Magnetic mounts are a compromise. Ideally, a direct connection to ground at the base of the radiating element is best, although there is some "magnetic coupling" to the vehicle with a magnetic mount. If you want the best bang for you buck and don't want a 9ft whip sailing above your truck, try something like a shortened 5/8 wave vertical. Electrically, they are a 5/8 wave, but don't quite have the gain of a true 5/8 wave. Even if mounted off-center, one of these will outperform a magmount centered on the top of the vehicle. You can find these at any truck stop or CB shop. Most of the major antenna manufacturers make them. Performance is going to be the relatively the same from brand to brand. They range from 3-6 ft, and are constructed with wire would around a fiberglass whip, sealed in plastic. There are mounts you can slide in to the stake holes along the side of truck bed, so no external drilling, although I would drill a small hole in a concealed location to make a good bond to ground, which is extremely important.
If you are experiencing static and noise from the vehicle, try wiring the radio directly to the battery. This is good installation practice, and recommended by Ford as the first thing to do to resolve vehicle-generated noise. This includes both positive and negative leads. Quite often noise is propagated through the wiring and into the radio. Most of the filters are designed to filter voltage fluctuations, which is what you hear from an alternator, and are not designed to be common-mode filters.
Hey I have that exact radio in my ranger. I'll tell you, mine don't work that great either. My range is about the same, 1 mile. It is more a function of the small size of the radio then the antenna.
http://cobra.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=315&category_ID=30
The size of the radio has nothing to do with it. Assuming his radio has 4 watts output, the antenna, feedline, or coupling to ground is the problem.
second find a local cb shop and have your anntenas tuned to match your cb along with your coax. the things that make a cd work the best are: tuning the cd, match the length of the coax to the cd power, eliminate interferance, and tune your anntenas to match cb power. if you get a higher quality cb alot of this will be easier because you can adjust your SWR and calibrate your cd your self i would get a cobra 29 with sound tracker. cb's can rack up the $ really quick if you wanna blow peoples doors off. i have about 350$ in mine with a booster and can reach over 100 miles on a good day. the best thing you could do is go to a cb shop and talk to them they can fix the whole thing with in 20 min i bet or at least tell you what you need to do exactly.
Antennas aren't tuned to match a transmitter, or the feedline. Well, you can "do" the latter, but it isn't the proper way to do things. If you have an antenna with a single driven element, you connect the SWR bridge as close to the antenna feedpoint as you can, tune the antenna, then connect the coax. If you are using two driven elements, do the same for both, then calculate the length of coax you need in relation to the frequency, and don't forget to include the feedline's velocity factor in this calculation.
cb's can rack up the $ really quick if you wanna blow peoples doors off. i have about 350$ in mine with a booster and can reach over 100 miles on a good day. the best thing you could do is go to a cb shop and talk to them they can fix the whole thing with in 20 min i bet or at least tell you what you need to do exactly.
Amplifiers are for people that are trying to compensate for the shortcomings of their installation. A properly installed mobile with 4 watts AM should have a range out to about 10-15 miles groundwave (not skip). SSB will work out to about 15-20 miles. I've talked out to all 50 states, Guam and most of Canada with 4 watts. I've talked out to Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Italy and quite a few more places on SSB with 12 watts PEP. I was using a 4ft Firestick for an antenna, which was mounted 4 inches behind the cab of the truck.