SWR Hates Me - Need Help

[pointer]

OK Guys Heres the situtation again

I hate SWR and it hates me

I have a Superstar 3900 Gold HP I'm wanting to put in the mobile. I have received a Wilson Lil Wil Antenna to use with this radio. It is a magnet mount.

I have my wires running to the battery straight from the radio

My coax is all straight not crimped or anything in anyway.

I have an 2004 Silverado Reg Cab Short Bed.

When I put the CB antenna on the roof of the truck the SWR is 2.5 to 3.0.... The whip is 36 1/4 inches long. Doesn't matter if I stick it all the way in or almost all the way out the SWR does not change on 40 or 1. I have tried putting it on another vehicle with no success still high SWR. I have been suggested to cut the whip 1 inch and it may bring me better luck.

My radio DK 2 watts so it will not calibrate my Yaesu YS-60 Meter or my Dosy Test Center meter. I tried going into the radio and turn VR13 but it will not do any more than 1 1/2 watts DK.

I have to use the inside SWR meter.

I don't wanna do the grounding thing with my magnet mount as that would look about 1/2 ugly - Can someone give me some help and assistance PLEASE!!!!

BTW I have tried different areas on the roof and on another car ( 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix ) still no luck whatsoever

Pointer

 

[Drifter]

OK Guys Heres the situtation again

I hate SWR and it hates me

I have a Superstar 3900 Gold HP I'm wanting to put in the mobile. I have received a Wilson Lil Wil Antenna to use with this radio. It is a magnet mount.

I have my wires running to the battery straight from the radio

My coax is all straight not crimped or anything in anyway.

I have an 2004 Silverado Reg Cab Short Bed.

When I put the CB antenna on the roof of the truck the SWR is 2.5 to 3.0.... The whip is 36 1/4 inches long. Doesn't matter if I stick it all the way in or almost all the way out the SWR does not change on 40 or 1. I have tried putting it on another vehicle with no success still high SWR. I have been suggested to cut the whip 1 inch and it may bring me better luck.

My radio DK 2 watts so it will not calibrate my Yaesu YS-60 Meter or my Dosy Test Center meter. I tried going into the radio and turn VR13 but it will not do any more than 1 1/2 watts DK.

I have to use the inside SWR meter.

I don't wanna do the grounding thing with my magnet mount as that would look about 1/2 ugly - Can someone give me some help and assistance PLEASE!!!!

BTW I have tried different areas on the roof and on another car ( 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix ) still no luck whatsoever

Pointer

You are going to have to do "the ground thing" Ground from body to frame, ground from antenna to frame, ground from radio to frame, make sure your connectors are connected to the coax correctly, nine foot or is it twelve foot lengths of coax do all that and a low SWR is garanteed when you retune the antenna. So I am told. Sorry can't help you with the dead key problem.

Drifter

 

[RoadWarrior]

Make sure you coax cable and connectors are good.
I bought some metal whips off a place and
experimented with antenna length by cutting a
1/8- 1/4 inch at a time for best SWR. Experiment
with an old antenna if you have one. I bought 54 inch
whips. Don't want to be cutting that Littl Willie if
it needs to be longer.
Make sure magnetic mount is good and connections.
Make sure things are grounded.
Usually if SWRS are higher on upper channels the
antenna needs shortened.
SWR Higher on lower channels usually means antenna
needs to be longer.
Better get a good meter to work and check it first. I wouldn't
trust SWR meter on radio... Good Luck

 

[mrcoily]

OK Guys Heres the situtation again

I hate SWR and it hates me

I have a Superstar 3900 Gold HP I'm wanting to put in the mobile. I have received a Wilson Lil Wil Antenna to use with this radio. It is a magnet mount.

I have my wires running to the battery straight from the radio

My coax is all straight not crimped or anything in anyway.

I have an 2004 Silverado Reg Cab Short Bed.

When I put the CB antenna on the roof of the truck the SWR is 2.5 to 3.0.... The whip is 36 1/4 inches long. Doesn't matter if I stick it all the way in or almost all the way out the SWR does not change on 40 or 1. I have tried putting it on another vehicle with no success still high SWR. I have been suggested to cut the whip 1 inch and it may bring me better luck.

My radio DK 2 watts so it will not calibrate my Yaesu YS-60 Meter or my Dosy Test Center meter. I tried going into the radio and turn VR13 but it will not do any more than 1 1/2 watts DK.

I have to use the inside SWR meter.

I don't wanna do the grounding thing with my magnet mount as that would look about 1/2 ugly - Can someone give me some help and assistance PLEASE!!!!

BTW I have tried different areas on the roof and on another car ( 1990 Pontiac Grand Prix ) still no luck whatsoever

Pointer

If you have put it on another vehicle,and it still stick the swr meter you must have a bad coax end, or your meter i bad,or one of your jumpers have to be bad, it's usually a small problem. Just one little shorted strand in the coax end can give you hell,It is possible even if new that the magnet base is bad, you might want to have it checked out make sure it's not bad internally,,,You could have a way to short of a whip did you cut alot off?also get new coax ends put on your mag mount or first check your coax end for fault..it may be shorted out..Go back to basics,magnet mounts usually tune well enough but not 2.5-3.0 ........Gota be a little thing....Coily

 

[JunkYardTechnology]

When we had our cb shop we installed 100's of those lil wills on late modle trucks... the only time we had problem with one tuning to 1.2 or better is if there was a defect in the ant from the factory.... stick the ant on another vehicle... if it still wont tune then i bet the ant is bad...

 

[pointer]

Lil Wil

But I don't want a bulky huge antenna on my truck and besides I put a wilson 1000 on there and I couldn't get the SWR down on it eiether.....

 

[Jay in the Mojave]

Hello Pointer:

I have to agree with Junk Yard Technology here.

I have modified the Little Wil Antennas putting on the good Teflon Coax. Yeah sure like putting ear rings on a pig but a friend wanted it so I did the coax mod to the antenna.

In dong so the mod, there is a coil and a capacator in the base of the antenna that is the matching circuit for the antenna. The coil is compressed or sprad to specific value of SWR at the factory. There they have a analyzer to look at that allows them to see how to spread or compress it.

It took me several times to get it right, each time having to disassembly and reassembly the antenna what a pain.

So it is a real possibility that the antenna is not properly tuned at the factory, probably a rare case.

Now with a modifyied Little Wil with the expensive coax installed no performance was added, just a much better coax that cost more than what the antenna is worth.

I don't know why the Wilson 1000 didn't have a good SWR. I would start looking at the way the SWR is being measured at this time. Maybe you need to check the SWR meter and the jumper coax ?!?!?!?

I would suggest have the shop put on a Wilson 1000 or 5000 and have them check the SWR as a second set of eyes to check it out?!?!?!?

I have a highly modified Wilson 5000 on my car, and with the Teflon Coax, and it does work better than the Little Wil Antenna big time. And its not all that bigger than a little wil antenna.

A good modification to remove the inexpensive RG58C, and install the Teflon RG142 Coax on the Wilson 1000 or 500 Antennas.

The killer obnoxious antenna is a modified Francis Amazer on top of my Ford F250 rasied 4X4 Truck. Mounted on the top of the Cab, this thing hits every low lying TV cable, phone line, tree branch, low level aircraft, and many times I swear there wasn't anything out there that the antenna hit?!?!? Drive thru's and under ground parking ain't happening hehehehehehe. But the radio works good.

Most nornmal people will say the modified antennas length and mounting location look too high, but I haven't been pulled over yet.

Jay in the Mojave

When we had our cb shop we installed 100's of those lil wills on late modle trucks... the only time we had problem with one tuning to 1.2 or better is if there was a defect in the ant from the factory.... stick the ant on another vehicle... if it still wont tune then i bet the ant is bad...

 

[Master Chief]

CHECK ANTENNA FIRST:
You do NOT have to do the ground thing. The antenna was designed to be used exactly how you are using it.

You do not need to change the coax unless it is bad.

At the very least, find someone with an antenna analyzer and check the antenna before you cut anything.

Use a known stock radio to check the antenna.

These tests will point to, or eliminate, the antenna as the problem! If the antenna IS the problem, fix or replace it as suggested by Jay. If the capacitor in the base of the Lil Wil is blown, you will never get it to match right. This was a problem with the K40!


CHECK RADIO:
Hook the radio up to a dummy load and check the SWR using the internal meter and a quality external meter. If it checks out OK, then the radio is probably not the problem.

You stated that the 1000 didn't work either. This tells me you may have something going on in your radio. It could be as simple as a bad SWR circuit in the radio. Was your radio hacked by an unqualified tech? Did they align it properly? One thing I like about Justin is that he readjusts the meter after a tune and align. 2 watts should be plenty to get a reading. It seems to be for most people.

While it is prefered to have everything grounded properly, you should be able to throw a radio on the seat, plug it into a lighter socket, pop the mag mount on the roof, and have a decent SWR.

 

[Cheech]

I would agree that you may have bad coax or a bad jumper.

 

[W5LZ]

Pointer,
The one thing you'll find out is that there are no gaurantees with antennas. Not just the 'Lil Will', but any of them. There are a few things that have to be done to make any antenna work well. One of those things is having the equipment to check the thing properly. Another is that you should make sure that the thing is at least in fairly good shape (everybody makes mistakes now and then).
Since moving from one vehicle to another seems to make no difference, I think I'd take a very hard look at the antenna, feed line, all that stuff. Sounds like there may be a problem there, maybe. What? Beats me!
You also mught try a different radio, of your radio on someone's set up that you know works. You can eleminate one 'variable' by doing that, your radio, maybe.
Good luck...
- 'Doc