Posted: 7/22/2009 6:43:45 AM EDT
| on my CB when I use the cigarette power adapter there is a loud high pitch squeal when transmitting. When I use the battery pack its not a problem. I have contacted the CB company and they responded "The problem seems to be RF is getting into the power and you need a noise filter on the power line." So would something like this Power Filter correct this problem? |
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i think its a cobra 1500 antenna, yes this is a legal CB, not boosted or anything.
Squeal is whats transmitted, you can also hear it coming from the CB itself, and sometimes from whats sounds like the antenna. that brings me to another question. Most of the people on the CB I hear and coming in loud and crystal clear from miles away (sometimes of 10 miles), and of course they cant hear me. Any guess on what percentage of CB regulars/truckers actually stick to the legal 4watt range. |
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If you hear a squeel when you are not transmitting it's not a power issue. It could be a bad mic connection or a short there. Peak & Tweak means maxing out the pre-driver and driver transistors output. Stock can be as low as 2 watts, usually 3.5. After a P&T you'll see 7-10. "Funny Extra Channels" used to be a must when CB was very crowded on the 70's and early 80's. No longer. Save your money. A good antenna is the Wilson 1000. Magnet or trunk lid mount. Have the shop that tweaks the radio set the SWR of the antenna. Then you're good. |
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its only while transmitting,
more info... when using the battery pack and an adapter to use the same antenna but plugged into the walkie talking antenna plug it works fine, when using the same antenna and same power source with a different CB, it works fine, when using the car adapter and antenna plugged in through the CB car adapter, loud high pitch squeal when transmitting here is the specific CB im talking about http://www.amazon.com/MIDLAND-75-822-Channel-Way-Radio/dp/B00000K2YR/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1248284712&sr=8-2 |
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Forget the walkie. Connect the real CB's power wires directly to the cars battery and not the cig-lighter. Try transmitting like that and see of the display dima and if the needle bounces all over. I bet they won't. Forget it. I just looked at your radio. Those radios are picky and break very easy. Sorry. |
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A cigarette lighter that been used for that purpose even a few times, has baked on crud and dirt. It will still make the lighter glow, Powering an electrical current is something else. I have a 2 meter HT that I use an adapter just like you do. I run the HT on batteries so I can unhook and take with me. I do run a 40 watt amplifier thru a power port which is a cigaretter lighter without the lighter. My car was ordered without the smokes package. Its a 10 amp port and I have a 7.5 amp fuse on the plug. I'm using a 5" mag mount with a 19.25 inch antenna which works out to quarter wave. It works great. You should be able to get by on 1 amp lighter if they even made them that small. Sounds like you have an connection issue since it works with batteries. You basically have the same setup as me but I'm rinning over ten times the power.
Try it in another car. |
| your getting alternator noise. turn the car off and see if the noise goes away. if it does you need a better power source. the best choice would be power and ground ran strait to the battery. if you are serious about having a CB you really should buy a mountable one with a good antenna(tunable) and a SWR meter to tune that antenna. again, pos and neg to the battery and out of the way of anything like coils or ignition parts. |
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CB link
is what you need. you may be able to find it cheaper somewhere else though. |
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First you need a clean power source, if the lights dim/flicker that could well mean you're not getting enough power to the unit even though it's drawing a pretty minimal around of amperage. You can also get malfunctions like that from very high antenna SWR though, so you really need to check both power and antenna performance. Bad antenna could also explain why you can receive but not be heard.
You could well have a bad/malfunctioning radio though. Just pick up a new one if it's still malfunctioning after checking out the power and antenna angles, they're cheap enough that it's not worth the trouble trying to sort out the malfunction if that's the case. Ignore the "tweak and tune" nonsense, there's very little practical difference between a 2 watt and a 5 watt transmitter anyway. Double power does NOT give you double range, it's a minimal difference. Good antenna will make significantly more difference than the difference in power output. A very high percentage of truckers are running illegal power and are really deaf on receive. And/or they just don't want to talk to anyone else. |