Thanks Poppie, I ordered a hood channel mount for my F350 and I will be attaching the antenna that way. I have a Cobra 29LTD nightwatch which will go into a Four Foot Tunable Firestik CB antenna and Fire-Flex coax cable with a Fire-Ring. Now you said "set your SWR before you talk on you radio,you will save your final's and will get out farther in range,try to get it down to 1.5-1 or lower,1-1 being ideal". Poppie, I don't wat to seem ignorant but there is no way around it. Could you explain or send me a PM explaining what you are talking about because this is all new to me and I'm just starting out.

 

I did some research and I'm starting to get a clue...

 

go to radio shack and buy an SWR meter and a short jumper coax wire,the meter is marked antenna and radio,plug in at the propper spot's,turn the radio on and go to channel 1 ,follow direction's on how you set the meter,usualy you key the mike on set and then zero the meter out and then go to test, key the mike on channel 1 and get your reading, "write it down",then go to channel 40 and do the same thing including resetting the SWR meter to zero and go to test,get the reading and WRITE IT DOWN,now if the swr is higher on 40 than 1,lower the antenna,if it's higher on 1 than 40 raise the antenna,keep going back and forth tell you get as LOW as possible on the low and high channel's, then also check the middle channel (20) and see if your down below 1.5-1 across the board,1.1-1 being ideal,i started with a base station in 1974 with a 5/8 wave ground plane antenna mounted on a TV tower @ 72 feet and we lived on a hill too boot,had a ham radio booster jumpered to the cb band running @ 100 watt's on AM and 300 watt's on side band,have QSL card's from as far away as Germany,still have the equment but never hooked it up here in florida after our move south,the thin wire type antenna's have a set screw that allow's you to raise or lower the wire/antenna,sometime's you need a hacksaw to trim if you can't get enough movement but be carefull,you can't ad back what you take off,if you screw up you can just buy the thin wire,NOT THE WHOLE BASE IT FIT'S IN, without spending a lot of $$$$$, on the fiberglass one's if you have to trim some off,if you screw up you can't ad it back on ,that's why i use the thin wire type,NOT A GOOD IDEA TO TALK A LOT AT OVER 3.1-1,you will burn the transmitter final's,what SWR stand's for is, standing wave ratio,what that mean's in simple turm's is,at 1.1-1 all of the transmit power goes out the antenna,at higher SWR level's,part of the transmit power bounce's back at the radio final's heating them up,if the SWR is high enough it will fry your radio,ask any CB shop,a lot of truckstop's have a CB tec close by,Good luck, John, the grandkid's call me Poppie !!!.

 

I printed off a hard copy of your instructions and I'm going to Radio Shack later today. We'll see how it all works for me, thanks, I really appreciate it.

 

The math also works out if you use a 102 whip ant ( Mine is bed mounted) your swr will come out perfect 99 percent of the time. I run the Cobra 29 nightwatch with Galaxy finals. Im able to get up and over my 5th wheels that I hauled while other guys would lose communication within a mile going the opposite way. Ive been able to hear on clear nights 20 miles and barely talk 10, but the average expectations are about 5 to 8 miles.

 

Your more than welcome,glad to help. John

 

Man,you got some high mile's there,what have you had to fix so far???,goes to prove the ole 7.3 is rock solid,also 10/4 on the 102 whip.