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Ground passing to antenna

prcguy

prcguy

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Messages
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So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
orod1 said:
I placed the ground between the mounting plate and the hood. I shaved off the coating where the ground connects, and it is grounding the mounting plate without passing to the antenna. Now the ground is where it should be, but I tested the SWR and it is pushing the limit of the meter. I've screwed and unscrewed the coax several times, so I may have damaged the inner part of the connector. I also have several 7mm ferrites connected to the cable as I understand this reduces interference, but not sure.. The backside of the radio heats up pretty quickly when I connect the coax. The cable might be defective now with so much on and off that I tried before asking..
Click to expand...
Forget any additional ground wires for now and don't bother with ferrites or other band aids. Concentrate on installing the mount correctly with nothing extra and that should fix the major problem of you grounding out the hot side of the coax. Remember there are two specific sides of your mount, one is hot and one is ground, make sure you are doing what it says for the "Fire Ring below mount" mode and if you put the mount in upside down it will short the hot side to your grounded bracket. After you fix the short, then try tuning the antenna and any other problem is new at this point and should be diagnosed separately.
 
prcguy

prcguy

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Jun 30, 2006
Messages
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So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
orod1 said:
i saw this on rightchannelradio, but i'm using a fire ring.. the standard cable doesn't fit under the mount.. there's insufficient space so it needs a fire ring
Click to expand...
That's fine, just make sure its installed right, otherwise if you put the whip side of the mount against the bracket it will short out the coax. It can only work one way.
 
krokus

krokus

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prcguy said:
That's fine, just make sure its installed right, otherwise if you put the whip side of the mount against the bracket it will short out the coax. It can only work one way.
Click to expand...
To this end, test your cable & fire ring without a radio or antenna connected. Like the pics that slowmover supplied, use your meter to verify which side of the fire ring is connected to the center pin of the PL-259. That is the side you need to ensure is isolated from the vehicle body, and is connected to the antenna.
 
O

orod1

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Joined
Aug 13, 2023
Messages
10
I bought a new 9ft ring cable.. the one I was using was 18ft. It's going a short distance,, maybe 6ft. I also replaced the ground cable with a ground strap. I removed the daisy chain connection from the battery to the ground and just have the ground connected with the chassis. The SWR is getting between 1.6 and 1.75 on Chan 1 and 40.

Odd thing is that when I place the cap on the firestik antenna, the SWR shifts to around 2.25 - 3.0 on the test channels. It's also odd that the SWR is lower with the door open versus closed, and every time I run the self diagnostic on the radio, it reads fail. This is even though the meter is showing a good SWR without the plastic cap on the antenna..

Have any others experienced similar issues with the antenna caps?

Not sure why it's triggering the fail signal on the diagnostic when it's showing good signal without the cap on SWR meter..

I'm hearing faint conversations, probably from a highway that's a few miles away.. not sure, but the signal has a lot of static.. could be why the diagnostic is showing fail..
 
prcguy

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,385
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
orod1 said:
I bought a new 9ft ring cable.. the one I was using was 18ft. It's going a short distance,, maybe 6ft. I also replaced the ground cable with a ground strap. I removed the daisy chain connection from the battery to the ground and just have the ground connected with the chassis. The SWR is getting between 1.6 and 1.75 on Chan 1 and 40.

Odd thing is that when I place the cap on the firestik antenna, the SWR shifts to around 2.25 - 3.0 on the test channels. It's also odd that the SWR is lower with the door open versus closed, and every time I run the self diagnostic on the radio, it reads fail. This is even though the meter is showing a good SWR without the plastic cap on the antenna..

Have any others experienced similar issues with the antenna caps?

Not sure why it's triggering the fail signal on the diagnostic when it's showing good signal without the cap on SWR meter..

I'm hearing faint conversations, probably from a highway that's a few miles away.. not sure, but the signal has a lot of static.. could be why the diagnostic is showing fail..
Click to expand...
Putting the cap on adds a dielectric around the antenna and effectively lengthens it a little so you have to trim more so it improves when the cap is on. Sounds like the antenna might be a little long and that will cause the match to be better on ch 1 and worse on ch 40. opening the door is probably adding more surface area to the ground plane meaning the ground plane is too small.
 
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