New CB Radios

[Bully13]

So I got two handheld CB radios and had 6' whips mounted on the bumpers on both of my Hummers. They work great when you are 40 feet away, but when we are at real close range, I can't make out what my wife is saying from the other vehicle. Strangly enough she can hear me fine. She tried just using the little antenna it came with while we were at a light and I could hear that clear until we took off again and went out of range. So her whip seems to be the problem I am guessing. Can anyone help with this?

I can't seem to get a good signal when I am close.

[Beastmaster]

Your antennas need tuning.

Spend a bit of coin and use a SWR meter that you can snag from RadioShack for about 40 bucks.

Hook the meter up between the antenna and your radio. You then key up on channel 1, 20, and 40. Tune it so that your SWR reading is as close to 1.5 to 1 as possible.

Repeat on the other truck.

[Bully13]

Thanks Beast... I am going to call my installer and see if he will just do it.

[Bully13]

I talked to our installer (who installed both whips). He said that because the whips are really powerful they can be a problem at real close range (a few feet away). Is this true? or is he just blowing smoke so that he doesn't have to fix the problem?

[Beastmaster]

That can happen if you had a REALLY powerful radio, like in the 50 watt range. In the case of most consumer radios CB's, you're stuck at 5 watts.

Most reputable installers won't balk at doing an SWR measurement.

And for why - here's a great generic article on CB installation...
http://www.stu-offroad.com/cb/cb_install-1.htm