So I'm too lazy to make another mount for my CB antennas, so I tried connecting the dual coax with a T connector. But I still have no reception. Tried calibrating it, and barely hear any static. Anybody know why this might be? And what I can do to solve it?
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I'm thinking it could be a grounding problem... So I'm gonna go out and ground the antenna to the frame somewhere.
Well, tried grounding it... Didn't help. It picks up the WX stations fine, and got chatter for two seconds then never again. Anybody know what my problem might be???
I don't think so because I calibrated it again last night and it was right where it should have been.
What are you trying to do, two antennas ? First and I am sure you have heard it before, two antennas attached with a good quality coaxial harness need to be at least ¼ wave length apart to perform properly. ¼ wave length is 9 feet, I don’t think my Ranger is nine feet wide so a dual antenna setup will not work well on a Ranger. Also, a dual antenna coax harness is made out of 75 ohm coax not the usual 50 ohm stuff and both antennas need to be tune separately first then the dual antenna harness is added. So let hear what you are doing and we can help some.
That setup is long gone man, I took the tonneau cover off. I found that I need to have the antennas on the mounts that came with them in order to have it working properly. God only knows why, but I had the single antenna running with the T connector and it worked fine. I just switched back to the dual setup last night and it's working fine. Seems like the L bracket I used just wasn't cooperating with the antenna.
R U still using the “T” Connector and extra antenna ? If so, have you tried the system on a single antenna without the “T" ? How did you tune the antenna(s) for low SWR. thks
The antennas are pretuned from Radioshack, so I didn't tune em. The radio itself has a setting to calibrate the SWR signal to the antennas. I have tried it without the T connector, and it worked fine, I just have OCD and didn't want an open end lol So I went with that. Both antennas are hooked up now without the connector on em and it hasn't affected the performance of the radio so far.
OK then… not to argue but Rat Shack can not pre-tune an antenna, the antenna needs to be on a vehicle and the coax connected before an antenna can be tuned so you just lucked out. How the two antennas are working together is a mystery to me, IMHO it can’t be done so again you lucked out. Oh ya, don’t use the CB Meter to anything other than to know you have a signal going out, they are not good meters or electrics BUT again you may have lucked out. Glad to hear it is working so enough said.
Grev knows his sh!t. And x2 on his previous posts in this thread. Spill the details of your setup, please. I swing 65w (unamplified) with perfect SWR and get out about 20mi depending on my surroundings.