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I Need Professional Help!

Taxi Driver

New Member
Mar 2, 2014
30
7
8
Oregon Monsoon Central
Some say I'm beyond help but that's another thread for another time.
My radio setup needs help.

Here's the threads about the radio and amp

http://www.worldwidedx.com/cb-band-cb-radios/166446-anyone-recognize-radio-gecol-gv-2000-a.html

http://www.worldwidedx.com/general-cb-services-discussion/166146-another-any-info-amp-thread.html

I bought a Sirio 4000 antenna and a Sirio 145 mag mount mounted in the center of the roof of my car.

SWR is 1.6 to 1 across the board.

It receives great. I've heard stations as far away as Germany.
The entire US rolls in like they were parked next to me.

I can't get out. I try every day after work, 4pm to 5pm pacific time. Nothing.
I tried with the amp on and off. Nothing. Receive was still good.
I removed the cable from the amp. Hook the antenna directly to the radio leaving the amp out of the setup. Once again, great reception, no contacts.

I try at 3:30am to stumble on local traffic, am and ssb. No luck.
As I recall, the radio was tuned to 3w deadkey to run the amp. Back in the day it ran fine barefoot. It ran bloody awesome with the amp on.
Not anymore.
Next step is to wrangle some free time and get over to the high ground in West Salem.

Because of my ridiculous work schedule I'm not able to find someone to help fine tune the setup. The only Ham I know won't touch it.

I need help. If a member near Salem OR could help me get this setup running properly I'd be eternally grateful. Shoot me a PM if you can help.

Thank in advance
 

So you have the antenna mounted in the best spot. Your SWR's are good, the radio is putting out normal watts, you have and amp yet you can't raise anyone on the radio. Sounds to me like you did everything right. Do you hear locals? Are you only trying to work skip? "Skip" is a fickle thing and can be difficult especially on 11 meters where your fighting a lot of man made noise.
 
So you have the antenna mounted in the best spot. Your SWR's are good, the radio is putting out normal watts, you have and amp yet you can't raise anyone on the radio. Sounds to me like you did everything right. Do you hear locals? Are you only trying to work skip? "Skip" is a fickle thing and can be difficult especially on 11 meters where your fighting a lot of man made noise.

During the day all I hear is skip or static. 38 lsb is a mess when skips in. Yesterday afternoon there was nine+ pounds of messy skip.

I try some of the other upper channels if I hear a callout. Nothing.

I have a short time in the early morning to try to contact locals. The airwaves are pretty dead around here at 3:30am.
Daytime AM isn't the same as it used to be. With skip blasting at nine pounds even if locals were talking It's impossible to distinguish local traffic from the AM skip noise. AM is really bad nowadays.

I don't have a watt meter.

I'm going to see if I can get on the hill across the river to try making contact.

I have a feeling the amp needs adjustment. When it's on the radio's transmit meter only goes to six or so. Barefoot it goes way up like it's supposed to.
Right now the amp is unplugged from the radio and the antenna is plugged directly into the radio.
 
Daytime AM isn't the same as it used to be. With skip blasting at nine pounds even if locals were talking It's impossible to distinguish local traffic from the AM skip noise. AM is really bad nowadays.
Herein lies your problem, 11 meters in general is a mess when the band is open so talking to locals is going to be a problem. Maybe, unlikely but maybe there are no locals in your area that are on.

I would do this, go to Radio Shack and buy an swr/power meter, hook it up and see what your set-up is putting out. The meter on the radio not moving as much when the amp is on is a bit disconcerting but might be normal. I have only owned one amp and that was years ago and even then I only ran ssb so I am not an authority on amps. Your antenna is mounted correct and you did say you have good swr, anything below 2.0 is fine so I am sure your radiating some kind of signal.

I am getting the feeling and please this is not indented as any type of criticism but I think you just thought slap an antenna on and run power and you would talk the world. That is a perfectly normal response to someone starting out or coming back.

You will eventually get a hold of someone, it will happen. If your radio is putting out power and the antenna is working then someone sometime will here you. Most likely someone is actually hearing you but you might not hear them coming back.

Since you show interest in talking to people all over the world I have to add my plug here.... Think about ham radio.
 
When I got the radio out of storage I had no expectations that it would work properly.
I HOPED it would but reality says it's a crapshoot. Especially after being in storage for 15 years.
I'll keep trying with the radio. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I have the ARRL Tech license manual and study it when I can.
 
When I got the radio out of storage I had no expectations that it would work properly.
I HOPED it would but reality says it's a crapshoot. Especially after being in storage for 15 years.
I'll keep trying with the radio. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I have the ARRL Tech license manual and study it when I can.
I took out my Cobra 148 which had been in the attic for 22 years, and it worked fine! If you want to see how it works with locals, try getting on the air in the evenings or for a few hours just after midnight.
 
first lest make sure you actually have transmit audio.

take the amp out of line.

you should have the antenna coax going right in to the back of the radio.

set the radio to AM mode.

key the mic, and watch the TX meter lights. with a loud whistle into the mic, an additional one or two lights should light up.

this will confirm that your voice is actually going out over the air.
(what it sounds like is another story)

if when you key the mic, ALL the meter lights light up so that you cant tell whether or not you are "modulating", then go to SSB mode and key the mic.

in SSB mode, with the mic keyed, you should see no lights lit on the meter until you speak into the mic.
if you do see lights on the meter in SSB mode with no voice input to the mic, then you have a problem with the SSB on that radio.

now, in SSB mode, key the mic and give it a loud whistle.
you should see the TX lights all (or at least most) light up in accordance with your voice.

if your radio fails either of these tests, then you might not have any transmit audio, and no matter how many calls you make, you're not going to get a response.

if the radio does pass these tests, try to find a cheap radio at a garage sale or something like an old shortwave radio tuned to the CB band, anything that will allow you to listen to your own TX audio.

once you have confirmed that you are indeed putting a voice on the air, the next step is to practice sounding like a pro on the air.

im not sayiing that you dont, but if you sound like a beginner, you are not going to make many contacts.
thats just the way most people out there are.
(not all of us, but lots)
LC
 

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