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Cobra 19 Ultra III Without an Antenna

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I have been working on getting a Cobra 19 Ultra III radio installed in my truck along with a PA system. So far, I've mounted the a 50 watt Powerhorn speaker in my truck and have it ready to connect to my CB, however, my Firestik Firefly antenna, mount, coaxial cable and SWR meter has not been delivered in the mail yet.

Does anybody know if there is anything wrong with using my CB radio standalone as a PA system for now while I wait for the rest of my parts to deliver? I have read that it is bad to run a CB radio without it connected to a tuned antenna from other forums and Reddit posts; does this apply to the Cobra 19?
Any information would be helpful as I have already emailed Cobra about this issue through support@cobra.com and have yet to receive a reply from them.

Thank You,
asianfromthecongo
 

KB0VWG

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Joined
Apr 9, 2006
Messages
535
Location
Lyford, Texas
Should be ok

Hello
asianfromthecongo

You should be fine as long as the radio is in PA MODE only, if you key up in non pa mode then it might do harm, If you accidently key for 1 second you might be ok but any longer than that will damage the radio.
And sometimes when you don't have an antenna hooked up your radio might blow a fuse. That happened to me before, don't know if its a coincident or what..
73's
kb0vwg
wqoi992
 

prcguy

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Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,175
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
You can key up most CB radios for a very long time with no antenna and more than likely nothing will happen. I've done it countless times trying to damage radios on purpose and never caused a problem. This was wrapping the mics with a rubber bands, no antennas connected and coming back hours later.
prcguy


Hello
asianfromthecongo

You should be fine as long as the radio is in PA MODE only, if you key up in non pa mode then it might do harm, If you accidently key for 1 second you might be ok but any longer than that will damage the radio.
And sometimes when you don't have an antenna hooked up your radio might blow a fuse. That happened to me before, don't know if its a coincident or what..
73's
kb0vwg
wqoi992
 
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
6
Hello
asianfromthecongo

You should be fine as long as the radio is in PA MODE only, if you key up in non pa mode then it might do harm, If you accidently key for 1 second you might be ok but any longer than that will damage the radio.
And sometimes when you don't have an antenna hooked up your radio might blow a fuse. That happened to me before, don't know if its a coincident or what..
73's
kb0vwg
wqoi992
I just finished wiring my PA speaker to the CB; everything is working great! I'll just make sure to keep the PA button pushed in on the Cobra 19 until I get the rest of my radio parts delivered in the mail later this week.

Thanks again for the help KB0VWG!
 
Joined
Sep 22, 2014
Messages
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You can key up most CB radios for a very long time with no antenna and more than likely nothing will happen. I've done it countless times trying to damage radios on purpose and never caused a problem. This was wrapping the mics with a rubber bands, no antennas connected and coming back hours later.
prcguy
Thank you for the quick reply prcguy!
You've definitely helped clear some of the anxiety I had about breaking my CB before I could get the antenna installed.

Still, if you don't mind answering, why in the world were you intensionally breaking CB radios? haha


Thanks again,
asianfromthecongo
 
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