anybody have a cb radio?

[olred90]

i was thinking about getting one. where do you guys have yours mounted? are they hard to install?

 

[Sunk]

There's a thread around here somewhere in which people show where they have their CBs mounted. They're not hard to install, just power and route the cable to your antenna.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I have one in my Ranger, I had one in my 88 BII and one in my choptop, but currently I don't have an antenna on the Ranger, or on the 88, and on the choptop I have an antenna but the CB is in the basement.... One of these days I'll get it all back together.

In my Ranger, I have a double DIN opening for the radio, so I just put a single DIN CD player in and mounted a slim CB above it. In my 88 I had fitted a small CB into the ashtray slot. My choptop... I haven't figured out a good place yet... previous owner had it mounted above the rear-view mirror, but that makes it about impossible to check what channel your on, or at least with the CB he had mounted there.

They're not hard to install, usually the hardest part is getting them tuned properly. You really shouldn't have to tune one, but it will give you better range. Tuning them requires an SWR meter.

 

[snake]

I got an icom 4600 dual band ham radio in mine. Has a detachable face, so I mounted the radio under the seat and the face where the ashtray used to be. Drilled no holes and it looks like a factory install. Hid all the wires and coax under the carpet.

Got a CB in my work truck. Consider one of the "S" radios (check online) Magnum makes 'em, the S3 is the cheapest, then S6 and S9. I like them because of the extra channels and a modulator built in. Real stable on the frequencies too, I have mine on for a week at the time and it stays right where it should be and doesn't have any frequency "wander". Having a mic socket in front helps too.

PM me if you want additional info, but I'll be gone from here for about a week unless I can steal -er "borrow" wifi from somewhere along the way.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

Installing a cb is simple....unless you want it to perform well...then things can get a little more complex. you have to go from thinking in 12 volt (where a connection is either connected or disconnected) to thinking in RF (where things can appear connected solidly, but arent). a good clean 12 volt source is a must...most vehicle wiring, especially on an older vehicle, is much too noisy for a cb to perform well with. running positive and negative wires directly to the battery is the best, but not always the cleanest looking, method for feeding your radio a clean 12 volts.

CB antennas are a whole other story. placement, ground plane, coax type, length and routing, and more, can all dramatically effect your radios performance. your antenna is the single most important part of your system....a quality antenna with a cheap radio will out-perform a cheap antenna with a top-of-the-line radio any day.

 

[Carlos Murphy]

CB

I have a cheapy in my 88 Super mounted to the lower dash face right below the "cigar" lighter and the face of the radio points up at me. The mike bracket is mounted just under the climate control panel.

I use to have a "mag-mount" antenna on the roof but it got knocked off by tree limbs so many times and got dragged on trails that I'm on my third one so now I just put in in the bed close to the back window.

I only use it to communicate with other trucks on the trail cuz it only has a 3 to 5 mile range but less in the mountains.