Cb coax length

miguel250r

miguel250r

New member
OK I tried searching forums n couldn't find a answer to my question I'm putting a cb in my JKR and have no clue what length coax to buy thinking bout mounting the cb on dash above radio with some heavy duty Velcro I know it could get pretty long length trying to hide the coax out of the way. Oh and also antenna mounted on spare tire of course

jeepin on a budget
 
wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
In a 2-door, you should have more than you know what to do with if you get a standard 18' cable. Just make sure not to loop the extra length in a coil as that will effect your reception/transmission negatively.
 
miguel250r

miguel250r

New member
wayoflife said:
In a 2-door, you should have more than you know what to do with if you get a standard 18' cable. Just make sure not to loop the extra length in a coil as that will effect your reception/transmission negatively.
Click to expand...

OK that's what I was thinking but started second guessing myself

jeepin on a budget
 
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
I ended up using at lease 25' on my 4dr and had enough to go from front to the rear, I did route in in the dash, along the side under the carpet to the rear and through the rear door and out a vent port to the outside mounting point. I did leave a couple of feet in the rear door in the even I decide to mount my CB on a roll cage or move it to another location.
this should help you out:
http://project-jk.com/jeep-jk-write...wrangler-cb-radio-solutionmidland-model-1001z
 
pastorwug

pastorwug

New member
Length of coax is an important issue, as I understand. I was told to never cut the coax,. cutting affects the wave somehow. Not paying attention to that I installed my first CB and just cut the coax to the length I needed rather than coiling ore messing with the xtra. The SWR never would come in, so I replaced the coax with an 18' and just put the extra along the roll bar under the padding. Works great now, strong signal and steady SWR.
 
Paisano

Paisano

New member
miguel250r said:
OK I tried searching forums n couldn't find a answer to my question I'm putting a cb in my JKR and have no clue what length coax to buy thinking bout mounting the cb on dash above radio with some heavy duty Velcro I know it could get pretty long length trying to hide the coax out of the way. Oh and also antenna mounted on spare tire of course

jeepin on a budget
Click to expand...

18 was perfect for my JKU!
 
Zstairlessone

Zstairlessone

New member
pastorwug said:
Length of coax is an important issue, as I understand. I was told to never cut the coax,. cutting affects the wave somehow. Not paying attention to that I installed my first CB and just cut the coax to the length I needed rather than coiling ore messing with the xtra. The SWR never would come in, so I replaced the coax with an 18' and just put the extra along the roll bar under the padding. Works great now, strong signal and steady SWR.
Click to expand...

18 feet is about exactly 1/2 wavelength. You really want it in wavelength sections, 18', 36' and if you have a need (Fiat or Smart Car) you can use a 1/4 length, 9'. One of the weird things about high frequency EM signal transmission...
 
Ldogg

Ldogg

New member
It also depends on where your mounting..... I used 18' for my JKR, and have it tailgate mounted and the coax runs under the carpet. The first time I ran it (bad cable, I accidentally caught the jacket on the tailgate and cut a gash in it) was over the roll bar and it was fine as well. If you do the tailgate mount, and you use the bulkhead that on the passenger side, just be careful pulling on the cable to get it through. I rushed my first cable install, had extra slack outside so I gave it a tug.... Bad idea, I didn't realize it but I cut the coax on the tailgate and shorted it out. Take your time and you should be good.
 
KJ_CJtoJK

KJ_CJtoJK

New member
On my 2 door I mounted the CB at the top of the windshield above the rearview mirror. I needed 24 feet of coax to run across and down the windshield and out to the tailgate mount. I started with 18 feet and was a good 3 to 4 feet short.
 
Holeshot

Holeshot

Banned
Mounted my cb above the windshield, used a 18' coax and routed it on top of my overhead console, then along the right side rollbar and in the tailgate. I had to kind of "wrap around" the rollbar to shorten it a little, with enough space between the "loops", I had between one or two feets over.

2013-07-03 13.03.52.jpg 2013-07-03 13.04.03.jpg
 
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
I bought the CB new, 4' Firestik and used a 50' coax I found in a garage sale all of $5, no cracks in the coax. I used what I needed, left a couple of extra feet to allow me to move my CB to a future roll cage and cut off the extra, worked out great!
 
pastorwug

pastorwug

New member
Zstairlessone said:
18 feet is about exactly 1/2 wavelength. You really want it in wavelength sections, 18', 36' and if you have a need (Fiat or Smart Car) you can use a 1/4 length, 9'. One of the weird things about high frequency EM signal transmission...
Click to expand...

This is exactly right, ignore this rule and typically your CB will not have the range or low SWR you're looking for.


Sent from my iPad using WAYALIFE mobile app
 
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