new to CB radios and need some help

[johnny reb]

i have finally gotten a CB and antenna installed in my car. radio is a Cobra 18 WX ST II, antenna is a firestik no ground plane roof mount cell look a like.

i have everything wired up and from what i can tell it is wired correctly, i have wired cars in the past but never a CB radio so i might have missed something. the radio powers on fine, from what i can tell i can't receive anything, not even radio noise. i tested at 11pm local time so the area may have been dead at the time.

i powered on the radio after wiring it for power to check if the connections were good, i did not have an antenna wired at the time and found out recently that may have been a mistake, i did not attempt to transmit, just powered on.

what can i do/check to make sure everything is working correctly. no friends with radios installed at this time so i can't use them to help test

[BigBopper]

you can power a CB without an antenna, as long as you don't transmit, your antenna is probably the problem, the cell phone look alike antennas just don't pick up much at all, you'll need to get a cheap mag mount antenna, like a Hustler 1C100 Magnetic Antenna, they cost about $20 and do work pretty well, or for more money get a Wilson 1000, these antennas will pick up more for you,,,,and Welcome to the forum

[buzzyt517]

Yes the 1000 is recomended by me and so many others for a good antenna for the buck.
Those cobras are pretty tough when not peaked or anything so you should be just fine.


TomB

[jessejamesdallas]

On the Cobra 18, there is a resister that can blow, to keep you from damaging the radio. But if it power's on, then the radio is probably fine.

I agree the problem your having is most likely your antenna. Like said before, those "Cell phone" Look-A-Likes, look cool...but don't work very good. (unless your within a mile or so of someone)

Get a better antenna, and be sure to have the swr set. That's done by moving the stinger up and down, and using a swr meter. SWR needs to be 1.5 or lower on all channels.

Radio Shack sells a swr meter, that works pretty good, for around $35.

If you don't set the swr, then regardless of what antenna you get, it wont work any better than the one you have now.

[johnny reb]

thanks for the help, i'll look at getting one of those antenna and a swr meter sometime next week