CB Radio Suggestion?

[Ron Helmuth]

midland sells them online-but I welcome some input also

I'm up in Longmont and was looking for an aux speaker. I got my system down at Radio Service Center and forgot the speaker. I visited Radio Shack and Best Buy and neither of them carry a small speaker and longer. Kind of amazing I thought.

Any suggestions?

I just bought a Midland CB 1001TX I believe- and they have a auxiliary speaker jack on the rear. They sell a cheapo speaker for under $20 and the noise filtered one is $25. Almost exactly what the base unit itself was....

Any model/brand suggestions for my antenna using ARB bumper placement?

My Firestick connection thru craigslist flaked out-I like the idea of the pole on the bumper to help me with parking-but the accessories seem to add up quickly. The spring is $11 the mount stud is $12.

Any other brand similar features to a Firestick but less pricy to mount and quick disconnect?

 

[Beater]

I have a firestick or two I am not using if you want. No mount. white in color. just come get it

 

[rover67]

i have a spring for a firestick just sitting in the garage if you want it. just PM me.

 

[Ron Helmuth]

dang that is quite nice of you Beater and you also rover67

sending Private Messages now

 

[nakman]

A couple of points to add to Groucho's comments.


3. In car installations it's not 12VDC that is the problem, but switching. The problem with running a coax next to a static 12VDC wire is more that you might induce noise into the car system more than the radio (i.e. make dash lights flicker, screw up your clock, weirdness like that). But if you run a coax next to say some of the wires that run to or from the ECU, then 12V switching is more than enough to introduce noise into the radio coax. It's safest to consider every wire potentially switching and do your orthogonality checks and keep separation. But that's also not really practical all the time, so sometimes you have to make due. This is also a function of the quality of your coax, workmanship on connectors, etc. Good coax can shield the signal better than cheap coax, so it's less likely to leak or be susceptible to induced noise.

So I wired up a brand new rig last night, and as I'm thinking how smart I am for actually using split loom, I remember this thread from last winter...

So I've got the +, the -, and antenna coax all running together under the carpet, below the shifters, then out through the firewall poked through the same grommet, all in the same happy little loom except in the grommet and when they're under the carpet that's under the seat. About two feet from the battery the coax leaves the other two and stays at the fender where the antenna will attach, which hopefully will happen tonight.

I could possibly run either the power or coax out the floor then up into the engine bay on the engine side of the firewall, but at this point am leaning towards just trying it how it is now. Per Dave's argument above, I am no where near any type of ECU switching, since the only things together are the Ham stuff. Oh, and between under the seat and the dash are 5 wires: +, -, coax, remote head, and remote speaker. I've got nice happy 8" loops of extra tied at the center... How will I know if my setup is no good?

 

[DaveInDenver]

If you've bundled all the ham stuff and kept separation from the existing wiring harness, then issues would be likely isolated to noise on the radio. It's possible that in really poor installations to be generally noisy, but with reasonably good practice then you only need to be worried about wires that are basically close enough to be touching. That's not that touching is a requirement for noise coupling, just an indicator of how strong the induced field will be and wires that have even a few inches of space will have a much lower chance of coupling noise.

So the worry is that you might couple noise onto the power leads, which would induce RF into the charging system. But the way you have it wired, the noise would couple from the antenna lead onto the power leads. That would then connect at a single point at the battery and back into the power system. My guess is that it wouldn't be any worse than anything the alternator produces and so it's unlikely that you could create problems for the ECU, between the relatively low strength and that critical items will have filtering.

So if you think it's a decent install, I would just give it a try...

You will probably have zero noise with the truck off, but with it running is when any problems would appear. My guess is that you might pick up some alternator whine with the antenna feedline and power leads in close proximity for long runs. But it's harder to try and predict than to just experiment.

 

[nakman]

Anyone up for a quick radio check? I'm going to drive around the block for a couple minutes, will monitor simplex. (don't have any repeaters programmed yet...)

 

[corsair23]

Anyone up for a quick radio check? I'm going to drive around the block for a couple minutes, will monitor simplex. (don't have any repeaters programmed yet...)

Monitoring but I doubt I'll pick you up from here on my HT....

 

[nakman]

thanks Jeff, I didn't hear anyone but that's alright I'm sure it's working fine. I can hear the fella's on the 145 chewing away real nice so I think the install is working.. I don't like it though the coax is getting squished too much IMO on the side of the hood, I may need to move it, or get a thinner cable. It's fine for a while though.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I don't like it though the coax is getting squished too much IMO on the side of the hood, I may need to move it, or get a thinner cable. It's fine for a while though.

That sounds vaguely familiar to an earlier install, eh?

 

[nakman]

That sounds vaguely familiar to an earlier install, eh?

Yeah a little too familiar, actually. Problem was they didn't have the cable in stock that has the super thin section towards the end, only one I could get was a fatter one. So it's as if a full width coax is poking between my hood and fender. I loosened the hinges and tried to shift the hood over to the side, and loosened the fender and managed to pull it outwards a little, combination of the two probably gave me another .150" You can move the cable when the hood's closed, so it's not completely smashed, but still, just don't like it..

 

[MDH33]

What if you placed your mount closer to the front of the fender/hood and ran the cable through the grill?

Let me know what time you want to test it tonight and I'll get on the air.

 

[corsair23]

You can move the cable when the hood's closed, so it's not completely smashed, but still, just don't like it..

How often are you going to opening and closing your hood? Maybe a wrap or two of electrical tape where the cable might get rubbed and call it good - I'm looking for some of those self adhesive cable holders locally (like these or the type Hulk has) for my hatch mounted setup...I'm always opening and closing the hatch and the coax is probably going to get smooshed/sliced sooner or later.

 

[fubuki]

Bought my first CB today. Ended up getting the Uniden Pro 520XL from Radio Service Center. Hope to put it to good use on the run Wednesday.