Well, I twas out garage saleing this morning and I picked up a Cobra CB with weatherband that's a couple years old for four bucks and two firesticks for a dollar. I was curious if I can keep my current cheapy cobra installed that is hooked up to two 4' fiberglass antenna's and run this one as well to use the weatherband option while still being able to use the other one for CB? I have a cheap wilson "lil will" that I thought about attaching to this one, but would the two interfere with each other? Do they make a splicer of some sort that would allow me to use the two existing antennas (obviously not at the same time, but so I wouldn't have to add yet another antenna) or would a glass mount be powerful enough for the weatherband?

Also this one has 3 wires coming from the power source, whereas my other one only has two, what is the third orange wire for?

 

The three wires are probably ground, memory, & switched power, but look for a wiring diagram sticker on the bottom or near the power connector.

The radios will only interfere if you're transmitting on both on the same channel. They probably won't receive each other very well because the signals will be so strong, but I don't think it'll damage them.

You can run 2 antennas off one radio with a splitter, but you shouldn't try to run both radios thru the same antenna(s).

Why do you only want to use the weather? Why not toss the other CB and use this one exclusively?

 

You can run the two ants to both radios as long as you don't use it at the same time. If you use different ants you can run both radios at the same time with NO interference as long as the ants are three feet apart. Do you do a lot of towing? If not, you don't need two ants on one radio. It does not increase signal reception. The sole purpose of dual ants is to prevent a trailer from blocking reception on one side in a curve. I do this stuff at work everyday. If you have any questions just ask.

 

It's never a real great idea to hook two radios to the same antenna system. When you transmit on one radio some of the power will be reflected into the other radio that is on receive. Even though your CB has a fairly low 4 Watt transmitt power rating, it could mess up the receive front end of the other radio.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I've done it quite a bit on commercial systems with combiners and isolators and filtering.
Did you hook up that duel-antenna array yourself? Lots of times when those things are installed only one antenna is used. If one isn't used, I would go with that one. If they are both hooked up, I would leave it alone and install another antenna. If you mess around with the length of the coax on your array it will change the SWR.

One easy way to tell if you have a true array is to check out the coax. After the cable, "T's", and goes to the antennas, it should be marked, "RG-59", or have 75 ohms marked on it. If it has RG-58 or 50 ohms it's the wrong coax anyway and your system would be improved by separation of the two antennas.

The array system is there to help transmitter gain. If you draw an imaginary line between your two antennas, the gain will be perpendicular to that line. So, if you have the antennas mounted on either mirror, (the normal way you see it done,) you should be able to reach farther to the front and rear of the truck. It comes at a cost though, for side to side gain is cut. This is helpful to truckers on the highway, because most most of the time they want to talk with other truckers in front or behind them. One problem is that the antennas should be spaced 12 feet apart and since 8 feet is the max width on the highway, proformance is cut.

The most cost effective thing you could do is to add that window mount antenna for your weather radio.

 

I didn't wanna lose the old one because this one is much bigger and therefore has to be mounted in another location. If I tear the old one out I will have disgusting mouting holes ewwww.

I rigged it up myself, bought the split wire system from a truck stop. Never had the chance to check the SWR but it seems to work pretty good, I get a mile+ usually. Although that's not all that great it's about as good as to be expect from a stocker I guess.

So what ya'll think I should do is dump the two antennas on the one and use one antenna for the weather CB and the other for the regular CB?

 

I have a cheap Wally World CB and get close to 7 miles with a 4 ft fiberglass whip, you may need to get the SWR's checked. High SWR can burn the transmit section of a radio. Just my 2 pennies.

 

I wanted to mount it on my overhead console, but do not know how to hide the CB wire because they are so thick, hence the idea for a glass mount?

I'm actually not too sure how far I reach, because no one will talk back to me, I just know that I can't keep in touch with anyone too long..........Very hilly around here though.

When I move back to Fla. perhaps it will be better, and the weatherband will be very helpful when the Hurricanes start a commin'

Lastly I'm still curious on how to wire it?

 

When you installed the coax cable you bought, did you cut the cable to fit or coil the excess? Each leg of the T on those harnesses is about 12' 4" of RG-59, (TV coax), for anyone that wants to built one. But you have to leave both sides of the T at length and coil the excess. If you did cut the cable instead of coiling, you would be better off taking the harness out and replacing it with two runs of 50 ohm. One to each of your CB's.

If the new radio is just to listen to the weather you might try just a receive wire on it. You wouldn't be able to transmit and even receive on 27mhz CB band probably wouldn't come in, but the 162mhz weather might work. Just cut a single wire about 3 1/2' long. (Not coax, just regular electrical wire, any gauge) Strip off about an inch of insulation, double it over and stick it in the center hole of the connector on the back of the radio. Just temperaraly hook the radio up in the cab for now and turn it on to the weather. If the signal comes in, great. The antenna can be hidden inside the cab. If it comes in kind of scratchy, trim the antenna a half inch at a time with wire cutters and see if that helps-wires cheap. If that does work you'll have to figure out a better connection at the connector. If it doesn't then glass mount would be the way to go-for receive only. They don't make very good transmit antennas.
You might be able to mount the new CB under or over the old one. You would have to build your own brackets, but it's pretty easy. Takes a hammer, a vise, a drill and a little patience. You could tap into the old CB's power cables and take the mic off so you wouldn't tempt yourself. Sometimes you can get intermod problems if you mount too close together, but you don't know until you try it.

Like Steve said, that third wire is probably for memory. There are different weather freq and when you find the one that works best in your area, you preset it-just like your AM/FM.