CB Help please...it came today

I got some help on the other forum whilst waiting for my rig to arrive from fleabay.

It came today and is fitted. Now, either it's no workin, of its very very quiet! I have spent about 2 hours by the A1 and there were plenty trucks with rigs in, but not a peep from anyone. The rig is a 27mHz Kernow Beta 2100 which was sold as seen, 'cos the vendor did not have an aerial to test it, but it looks brand new.

It's connected to a THUNDERPOLE - Trucker 80 C.B. Antenna with a dome mount on the roof thru an existing aerial hole. All lights up as it should, aeriel earth is clean but only white noise (squelch up/down) or quiet (Squelch down/up). So, either the rig is knackered, or I have made a neddy of fitting it, or I am a leper and nobody wants to speak to me (and nobody is speaking to anyone else or surely I would have picked something up).

The Trucker twig is pre-SWR'd, and I did not buy a SWR meter - will this make such a big difference that I cannot hear anyone? Or, has the vendor powered the rig up without a twig and blown it?

Any advice is appreciated before I am lifted from a lay-by at the side of th A1 for kerbcrawling.

I did wonder if th radiation from Torness Powerstation might hav something to do with the silence....

My advice is to treble check that you have connectd the arial correctly, both at the antenna end and the cb end, are both the antenna end and the cb properly earthed, if you have a mate ??????????? with a cb get them to sit quite close and keep checking, if you can pick them up, but no one else , it may be your arial is either not up to it,or is not tuned in, try adjusting the length via the adjustment at the bottom of the arial by mm at a time.

Regards,

Nick.

CB's are very quiet, the heydays are long gone, plus with the new phone laws many peeps are scared of ANY hand held device....

Is there a power meter on the rig, that goes up when you key the mike?
Is the aerial cable OK, ie new, with no kinks in it.
Are you on the UK band and not a euro band (some rigs you can switch between the two)
Get a SWR meter, no twig that i know of is pre SWR'd, as the location of a twig on a vehicle can affect SWR.
You may need to get the rig retuned, as somehow they can go out of tune.

I'd guess if you can't hear anyone on any channel and you don't get any reply if you call fer a radio check (on 19?) something's probably fecked!

Stop being tight & either buy, borrow or beg an SWR meter (tenner from Maplins online). You won't really know if you're improving things or making them worse without one by moving the ariel up & down. If you do have a really bad reflected reading (unlikely, but you never know) you'll bust the set if it ain't already.

Read this for more guidance: Installing CB Into 4x4's

yu sorted yours M?

If it's got 27mhz in a circle marked on it somewhere it's A/ fairly old & B/40 channel UK only (er, I think?) This was the only reference to the set I could find & it looks a very old website!

(Unsaved Publication)

As sombody else has said you need to find which part of 27mhz its on, there was the old am, the uk fm, the euro fm, bit of a nightmere.

Nick.

The Mad Hat Man said:

yu sorted yours M?

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Still needs re-siting & the case earthing, recieves a treat tho'! Need to run some proper 'speriments sometime with either yours or Adz' (gave him me old Midland set, needed a mic that hadn't been filled with water, but seems to work OK)

Thanks chasps for the help. I have read as much as I can find on installation and have decided that either the rig is buggered or the aerial earth is not up to it. I might try and run a proper earth away from the roof tomorrow. I might also be seeing someone tonight who will have an SWR meter. £10 = 1.4 bags of hen food and I just managed to get away with the £16 the rig cost. Having said that, Head of Accounts has no idea that I bought the Trucker 80 aerial/cable & mount separately.....

I have no mates. Well none with a rig anyway. Next tractor I see near my field with a big springer on it is going to be stopped so I can test. Surely the trucks on the A1 don't have the twigs only for show though?

It is UK FM, so we can tick that bit off.



Marcus - that is an old site, but it is a 40 channel and not an 80 channel, unless I have missed something drastic which might be my problem!



Codbasher - when I key up, the power markers go up to 4. One thing I did notice is that there is no change in sound at all when changing channels. As an ex RN bod, this is strange - surely there should even be a click, or brief silence as the set re-tunes?

If all else fails, it's my birthday next month. Perhaps my Mum will take pity on me and buy a NEW rig. Damn that pesky fleabay.

Get it SWR'd then at least you can be sure you're doing no damage. There isn't usually a click as you change from channel to channel, so you'll get no clues there!

Once you're sure you're doing no damage, set the mic to 'high' as that should increase the output a little & turn the RF gain up. Set the squelch just above the point where the white noise stops & just keep listening/broadcasting.

This might be of interest from a repair point of view: THUNDERPOLE :: View topic - Kernow Beta 2100

Just checked that site again & here's their 2007 price list! Just looks old: http://www.kcb.co.uk/prices/pricelist.pdf

Did find a pic of your set too...........er, in the 'CB museum' Sorry!: http://www.geocities.com/openchannel4/museumCBmobile.html

Marcus - def getting somewhere! I was out and about last night and with the rf gain turned right up, I was getting frequent bits of white noise and 1 bar on the power meter. They were only for a few seconds at a time and could possibly have been a TRANSMISSION!

I am also borrowing (yes, I am a tighty) a SWR meter on Monday night, so fingers crossed that will make all the difference!

East Lothian? That's Scottishland innit? No wonder yer borrowing one

Marcus, got a new mic fer a fiver in Penrith, works a treat now mate - cheers!

Adz said:

Marcus, got a new mic fer a fiver in Penrith, works a treat now mate - cheers!

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Top news! Glad t'be of help. See I AM a people person!

tom bola said:

Marcus - def getting somewhere! I was out and about last night and with the rf gain turned right up, I was getting frequent bits of white noise and 1 bar on the power meter. They were only for a few seconds at a time and could possibly have been a TRANSMISSION!

I am also borrowing (yes, I am a tighty) a SWR meter on Monday night, so fingers crossed that will make all the difference!

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Yeah, looks like you're receiving, that's half the battle. To be honest if yer up in Scotlandishire..............nah, actually anywhere nowadays, that's all you'll get a lot of the time.

I can drive with my set on, 20 miles to work every morning for a week, a lot of it parrallel with a fekin motorway and get little more than the odd distant signal sounding like bursts of static.

Am heading south the morn (not quite as far as the passport kiosk though) and know for a fact that all the quarry lorries use ch3 so hopefully that will help.

So do all them trucks with big bendy aerials not have a rig in the cab? Most of the seem to prefer still using their phone mind kind of daft given they need their license for their job???

Adz said:

East Lothian? That's Scottishland innit? No wonder yer borrowing one

Marcus, got a new mic fer a fiver in Penrith, works a treat now mate - cheers!

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Oi! Am poor and penniless here. No TV. No cans o beer. No new claes. Cold porridge sliced fresh from th drawer.....

No books or CD's either. Regular library type me.

A right tighty. Proper Jock.

Infact someone bought me a copy of How to Save Money on Everything for ma Chrimbo one year. I actually already did everything in the book already. What a waste of £4.99.

Nah, they've prob' got a rig, but A/the novelty's worn off & B/prob' don't want to speak to anyone who doesn't eat so many Yorkie's & fry ups that they weigh 19 Stone.

Seriously though, they've got them, but they ain't gonna be chatting ALL day, plus you can get dun fer using yer CB now, same as yer fone...........though as you say, dunt seem to stop them.

tom bola said:

Infact someone bought me a copy of How to Save Money on Everything for ma Chrimbo one year. I actually already did everything in the book already. What a waste of £4.99.

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What you dint read it then ask fer the receipt to take it back fer the munee? Surprised!

Better than that. Selt it on fleabay for £6.99. Plus £5.00 postage.

if the power markers only go up to 4 there is a problem, it should go to 30+ when you key up. i still run a 40 channel fm 27 mhz with no problems at all. on the front there is a circle with 27 AND 81 in it, this is what they call the old 40 as opposed to the new 40.