10:46 am
Club Member
April 10, 2015
Offline
hi guys:
I am working on the CB/antenna setup in my suburban. I know a little bit about radios, and have read internet forums re: the great debate about the coaxial cable length. Many "experts" (including some who legitimately are experts) recommend an 18-foot coaxial cable to optimize signal, because it is one half the length of a CB radio wave (which is 36 feet long).
I understand that a cable that is of poor quality or that is too short can cause a high Standing Wave Ratio ("SWR"), which, without getting into the technical details, would cause your radio to not work well (poor reception and transmission).
The distance between my radio and my antenna will be very short, such that a 3-foot cable would be more than adequate. I understand (reading various Internet forums and such) that a 3-foot cable simply is not adequate and would cause a high SWR, and that it would be better to use a 9-foot cable and place/wrap the excess into a figure 8 configuration (to avoid or minimize SWR) and tuck it away. I was wondering if anyone here could provide any details on that. It sure would be easy to use a 3-foot cable, but I want to get this right now and not have to mess with it ever again.
2:03 pm
Club Trailmaster
March 13, 2015
Offline I bought an 18ft and just have the extra zip-tied in a bundle under the dash. Didnt do the figure-8 or anything, works fine with little SWR. When I purchased mine I just grabbed the best cable they had. All were 18footers so I didn't consider length, just quality.
Where are you mounting your antenna that you can get away with 3ft of cable?
2:30 pm
Club Member
April 10, 2015
Offline The suburban has a plastic overhead "console" with storage space in it. . . and already had a hole in the roof (between driver/pass seat) for an antenna. So I am going to attach the CB radio bracket to the plastic overhead console, just above the rearview mirror. The challenge (well, one of several) was to remove the metal bracket that the plastic overhead console bolts to . . . because there was surface rust on the underside of the roof sheet metal. The metal bracket was attached with metal rivets that were a lot tougher than they looked and were a bit of a bitch to drill out.
So I got the bracket off, cleaned off all the rust, then primed and spray-painted the metal. Now I want to install the antenna and antenna holder. Then I will need to reinstall the metal bracket with rivets. It's a lot easier to reach/work with the antenna holder with the metal bracket removed. So here we are.
It's gonna suck if I get it all put back together with the 3-foot coaxial cable, then learn that the SWR is too high such that I have to take it apart and mess with reconnecting a coaxial cable to the antenna in the 1 inch of space that exists between the metal bracket and the roof sheetmetal . . .
3:23 pm
Club Member
March 5, 2015
Offline Definitely go with the 18 foot coax, figure 8 or spread out the excess to keep the swr down. Get quality coax and run an antenna that has an adjustable tip for the swr
5:46 pm
Club Member
February 26, 2014
Offline Remember to have a good ground as well. Don't wind your cable up but like Dale said spread it out if you can in a figure 8.
6:29 pm
Club Member
April 10, 2015
Offline Here's a nice response I got from the guy who runs howtocbradio.com:
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