nokones

Here is my brand new still in the box Tandy Corp Radio Shack TRC-24 22 Ch. CB radio. This is the model back in the day where as if you clip the black wire on the channel selector you activate the channel that is in the blank space between channels 22 & 23 known as Ch. 22A or the "Alpha" channel. It was kinda of a private channel that not a lot of CBs had in those days before the 40 channel CBs were introduced. Today that Alpha channel frequency is Ch. 24.

Well, I got all my quarterly mobile and portable radio programming updates done so, my next project was to install the Antenna Specialist/Antenex/Laird/TE Connectivity Trunk Lip NMO Mount and C27 Base Load CB Antenna on my 23 Wrangler IZARUBICON 2 Dr. as recommended by a couple of forum members. The install went pretty easy and yes, I have chassis ground continuity at the mount and NMO connector. That was verified before I cut the cable to the desired length and installed the UHF (PL 259) Connector. The mount and antenna was installed at the hood rear lip edge in front of the cowl on the passenger side as near to the outside as possible to not interfere with my Ditch Light. Before I do any cutting of the antenna element, I better check the provided cutting chart and see what is recommended for the CB freqs and the chart indicated a cut at the 49" mark for 27 Megs. I measured the element and it was already 49". In checking the VSWR, right off the bat my Rig-Expert indicated an initial VSWR at just a tad less than 1.5:1 on Ch. 1 and a little less than 1.2:1 on Ch. 40. Since, I can't stretch the antenna element, I elected to raise the antenna element about a 1/4" in the antenna ferrel. That worked pretty good but, based on my readings, I elected to drop it a tad back down and I ended up with 1.05:1 across the board. I'll just have to live with that. Next will be the comparison test and see what would be the difference in the Farz between the Firestik II and the C27 antennae. However, I have to wait until my friend gets back from Colorado next week so we can use the same Avalanche vehicle and I need to get another C27 antenna, so we are testing with a like antennae again. Onto the next project. Oh, by the way, please note, there is no shine/glare on my tires, and it is obvious that there is definitely no armorall on my Mickey Bajas. It had to be the shine/glare from that well-polished Chrome Bumper.

For 450-470 MHz UHF freqs, it's is mandatory 5 Meg off-set and dedicated freq pairs with the higher freq of the pair being the mobile transmit uplink input to the repeater. UHF freqs above 470 Megs is only a 3 Meg off-set and with the respective dedicated freq pairs. As for the HAM 70cm freqs, I don't know if it is FCC regulated or not insofar as what the off-set is and if the mobile off-set is a plus or minus and if the freq pairs are dedicated pairs. That is a whole different universe.

There are over 15 repeaters that provides coverage throughout the Las Vegas Metro Area not taking into account the repeaters outside of the Las Vegas Metro like Pahrump, Lanfair, Bullhead City, and Moapa Valley.

Motorola XTS1500 Type 2 & XTS5000 Type 3, and of course set for low power at 1 watt.

Now, I know what present I can get you for Christmas, a green can of Dupont Chrome Polish and bag of micro-fiber cloths.

No, that shine/glare is not from an Armorall coating. That glare is shining from your chrome bumper onto my Mickey Bajas

Did somebody say I was mall crawling? Nope that is not the case, but I know and I have first-hand experience of having an antenna ripped off and it wasn't because I was crawling at malls. There is a related discussion I posted somewhere on this forum I already lost my CB antenna on the trail. My CB Antenna did not have enough thread engagement with the antenna lug and coax cable stud and as we were climbing over the rocks in a creek wash a low-hanging tree branch ripped that sucker right off and I lost the lug, quick disconnect, spring, and the 5 Ft Firestik II antenna element. The problem was that the Heavy-Duty Spare Tire Carrier Bracket provided Antenna mount was a little too thick and I didn't have sufficient thread engagement between the coax cable antenna stud and the antenna lug so I abandoned that configuration and went back to the Terraflex Mounting Bracket bolted to the rear door hinge. The antenna lug and antenna coax cable stud have plenty of thread engagement now. And there's no doubt, I may/will lose more, but I have spare parts to fix/repair right away and get back on the air once I get home. Now, the problem is that Firestik no longer has the quick disconnect and heavy-duty springs. They blame it on Supply-chain issues and they are having difficulties in negotiating with various suppliers. I was able to find three quick disconnects and springs from a few sources throughout the country so at least I have spare parts. However, I'll be installing a Trunk-Lip/NMO Mount at the rear edge of my hood on the passenger side and with a Laird C27 Base Load Whip Antenna (parts already on-hand) for my CB Radio in the very near future once I get my quarterly radio programming updates done on all my mobiles and portables, to see if this hood/cowl configuration performs better You can see the difference in the thickness of the two antenna bracket mounts.

My UHF antenna is on the rear glass and I have no problem hitting repeaters that I need to hit 40 or so miles away, and have communicated a good 15 miles simplex car-to-car. Also, I am able to hear FRS traffic approx 5 miles away. I can't complained about the performance of the glass-mount antenna, I am totally happy with it. The left-front fender mount is my VHF Highband antenna and is essentially will be simplex (151, 154, & 158 Freqs) car-to-car operations. I'm not a Amateur Radio Operator thus no 2M freqs programmed. The CB Antenna is self explanatory and I get about 2 1/2 miles AM and 3 1/4 miles FM. Oh by the way, there is no Midland radio in play in this vehicle. I need to have the ability of communicating on Part 90 UHF freqs. with both analog and P25 Digital emissions, so that means Motorola as noted. I also require the same emissions capabilities for the VHF Highband Motorola radio. Also, you did a great job negatively commenting on my antenna mounting locations and the fact I way over spent on my Jeep build but you never did provided/offer any expert opinion, if you even to happen to possess those expertises, on better antenna mounting locations for a 23 Wrangler. Did I over spend? Well, I really didn't care what I spent on the overall build. I went top notch stuff on everything and essentially replaced just about every suspension, steering, and driveline components at about 4,000 miles on the odometer, for reliability and to reduce the probability of a breakdown on the trail. I also didn't hold back from getting the required/essential top-notch trail recovery gear and equipment. Maybe I did spend more money then you or anyone else would have but, I don't deal or buy cheap inferior low grade POS junk. I only deal and buy quality products, stuff they would use in a public safety environment for the radio components, and as for the Jeep itself only race type quality components. I don't care if it cost more then what you would want to spend. I am totally happy with the total build and I immediately resolved and learned from the minor regrets of the early build stages. If you ever see any of my racecar builds, you will never see any corners cut or cheap POS inferior parts on them either.

It may not be the norm but they do exist throughout the country usually in way far out locations away from other repeaters. Although, I believe a no-tone repeater still exist in Orange County CA if it is still active.

Is there a better location on a 23 Jeep Wrangler for a VHF Highband non-groundplane Laird B1442N antenna? There is no such thing as an adequate antenna mounting location on a Wrangler. These three locations are the best there is for a Wrangler and are being used for my Motorola XTL5000 UHF, Motorola XTL2500 VHF Highband, and my Cobra 25 LTD Classic AM/FM CB Radios.

Because they make a good ground and I have had this for centuries so I decided to use it. There was no ground at the antenna bracket except through the coax. With all the electronics and if the antenna mount isn't grounded you are subject to transmitting noise to other electrical components. This antenna was not GMRS or UHF. It is a VHF Highband 150 Meg antenna.

HAM radio operators or any non-public safety/first responder are not automatically qualified to conduct Search & Rescue or Recovery operations in the field during any disaster event unless they have been trained, and possess the required physical and mental attributes and have been certified by a regulatory or an public safety entity to do so under direction/guidance of the responsible public safety agency.

It was my understanding that Consumer Cellular was/is leasing services from Verizon. Is that still the case and if so, from the system uptime reliability perspective, what have you accomplished, except for maybe a lower rate and a lower priority in the pecking order on use of the system when the system gets overloaded.

Well, tuning my Laird/ TE Connectively B1442 Non-Groundplane antenna was very eventful and educational and I wasted a perfect and my last spare mini-UHF connector for nothing. I guess I got sorta impatient and less-than-confident with myself regarding installing the connector on the antenna coax. My VSWR reading was buried in the infinity zone and my 50-watt radio was measured with 10 watts forward with a bunch of reflected power according to my recently calibrated Bird 43 meter and slug. Humm, I may have a short or open circuit somewhere in the coax or at the mount. So, just be on the safe side, I get my Telewave In-Line RF Watt meter and check the readings again and they were the same. Also, I disconnected the antenna lead and connected a dummy load and I was transmitting 50 watts. So, thinking that I may have screwed up the installation of the mini-UHF connector on the coax, I decided to whack off the mini-UHF connector and install a PL 259 connector. The VSWR reading was no different than the mini-UHF connector at that point, I thought that I may have whacked off and wasted a perfectly installed mini-UHF connector unnecessarily. I decided to use a magmount to check the antenna and the VSWR was 8 or so but, I haven't cut the antenna yet. So, I cut the antenna based on the cut-chart for my targeted center resonance of 154 Megs which I whacked off 6 inches of the antenna element. The VSWR was 4+. Ok, at least the antenna is good and heading in the right direction and no doubt that the antenna element at full length was contributing to the infinity reading. So, I decided to start checking the antenna grounding system. My newly installed ground strap definitely had ground continuity to the mounting bolt, but not to the mounting bracket. I removed the bracket and wire-wheeled the paint off the bracket and reinstalled the bracket, and I had ground continuity at the bracket for the antenna coax mount to make a bonded ground. I reinstalled the antenna and mounting bracket to the vehicle, and I decided to start tuning the antenna with a Rig-Expert AA-650 Antenna Analyzer. I got to 1.4:1 VSWR at 154 Megs by cutting off 4 more inches of the antenna element to make a total of 10 inches that were cut-off and 4 inches less than what the cut chart specified. I decided to check the forward and reflected power with the Bird and my readings were a tad 50+ forward and what I estimate something way less than a watt reflected and the needle movement came pretting close of representing a VSWR of 1.3:1. That made me very happy. Very valuable lesson learned and I have extra mini-UHF connectors on order, but, I'll leave the PL 259 on the cable.

Thank you. I just had to feed my addiction. I won't have many freqs program except for the Part 90 Business Radio Service freqs I'm licensed for, and the MURS channels for receive only since I can't get radio powered down to 2 watts so I can listen in my travels. The CPS will only allow me to take it to 10 watts.

I'm just finishing up with a third radio in my 23 Wrangler Rubi 2 Dr. to complement my Motorola XTL5000 High Powered Remote Mount UHF radio and my Cobra 25 LTD Classic AM/FM CB Radio. My third radio is a Motorola XTL2500 Remote Mount 840 Channel VHF radio. I 'm going to use a Laird TE Connectivity B1442 Base Load Non-Groundplane antenna hanging on the driver's side at the cowl with a Rugged Radio mount. I have the radio installed and the electrical connected however, I am waiting on a Powerwerx Anderson Power Pole Distribution Block. I had to remove my CB, Garmin Navigation Systems from the existing distribution block in order to power the newly installed radio. Essentially, all I have left to do, is finished up on the antenna mount grounding system, running the NMO antenna mount cable, install the Mini UHF connector on the cable, and tune the antenna. I intend to do that tomorrow. I called it a day at 3PM Arizona time. I've been out in the garage since 8AM and it was 113 degrees. Then, I will need to program the radio.

This is where I mounted my Cobra 25 LTD Classic AM/FM CB Radio in my 23 Wrangler Rubi 2 Dr.

I may want to forego this trail so I can keep my fenders on.

Jeep Creeps don't drive Jeeps, they wheel them.

Some repeaters will not kickback or have a squelch tail. Also, some repeaters may have a reverse burst or squelch tail eliminator feature setting. If you put your mobile/portable in the monitor (PL/DPL Defeat) mode you may hear a squelch tail.

@Marcspaz Too bad we live many States apart. I would love to join you in your test.

Today was my first opportunity to try out the CB FM mode. I had a friend help me with my own CB radio, I took out of my Dually Diesel, and put it in his Avalanche. He was the transmitting source. I actually like the audio quality of the CB FM radio mode. If I remember correctly, my modulation peaked at 85% and my CB radios are not modified.

About a month or two ago, there was a discussion on that the CB Radio FM Mode may be something that should be looked at to consider bringing back the use of the CB radio for uses such as Off-Road Trail Comms. I stated that the CB FM Mode would probably propagate or provide better communications than the CB with AM modulation, and even better than FRS. Some Forum members disagreed but no one could cite any facts or back up their statements. I related that I think the CB FM modulation would have a better signal-to-noise ratio thus, better communication Farz. I also stated that as time permits, I would conduct a radio comparison test. Well, that day came, and I conducted the subject test comparing the communications with FRS, CB AM, and CB FM. I kept the test simple, and I did not record any RSSI (Radio Signal Strength Indicator) readings. I just did the ol’ hoot & howler type test to see if you can hear the communication and determine the usable distance and audio quality between the three subject radio transmissions. The test was conducted essentially in a desert environment on flat terrain, with a slight dip in elevation for a dry creek bed and a test point was conducted in that dip, consisting a few cacti, pucker bushes, and giggly weeds, with no other obstacles. A 2007 Chevrolet Avalanche was the Stationary Transmitting Point using a Cobra 29 LTD Classic Nightwatch AM/FM CB Radio with a Firestik II 4 Ft. Antenna in the center of the roof. CB Ch. 16 was used for both the AM & FM modes and the antenna was tuned at less than 1.1:1 VSWR. The CB Radio operated in the AM Mode with a Dead Carrier, no modulation, at 3.5 RF watts and was drawing 14.01 DC volts at 1.12 amps; and 3.9 RF watts with modulation, at 14.00 DC Volts and was drawing 1.46 amps. In FM mode, the radio was emitting 3.7 RF watts with essentially no difference in power draw. The data collection vehicle was a 2023 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon using a Cobra 25 LTD Classic CB AM/FM radio with a Firestik II 5 Ft. Antenna tuned to less than 1.1:1 VSWR and the antenna located on the rear Spare Tire Carrier Bracket near the passenger side of the vehicle. The data collection consisted of collecting test data every ¼ mile driving away from the stationary vehicle. The test concluded at the 3.25 mile checkpoint. The data collection vehicle operated the radio squelch level at the threshold of squelching out the noise. The FRS radios were two Midland LXT radios with fully charged batteries. The stationary vehicle transmitted on the FRS radio from inside the vehicle as a user would be doing on an actual off-road trail run and the test collection vehicle was receiving the communication transmission from inside the vehicle as an user would be doing on an off-road trail run. The RF output power was not checked due to the inability to measure. The FRS became non-existent passed the ¾ mile mark. The CB AM signal was good and quiet up to the 1 mile mark. The next ½ mile, the signal was readable but RF noisy. At the 2 & 2 ¼ mile marks the signal was barely readable. At the 2 ½ mile mark the signal was non-existent and covered by possible skip interference. In the FM mode, the signal was very good essentially full quieting for the first 1 ½ miles. From the 1 ¾ mile mark to the 2 ¾ mile mark, the signal was readable with some RF noise. At the 3-mile mark, the signal was very noisy but readable. At the 3 ¼ mile mark, the signal was very noisy and unreadable. In conclusion, the FM signal transmissions outperformed the AM signal transmissions. Based on these results on what would be the best Off-Road Trail Comm., I think the FM CB transmission has a good chance of being a very good trail comm. I think a test on an actual off-road trail with trees/foliage would be warranted to see what would be best under trail conditions. There is no doubt that any VHF or UHF mobile radio with RF output power higher than an FRS would perform better. I think that I just may conduct that test once I get my XTL VHF radio installed in my Jeep which will occur in the near future so I can conduct a comparison radio test between the VHF & UHF radios on the trail.

PS: My addiction problem is not an addiction problem. It is an addiction that I enjoy and I am glad that I have this addiction and it has been a load of fun and I highly recommend and welcome it for anyone who wants to indulge. I'm sure our beloved Queen has a term that he can coin for this addiction.