I am brand new to cb's have basic questions, and problems

[Happy_Hamer]

what I would do is go to a truck stop or a radio shack and buy a new CB antenna you can get them as cheap as 10 bucks, that seems the problem?

 

[AMPOWER]

Where is the pl-259 reducer for the connector??

I dont see it??
Or does it matter??

AM POWER

 

[bandaid kid]

I was writing a mall book for you on the problem but you've done half of it.

That wire has no business being connected to anything dealing with the cable or antenna. I don;t know what you have it connected to, but it is causing a short and you may have damaged your radio.

Completely remove that little wire. If you have new cable put on, and that wire isn't soldered to any part of the coax cable, you should be correctly set. If that wire is soldered to any part of the cable, throw the cable away and get new cable with PL-259 plugs on both ends. All you need to connect is the plugs to their sockets. Nothing else. No added wire. Just the cable to the radio and antenna.

If you're using a fiberglass antenna, you need do nothing else.

Turn the radio on, turn the volume control up a bit, move the squlech knob back and forth til you hear a rushing noise. Turn the knob til the noise stops. If you do not hear any noise from the radio at all, the short circuit that the wire caused has fried the radio, in all probablilty.

I hope the radio is okay.

73

 

[Happy_Hamer]

the way he described seem the small wire was from the antenna itself and it came apart from the base of the antenna ,,,,,,badddddd

 

[bandaid kid]

the way he described seem the small wire was from the antenna itself and it came apart from the base of the antenna ,,,,,,badddddd

Yeah but too, he may just be confused about the "grounding" but that is taken care of by the PL-259 braid and the connection between the braid and the plug, and that goes to the mounting bracket, so he's fine, I hope.

73

 

[bandaid kid]

OOOPS!

I was unclear. The "ground" thingie is taken care of by the copper braid on the coax. The plug's outer ring provides the connection to ground from the coax braid.

And in reference to the "reducer," that's why I recommended the RG-8 coax with the two plugs already on the cable, No need for a reducer and all he has to do is connect the ends to the radio and antenna. Plus he gets a little less power loss.

73

 

[High Miler]

Hopefully he didn't cook his radio... Chances aren't so good though it survived the flogging...

 

[nomad20012]

Turn the radio on, turn the volume control up a bit, move the squlech knob back and forth til you hear a rushing noise. Turn the knob til the noise stops. If you do not hear any noise from the radio at all, the short circuit that the wire caused has fried the radio, in all probablilty.

I hope the radio is okay.

73

Well it seems to me Bandaid kid, that this is exactly how the radio is responding. I have no experience as to what I should have heard had I done things right the first time, but I now see how easy it was for me to screw this up. I was confused about the grounding and I thought that was the purpose of the liitle wire since it was included with the antenna.
I think I am going to take my heep into the radio truck shop and have them check it out. I guess if I have to get a new radio, I will wait and get a quality unit and arm myself with a little more "know how" going in. I have learned allot already tho however. I usually break the first 1 or 2 of everything new I get anyway.
Im not giving up, this makes me want to learn more.Im going to keep trying ! thanks

 

[High Miler]

Good luck to you.... Were all on a learning curve, stick with 'er bud... Heck none of us were born with a Mic in our hand right?

Let us know how you make out!

 

[bandaid kid]

Turn the radio on, turn the volume control up a bit, move the squlech knob back and forth til you hear a rushing noise. Turn the knob til the noise stops. If you do not hear any noise from the radio at all, the short circuit that the wire caused has fried the radio, in all probablilty.

I hope the radio is okay.

73

Well it seems to me Bandaid kid, that this is exactly how the radio is responding. I have no experience as to what I should have heard had I done things right the first time, but I now see how easy it was for me to screw this up. I was confused about the grounding and I thought that was the purpose of the liitle wire since it was included with the antenna.
I think I am going to take my heep into the radio truck shop and have them check it out. I guess if I have to get a new radio, I will wait and get a quality unit and arm myself with a little more "know how" going in. I have learned allot already tho however. I usually break the first 1 or 2 of everything new I get anyway.
Im not giving up, this makes me want to learn more.Im going to keep trying ! thanks

I can't imagine what the little wire is for. Go to Radio Shack and buy an RG-8 coax with the plugs already on it and hook that up between antenna and radio and see what happens. Don't use the little black wire. You may not need to do anything else but having a tech who knows about CBs and antennas look at it would be good, too.

Someone just starting out should probably first use a regular, stock radio that is FCC certified. Using a non-certified radio violates FCC rules on CB. If you decide later on to use one of the uncertified radios, that's up to you.

73

 

[Moleculo]

Sorry I didn't get to this thread sooner...I was camping over the holiday. On Wilson Silverloads, that little wire coming off IS to be grounded, but ONLY if you can't get a good SWR match. I have a Wilson Silverload, and the instructions are pretty clear. At any rate, it shouldn't affect his receive that much.

My question would be if you scraped off any of the paint on the inside panel that the backing of the bracket is attached to. This will also affect the SWR, if it can't get a proper ground. You really need a small SWR meter to see if the antenna system is properly installed. If you can't get the SWR down, check to make sure the bracket is touching bare metal somewhere. Check to make sure the PL-259 connectors are good. Check to make sure the antenna stud isn't broken (it looks good in the picture). And lastly, try another antenna. BTW, a small SWR meter will also have a power meter built in, so you should be able to tell if you've damaged the TX in the radio pretty quickly....