fivendime

Those are great CB's. One caution though. They are Very prone to failure due to crappy grounds. They burn up very easily so make sure that ground is good and clean! You will also want an exterior speaker for it or have it plug into your stereo system because the speaker sucks something horrible. A very good CB though for tight spaces, my buddy has one in his XJ.

PolarXJ

Thanks for the heads up. I hadn't heard that before. I guess I'm lucky and ran a ground wire from my battery to underneath the dash so I could ground it. I haven't had problems with the speaker, though I have thought about getting the optional external speaker. My only problem is interference with other things like the window and wiper blades. At the time I ran the wire for the antenna, I didn't know not to run it next to other wires. I just haven't fixed it yet. I'm waiting on plans for a different tire carrier to where I mount the antenna again. So I don't want to have to move it twice.

96_xj

i run a 102" whip on top of my roof rack with is about a foot off my roof line and my roof line is at 6'3"... so the math says the BASE of my antenna starts at 7'3" and i do not run a spring or anything and i wheel my jeep often and it does just fine, has for the last 3 years.

parker88

Im not trying to thread jack but would this be a pretty good setup?
http://www.quadratec.com/products/96080_05.htm

fivendime

Ok? I have ran my 102 on top of my roof rack as well but its a stupid place for it because its way to tall. Plus I was hitting street lights with it, which means its not legal for one.

halmotors

Just because you have a 102" antenna doesn't mean it has to stick straight up. It can be looped around to minimize the height.

RevSpongebobSP

Back in the day before I went to Ham Radio, I had a full size Blazer. I mounted the base and spring of my whip on the front fender pass side and then tied down the antenna to the rear bumper. I got a little slap, but nothing serious and it never got hung up. What this does is allows the ability to use the unit at all times, and then if a long range from the group with an emergency, I could just unhook the whip from the back bumper and had a lot of antenna above the plane for that extra "reach".

Watch Flea markets and yard sales in your areas as well, people keep their CB's forever for some reason.

fivendime

A properly tuned CB with a fiberglass whip will reach out just as good as that 102" whip. The Fiberglass whips have just as much length in them in windings without all that length which make them much easier to manage. To each there own, Ive just done this stuff a while now so I'll stick with what works best for me. Like I mentioned above some clubs wont even let you run them on your rig or be on a run with them.

Why would you tie it down, your defeating the purpose of even having it up there, lol Those 102's still need tuned as well.

RevSpongebobSP

That's just what we did back when CB's were the thing, back in the day. I still have a McDonald 3 channel walkie that has about a 4' antenna and crystals.

troy fritz

My antenna and cb.

parker88

anybody have any thoughts on this package deal?

halmotors

Seems kinda pricey, considering the radio. You can probably do better if you piece something together from your local Radio Shack. The one I linked a few pages back is a nice, compact little unit. One of its nicer features is the 9/19 channel selector, so you can jump right to those channels for weather/emergency info without having to fool with the dial.

parker88

Oh ok cool...will radio shack be able to tell me everything ill need to set it up?

halmotors

Definitely. The general pieces of a CB setup are:

• CB radio
• CB antenna
• Mount for antenna (they'll help you pick one that fits your application)
• Antenna Cable
• Spring for antenna base

And the nice thing is that Jeep was gracious enough to provide us with some accessory taps on the fuse block for stuff like this, so wiring it in is a cinch.

Brad M.

Here's mine, I run a Uniden Pro 520XL CB with a 48" Firestik antenna. Great setup and I love it.



FWIW, my first CB was a Radio Crap, er I mean Shack. I will never buy another one. It lasted about 6 months before it was useless. Uniden and Cobra make nice units and yes they're more expensive. You get what you pay for. I think the CB cost about $150 (9 yrs ago) and the antenna was around $30-$40.