... Also how do you figure out which shaft you need to use... does the coil have to clear the top of the truck or not... Also this is all mounted on my toolbox which has four grounds running to it I am hoping that is good enough....
Is there anyway to tell what the problem that i am having is....
Will the predator be good even if i am only running like 30 watts from the radio with no amp... Also how do you figure out which shaft you need to use... does the coil have to clear the top of the truck or not... Also this is all mounted on my toolbox which has four grounds running to it I am hoping that is good enough....
Is there anyway to tell what the problem that i am having is....
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rayray1963
InADream wrote:
FIRST: Yeah the predator will work great for any radio running between 4 watts to 10K, The antenna IS the most important part of your set up.
SECOND: The shaft length will be determined by where you plan on mounting it, but at the lease you will need a 12 inch shaft. Check with JesseJamesDallas, he's the go to guy for info on Predator's.
THIRD: Yes the the coils should clear the cab by at lease four inch so you won't get any reflex.
FOURTH: To help troubleshoot your swr problem some more i would check the coax, even if it's new sometimes they will have cold solders and bad connectors, use you test meter to check it for impedance of 50 ohms and continuity. if you could swap it out temporarily to see if you can get a different reading. Also check the mount that your using to see if it's getting a good ground.
Hope this helps and let us know what you find out....
I will have to try and tune the Wilson in a little and see if i can get the SWRs out of the red area for now...
Will the predator be good even if i am only running like 30 watts from the radio with no amp... Also how do you figure out which shaft you need to use... does the coil have to clear the top of the truck or not... Also this is all mounted on my toolbox which has four grounds running to it I am hoping that is good enough....
Is there anyway to tell what the problem that i am having is....
FIRST: Yeah the predator will work great for any radio running between 4 watts to 10K, The antenna IS the most important part of your set up.
SECOND: The shaft length will be determined by where you plan on mounting it, but at the lease you will need a 12 inch shaft. Check with JesseJamesDallas, he's the go to guy for info on Predator's.
THIRD: Yes the the coils should clear the cab by at lease four inch so you won't get any reflex.
FOURTH: To help troubleshoot your swr problem some more i would check the coax, even if it's new sometimes they will have cold solders and bad connectors, use you test meter to check it for impedance of 50 ohms and continuity. if you could swap it out temporarily to see if you can get a different reading. Also check the mount that your using to see if it's getting a good ground.
Hope this helps and let us know what you find out....
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InADream
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OK I will definitely be looking into the predator probably after Christmas... As long as it will handle harsh conditions... Now I went through the entire system it has 50 ohms and all the continuity is correct as per firestiks website... I even went ahead and added another ground to the actual mount... I also went ahead and raised the antenna about 6" with a spring and still goes straight to the red... i am really hoping that the antenna I have now is bad or just badly tuned... I should be receiving the new Wilson antenna tomorrow or Tuesday... I am really hoping that with the tuning tip I can get the SWRs out of the red zone...
Thanks for all the help guys... Hopefully we can put this to rest soon...
Dream
Thanks for all the help guys... Hopefully we can put this to rest soon...
Dream
