cb radio help

[jsefcik]

My dad was gifted a cb radio( cobra 19 ultra 3,

i was tryed hooking it up to a ham radio anntena, but people say that i reached, i sound muffled,

could it be the mike? or anntenna? please help!!!!!

[Zeus]

It's the antenna. You need a CB antenna, I think your set is a UHF CB, so get a UHF CB antenna, base and coax (coaxial cable). And a connector that fits the back of the radio.

If you take the radio to a truck or 4WD store, they'll help you out.

And trust me, I'm an amateur.

[jrrdw]

You can also 'tune' your antenna. There's a meter built just for it but I don't know what it's called. Do a Youtube search, you'll find it.

Edit: As for the distorsion, put 2 inchs of space between your mouth and the mic...you'd be surprised.

[Technician1002]

The meter is called a SWR meter. (Standing Wave Ratio). SWR should be below 3:1. 1:1 is perfect.

An antenna for another band will be out of tune.

CB is in the HF band or 11 Meter band. A ham radio 10 meter antenna can sometimes be tuned to 11 meters. A 2 meter antenna can't be tuned to work on 11 Meters. CB channels are in the 27 MHZ band.

A newer CB band is designated as Family Radio Service in the UHF band on 460 MHZ. The FRS radios have non removable antennas, so this is not the band that radio is using. More reading below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_wave_ratio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Band_radio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Radio_Service

[jsefcik]

my dad said the swr meter read about 1-1, my buddy is gonna try to fix it for me

[Daltonultra]

It's the antenna. You need a CB antenna, I think your set is a UHF CB, so get a UHF CB antenna, base and coax (coaxial cable). And a connector that fits the back of the radio.

If you take the radio to a truck or 4WD store, they'll help you out.

And trust me, I'm an amateur.

CB in the USA is 27Mhz, not UHF.


The 19 is a cheap radio with very basic functions, basically just an update of the old three-knob units from the 70s. It's the cheapest radio Cobra makes, so don't expect that you're going to get great performance from it. Most truckers don't touch them. They're mainly bought by companies that assign drivers to trucks on a day-to-day basis (also known as "slip-seating") All they need is a radio to talk to yard/dock and scale operators that might be as far as 500ft away.

Muffled sound probably is the antenna, but the 19 will always sound tinny, and the range will never be much better than about two miles. It just doesn't have much power.

I personally use a Cobra 18 WX ST II, which is their low-end digital. The funny thing is that, for $85, it's got better sound than most of the expensive high-end units, because it actually has a sound processor.

Aside from that, though, most of the radios from about $70 and up get about the same sound. The "top of the line" radios are mainly more expensive because of the chrome they use, and because of various gadgets like sound-effect keys and alarm clocks and other such thing that don't actually improve the performance of the radio.

Range varies a bit, but there is a legal restriction on transmission wattage, so even that mainly has to do with the antenna. Signal amplifiers CAN be bought, but they are illegal to use.

[Zeus]

Tech, down here FRS is called UHF CB, we get 5 watts and the radios are much like the HF CB sets you have. HF CB is just about dead here. Not that I'd know though, I only get 400W PEP so any unlicensed radios are somewhat redundant.

I prefer to see less than 1.7:1. And an SWR meter won't read 1:1 unless you use a dummy load, make sure the SWR meter isn't set to a high power, it won't respond if it's on 150W and you're only transmitting at 5W.

[jsefcik]

yea my dads is just a simple 35 dollar one from walmart, cobra 19 ultra 3