CB set up, is it a black art.

[KB6930]

Got a new tractor for spring and got the dealership fit a new CB as we are not great at the job. Got going with it and it has a range of about 30 yards so could only speak when passing! Have put the meter on it and it's off the scale, I have lengthened and shortened the aerial,changed the position and changed the aerial nothing made any difference. Thoroughly hacked off , any suggestions please ?

What makes of tractor?

Sounds like a coax problem is most likely

 

[Father ted]

Don’t use CB’s anymore,when we did use to mount them on wing mirror arm , make sure you get a good earth,keep coax to the right length,used a springer aerial, always found cutting about 6 inches off aerial helped the SWR reading this was at best around 1.5-1.8,always used a burner (amplifier) on good clear day could transmit 25 to 30 miles.

 

[ganderman]

New holland with more led work lights than a b&q Christmas tree, electric mirrors ashamed to admit on here twin flashers and probably more stuff that I have not found. I thought you just adjusted the length in mm didn't realise it was inches!

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Best to have antenna as close to middle of tractor as possible, got mine on a case puma mounted on a metal plate welded to the metal part at front of cab where the wiper motor is fitted, which means it get a good earth, short stinger areal and cb mounted in spare radio (din) slot in cab on a good day with the right weather conditions can get 20miles but normally 8/10 no problem

 

[Heathland]

So come on all of you, what are, or were, your handles?

Mine was Nobby, a shortened name for knob job.......... Long story!

Green slug!
I had a MB trac back in the day, still run rigs in my tractors,very handy at harvest moving equipment about,good buddie!

 

[KB6930]

Point 1 get a test light and check for an electrical earth on whatever bolt you're mounting it onto

Point 2 what have they done with any extra coax cable if it's rolled up in a ball it doesn't work it needs spread out

If that still doesn't work try a new coax

If that doesn't work try a different set

 

[KB6930]

Need SWR as close to 1 as you can get

 

[76masseyman]

Dung Beetle, as I seemed to always be shifting sh!t of some description in my CB days.
Still got my old Harrier CBX in the cupboard.

 

[Will 1594]

Dung Beetle, as I seemed to always be shifting sh!t of some description in my CB days.
Still got my old Harrier CBX in the cupboard.

Was going to say any thing with cybernet board , twin 6 ft tank areals front and back of tractor with splitter 1000 watt burner , key up and dyna shift and hydraulics would stop with interference ,

 

[76masseyman]

Was going to say any thing with cybernet board , twin 6 ft tank areals front and back of tractor with splitter 1000 watt burner , key up and dyna shift and hydraulics would stop with interference ,

Yes. Had issues with the electrical hydraulics on a Massey 3080. Put an inline filter thing in, and ok after that.

 

[Henarar]

Haven't used one for years but had some good set ups on tractors of Ford 7810 and JD 6600 variety. My 78 had a burner too (are they still a thing?) Could talk to people miles away.
Seem to remember aerial placement was important, don't have 2 unless you can get them far enough apart, which on a tractor I don't think you can?
Wired direct to battery (in line fuse) but the shortest good earth you could get, might not be able to do that in the new tractors though? then SWR it to fine tune.
Bound to be something on YouTube to help?

IIRC you need 8ft min to use twins but there isn't much point even then as what your doing is making a directional aerial, one decent aerial mounted properly near the centre of the cab should work best but the trouble is these days a lot of cabs are plastic so won't provide a decent ground plain,

20 years since I used CB's, could talk to people 40 or 50 miles away from the top of our hill without the need for a linear amplifier when the skip was running I could talk to people in other countries but that's no big deal
what you have to remember is that for every doubling of output power you gain one S point on the receiving CB's meter as a rule of thumb, lots of CB's do not put out the standard 4 watts but a lot would go to 6 or 8 with a tune up so that would gain one S point, some CB's would put around 16 watts out the back so that would be 2 S points gained before needing a linear, of Corse if you put a 100 watt linear in line you would gain another 2 or 3 S points on the receiving CB's meter but the thing is the person you were talking to would have to have as good a set up or you wouldn't be able to hear them anyway, in other words there was far more to be gained from improving the aerial set up as this would improve both RX and TX

still have 20 plus CB's kicking around the place, also passed the ham radio exam but never really got in to that, I do have a beam rotator here somewhere though if anyone wants one

 

[colhonk]

locknut...Had a 240 channel rig at one time, could really get away from the idiots if I could find someone else with similar.

 

[kiwi pom]

IIRC you need 8ft min to use twins but there isn't much point even then as what your doing is making a directional aerial, one decent aerial mounted properly near the centre of the cab should work best but the trouble is these days a lot of cabs are plastic so won't provide a decent ground plain,

20 years since I used CB's, could talk to people 40 or 50 miles away from the top of our hill without the need for a linear amplifier when the skip was running I could talk to people in other countries but that's no big deal
what you have to remember is that for every doubling of output power you gain one S point on the receiving CB's meter as a rule of thumb, lots of CB's do not put out the standard 4 watts but a lot would go to 6 or 8 with a tune up so that would gain one S point, some CB's would put around 16 watts out the back so that would be 2 S points gained before needing a linear, of Corse if you put a 100 watt linear in line you would gain another 2 or 3 S points on the receiving CB's meter but the thing is the person you were talking to would have to have as good a set up or you wouldn't be able to hear them anyway, in other words there was far more to be gained from improving the aerial set up as this would improve both RX and TX

still have 20 plus CB's kicking around the place, also passed the ham radio exam but never really got in to that, I do have a beam rotator here somewhere though if anyone wants one

Very good, thought I remembered the guy in the CB shop in Crewe (bet that's not still there) saying 2 aerials just made you look a t**t
They were good things to break the boredom on a long day, there was a bunch of drivers from other farms and contractors that all used to jump on the same channel (11 I think) and talk crap all day.

 

[Timbo]

Was going to say any thing with cybernet board , twin 6 ft tank areals front and back of tractor with splitter 1000 watt burner , key up and dyna shift and hydraulics would stop with interference ,

Basically youd got your own mobile magnetic pulse weapon there !!

 

[How much]

oh back in the day , it was nearly always an earth fault .

in the plug more often than not, the earth which is the outer braided wire touching either the shield, which is the inner foil that was in tun touching the inner copper core , or the outer earth or just even one thread of it touching the inner core .
or the inner core not soldered into the plug centre core.

the outer earth had to be pulled back over the outer pvc covering and the plug threaded on to get a good earth between the two , the shield left in place through the body of the plug with just the inner core protruding down the centre of the plug that must be soldered in place some plugs did have grub screw to hold the centre core firmly.

on tractors with plastic roofs you need to attach a decent bit of tin plate to the roof to get a reasonable earth for the aerial its self if you are mountig it there i suspect that allot of mirror brackets will be powder coated , or mounted on rubbers or both so more than likely not much use as a mount for a CB

 

[Spear]

Unbolted mirror bracket on mine and place mounting bracket between two halves, then re-bolted. Little or no paint between parts. Went from unusable to a 1:1 perfect setup.

 

[JWL]

I've got one on my Defender, yep I'm an anorak, and I've faffed about over the years with it. The springer aerial is above the windscreen on a tab welded to the metal roofrack. The first set up I had a hell of a job with the SWR, it was way off the scale, a new length of co-ax and still the same so I re did the plugs and re-soldered them and hey presto it was a job to get the meter to go all the way over to the set position and the actual reading only just moves the needle. The roofrack has an excellent earth as along with the gutter fixings it also has stays which bolt to the body cappings and windscreen blocks which also are the earth for the spotlights on the rack as well.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I wouldn't be surprised if the OP has a dead short in the coax/antenna somewhere for his set to be that deaf and dumb.
Or, the antenna system isn't grounded other than back thru the set, or nothing is earthed at all.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

oh back in the day , it was nearly always an earth fault .

in the plug more often than not, the earth which is the outer braided wire touching either the shield, which is the inner foil that was in tun touching the inner copper core , or the outer earth or just even one thread of it touching the inner core .
or the inner core not soldered into the plug centre core.

the outer earth had to be pulled back over the outer pvc covering and the plug threaded on to get a good earth between the two , the shield left in place through the body of the plug with just the inner core protruding down the centre of the plug that must be soldered in place some plugs did have grub screw to hold the centre core firmly.

on tractors with plastic roofs you need to attach a decent bit of tin plate to the roof to get a reasonable earth for the aerial its self if you are mountig it there i suspect that allot of mirror brackets will be powder coated , or mounted on rubbers or both so more than likely not much use as a mount for a CB

We had a groundplane under a fibreglass roof on our Suzuki LJ50 lambing hack, Dad used that 3" adhesive foil tape underneath the roof for it

 

[Brisel]

So come on all of you, what are, or were, your handles?

Mine was Nobby, a shortened name for knob job.......... Long story!

Brisel (of course)