The CB Radio Talk Forum

Thanks for the feedback guys. I haven't tried out the short one yet. Nor have I tried trimming the long one. I don't even know if it's long or short. Only checked it on channel 19 to make sure I wouldn't fry the radio. Following the logic of Jesse James, I'm assuming they've run embedded wires withi...

I recently picked up a couple of Francis Antennas mounted about 8" apart on a stainless steel bar with a pair of Vice-grips welded in between for quick mounting on a semi mirror. They each had a 12' length of good coax but the guy told me the long one (67") was for CB and the short one (31") for his...

If you crimp right, it's as good or better than soldering. The key is to use professional crimp fittings and tools, not the junk they sell at the hardware stores. I've never seen any good radio with aluminum wire (or even a cheap radio for that matter). Undersized? Yeah you see that all the time. I'...

Hey Mo! I've been seeing your ads from time to time and calling for you when I'm up north. I'm sure I heard you the other day but the rig I was driving was having trouble with the CB and I wasn't getting out very far. (Either that or you were just ignoring me ... I get a lot of that.) Well, it seem...

Well, the 959 turned out to be a great radio. All the functions work and it gives and gets very well. The 48T never seemed right though, seemed like it was shorting out when transmitting. But with the bragging the guy did (about how much power it put out), I wondered if I just needed a better (bigge...

Hey Sonoma, Thanks for the advice. Been working good for a month now but haven't used it a lot. Out of the blue today, I got a call from Rob, the local CB guru tech I'd started to worry had quit the business. Only problem is, his real job is fixing jets and flying them all over the country, which he...

There are several pivot mounts that would allow you to lay your antenna down while traveling and quickly set it back up once stationary. I'd suggest a 102" whip right in the middle of your trailer roof. The trailer park neighbors won't even notice it. I installed one (without the pivot) on an old tr...

O.K. some of us hate aluminum and so do the rest of us. Any time you're conducting any sort of current through an aluminum conductor, you need to use the anti-oxidant or grease (Noalox is good and available at hardware stores ... H.D.) at any connection where current is being carried. Code prohibits...

Sometimes you can buy "parts" radios with everything you need, real cheap in the local classifieds. I've picked up good, working Cobra 29's for as little as 5 bucks. In fact I have a couple I'd sell you cheap if you were local ... the shipping makes them Un-cheap. You did say "pots", with an 'S'. Be...

Thanks Greg, Pretty much what I figured. This unit was never a "dear friend" to me. Maybe it was to someone else but he let it down or screwed it up tinkering with stuff he didn't understand. Still Looking for a good Local in Northern Utah, Rob, Where are you???? Hey, Mighty Mo, you seen or talked t...

Thanks guys, Then clearly, things are not what they were when the radio was new. If I plug the Uniden mic into the Cobra radio, it tries to transmit (but doesn't because it's screwed up). And if I plug the Cobra mic into the Washington, it does the same thing and goes to transmit as soon as I plug i...

Using Deoxit on the PTT switches, I've recently gotten several problem mics to work like new. But in testing them I found two that seemed to have (my theory) much higher impedance than the others. They're both Cobra mics, one is clearly an older style, but when compared to any of the other 4 pin mic...

Recently fell in love with Deoxit and started cleaning up some old radios and bringing them back to life. I ended up with a Cobra 148 GTL with a side-mount 5 pin mic jack that didn't transmit. Thinking it might be the mic, I tried the extra mic from a Washington and it seemed to be a mis-match. I th...

Who doesn't love a Washington? So, Mtn Lynx, I've never understood the ferrite bead thing. I've seen them used on coax for a choke, but I read an article that said you need to size or tune them to the frequencies you're trying to eliminate. How do you know what they are? I read they provide "parasit...

O.K. I got a conundrum here for anyone, everyone to explain. My question is Radio? Antenna? Conditions? Since getting back into CB, I've acquired and used a variety of radios. I usually have one in whatever vehicle I'm driving. I change out the one in the pickup I use the most to test different radi...

Hey Mighty Mo, I never answered you way back when … sorry about that. I call for you whenever I’m up that way and I’ve heard you on my base a time or two but you must be getting out better than I do because you never respond (or maybe you’re just ignoring me … like everyone else). Anyway, I know it’...

Well, when you talk about know-how, experience and willingness to help and share advice, you have to include sonoma and Jesse James right there with MDY. I think they all deserve our thanks and a big :cheers: OK ... right after the shower thing again. And Jesse, if you can somehow post 1400 times in...

Hey Cletus,
Your record is nothing to snub (what's left of) your nose at either.

Congrats! Is anybody else anywhere near that record??? Sheesh, how many keyboards have you gone through? And monitors? If you're like me, they don't last too long because they get punched when you don't like something on the internet and that's all the time. You know, the real record is the content....

OK not dual finals ... hmmm ... I'm still pretty sure it's fuel injected. Played with it some more and suddenly it wasn't working right, just like when I first tested it and this time I knew I had the frequencies right. I hate solving a problem and not knowing exactly how because you know it'll come...

Well, this may be a matter of me, once again looking stupid (while never admitting to being so, mind you). There are two transistors (again, an assumption) mounted on the rear panel of the radio behind where the heat sink would be, if it had a heat sink. Now I surmised those transistors were the fin...

Thanks sonoma, No, I don't have a freq counter except in a couple of radios. I'm no tech so don't understand as much as a lot of you guys here. But I know a few things and try a few more. It does have dual finals but no heat sink. I saw a couple on the web with heat sinks and it looks like you could...

Found a nice Connex 3300-x. Well, that's what the "Freedom" faceplate says on it. I think it's a 3300. The fellow says it works great and will sell it cheap. Has a nice Astatic 636-L with a Gearkeeper hanger and a Bearcat external speaker with the rig. This is like some of the other nicer radios I'v...

O.K. I want pictures of those setups. I also have 4 antennas. 2 at home that really don't get out so good, one magnet mount for trading between cars and one old center-load on my truck that works better than all of the others combined. (Oh yeah, and one dipole on the side of the house that's worse t...

Well technically I don't know if he qualifies as "human". Regardless, I was of the opinion he was a bit smaller. Maybe it's my TV.

Also, how in the world did he clear that fence?

No, that wouldn't work for me. I'd end up really screwing up the radio if I tried something like that. Anyway, I was hoping I could change them and have them as extras or standbys for 4 pin radios. Don't want to permanently change a radio just to use the mics. I don't know if they're that good. I'll...

OK, that wasn't the answer I wanted. You were supposed to say, just hook it up any which way and it'll work great. On the bright side ... I have two really nice Motorola Microphones for sale cheap. Some idiot cut the plug off one of them but, for the right person, I'd be happy to get some big wire n...

You know, we should all be hearing Tibet all the time. Even a 3' mobile antenna has the advantage of starting out at an average altitude of 15,000 feet! Put a 30' tower on top of that and well, you'd really be getting up there! Been getting a lot more skip the past few days, am and ssb. But it comes...

Hey all, I've found, as I'm sure many others have, that mics don't always last, especially when they get beat up. I checked out a Radio Shack sideband that seemed to work but never got a response. I pulled the mic off another realistic and plugged it in and the radio worked great. The first mic simp...

A year later got an Atari ST with a 3.5" floppy drive ... super high tech! Had a program on one of those floppies that took about 15 minutes to come up with an American flag cartoon image on the screen. Then, it would start waving in the wind and everyone would cheer.

Haven't heard much lately but had to make a run into the high country today. Usually have a lot going on up there in the summer but not this year. Anyway, lots of skip once I got up out of the city and up to 6000 feet. 38 LSB was crawling with contacts. Tried a few other channels and they were busy ...

A rock. Wait, that was my first CB or maybe truck, can't remember. First computer was an Atari 130XE. It wasn't a joke or a video game. It was a serious Home / Business computer (for the time). I had a computer expert (the top computer guru for a billion dollar international organization and they fa...

Well, been out of town all week and haven't tried the thing out yet. Not even today (have the day off), yard work instead, got to keep the wife happy. Anyway, looked at the ads and found a DX 959 for 40 bucks, it was in another town but my son lives a mile away so he ran over and got it. Now I have ...

Had to run and move a motorhome that hadn't run in 4 years. Got it going and noticed it had an real dirty, little in-dash Midalnd radio. I had to clean it up just to see what the buttons were for. I fired it up and had static, the antenna looked OK and I called for radio check, with no response. Did...

Well, he let me take it to try out so I've got it but, like Sonoma said, there are a lot of folks who don't understand much about radios even though they love the hobby or at least the talking on them. Heck, I still hear kids say "Breaker 1-9" on channel 38. In fact, I spotted a Motorola Radius 200 ...

Howdy all, Got a fellow wanting to sell me his 5 year old Galaxy 48T (haven't met him, we're texting back and forth). I looked it up and it's a 10 meter radio. I asked if it's a CB and he says yes, and he says it has sideband. I found the Galaxy info which clearly states it does not. But it has am a...

You gotta love that big meter when you're on the road. That's why I've always preferred Galaxies over Cobras in my trucks, the meter is much easier to read at a glance especially when you get over 40 and your eyes go south.

I think I failed.

DANG!

I'm no expert but I'll readily agree with Greg on this one. If you're getting SWR that high, there may be another problem. I've done dozens of mobile installs over the years and every time we had a bad SWR match it was an un-grounded radio or bad or broken coax or maybe a bad (or too long) antenna. ...

Show offs!

Whatever works, but MacGyver wasn't part of the A-Team. Maybe he was his own A-team. (For those of you who actually know how to weld...) I always liked how they'd randomly find an Oxy-acetylene set up on those shows, fire up a cutting torch and then, somehow arc weld a piece of aluminum plate to a r...

Sheesh, you guys were skippin" all over and it was dead as a door-nail here. All week and today too. Last Saturday though, It was boomin'. In fact I've got a question for MD or one of you experts out there. I was trying to follow all the conversations on 38 LSB Saturday night. Most of it was coming ...

Sheesh, when did they make those? I thought by the time 40 channel radios were on the market, nobody was making tube chassis anymore. Or were the top of the line models still using tubes for a while? Well, that's just one more thing to add to my "didn't know" list. Man, that dang list just gets long...

So, is Greg Mr. T? I heard he once built a Sherman tank out of an old Cobra 29 and a few spare parts off his President McKinley.

Like I said over on the other thread, keep on shoutin', I'm listnin' for ya.

Hey Rod, Did you hear him down in Kentucky??? I just turned on the ol' Washington and it's sippin' wall to wall, mostly the northwest but it's coming in loud and clear, 36, 37 & 38 & 39 LSB. Still listening to see who and where. N Cal sounds like they're broadcasting from my garage. Good stuff, I'll...

That's a big 10-4!! I'll jump on the "thank Greg" bandwagon any day! I wish he was my next door neighbor. I'd love it and he'd hate it. I'd be buggin' him all the time for advice and tips and borrowing all his test equipment and probably his truck and boat too. Anyway, thanks to Greg. If he doesn't ...

Also, if you aim your beam directly North (if you have a beam), you'd be aiming right at Mtn Lynx in Alaska and just a few degrees west you'd be aimed at me, on the other side of the world. Give it a shot.

When you do, give a shout out to Utah. You said you were talking to Montana the other day. When the skip is good I can always get into central Canada. One of these days, I'm sure we'll hear each other. So, 2 thousand pounds of Salmon? You know, when we go fishin' here in Utah, on one of the many hig...

Not too good here either but there is some rumbling, makes me feel better than the nothing I've been hearing.

So, did you eat all that Salmon?

The CB Radio Talk Forum

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