CB problems - promising development!

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

I installed a Firestik No Ground Plane antenna and coax on my CB tonight. You must use an NGP coax with an NGP antenna. Preliminary tests in the garage are quite promising.

I installed an NGP 4' long antenna. Since it has a 3/8 -24 thread on it and the BRP has a 6 mm 1.0 thread I had to modify the mounting block. I turned the block end for end and drilled and tapped a 3/8 - 24 thread about 1/2 inch deep. I rotated the block 90° and drilled and tapped a new 6 mm 1.0 thread for the mounting bolt and a 4 mm .7 thread for the coax connector screw. I put these two holes in the same relative position with respect to the antenna thread as the OEM holes. This makes the brass block dual purpose in case for whatever reason I need to reinstall an OEM antenna. The blocks are priced at $49.99 which is why I did not take the easy way out and just drill and tap the existing antenna thread for the new one.

Running and stashing the 17' of coax wasn't a problem. I wrapped a bunch of it into a bow tie loop and put it under the left side rear access panel. You must use a bow tie loop, not a circular one. A circular loop mucks up the electromagnetic tuning of the coax. Then I crossed straight over to the other side through gaps in the plastic under the seat. For now I have it run to the front and connected to an SWR meter for tuning. The SWR jumper goes back to the CB unit.

In my testing and adjusting so far, in the garage, I have no feedback squeal. The SWR is about 1.8 for channel 1, 2.0 for channel 19, and 3 + for channel 40. I have to do more tuning outside where conditions are closer to actual usage.

I will do more testing and tuning today, Wednesday, 4/13, and see how good I can get the settings, how clear the transmission is, and what the range is. I'll post more info and some pics also. I forgot to take pics of the installation before I buttoned everything up but I'll get what I can.

[Snowbelt Spyder]

So, how does one tune a NGP setup?

[PaladinLV]

You may already know, but tune at Channel 20 mid frequency and the two ends 1 and 40 should fall within acceptable levels.

AJ


I installed a Firestik No Ground Plane antenna and coax on my CB tonight. You must use an NGP coax with an NGP antenna. Preliminary tests in the garage are quite promising.

I installed an NGP 4' long antenna. Since it has a 3/8 -24 thread on it and the BRP has a 6 mm 1.0 thread I had to modify the mounting block. I turned the block end for end and drilled and tapped a 3/8 - 24 thread about 1/2 inch deep. I rotated the block 90° and drilled and tapped a new 6 mm 1.0 thread for the mounting bolt and a 4 mm .7 thread for the coax connector screw. I put these two holes in the same relative position with respect to the antenna thread as the OEM holes. This makes the brass block dual purpose in case for whatever reason I need to reinstall an OEM antenna. The blocks are priced at $49.99 which is why I did not take the easy way out and just drill and tap the existing antenna thread for the new one.

Running and stashing the 17' of coax wasn't a problem. I wrapped a bunch of it into a bow tie loop and put it under the left side rear access panel. You must use a bow tie loop, not a circular one. A circular loop mucks up the electromagnetic tuning of the coax. Then I crossed straight over to the other side through gaps in the plastic under the seat. For now I have it run to the front and connected to an SWR meter for tuning. The SWR jumper goes back to the CB unit.

In my testing and adjusting so far, in the garage, I have no feedback squeal. The SWR is about 1.8 for channel 1, 2.0 for channel 19, and 3 + for channel 40. I have to do more tuning outside where conditions are closer to actual usage.

I will do more testing and tuning today, Wednesday, 4/13, and see how good I can get the settings, how clear the transmission is, and what the range is. I'll post more info and some pics also. I forgot to take pics of the installation before I buttoned everything up but I'll get what I can.

[Snowbelt Spyder]

You may already know, but tune at Channel 20 mid frequency and the two ends 1 and 40 should fall within acceptable levels.

AJ

Thanks AJ, but I meant - physically, how was he going to accomplish it.

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

Thanks AJ, but I meant - physically, how was he going to accomplish it.
Are you familiar with CB antenna tuning? If not Google it for some tutorials. All CB antennas need to be tuned, but many require physically cutting the antenna shorter or cutting the wire wrapped around the antenna. That would be case with the BRP antenna, and it's really not designed for that to be done. I think the BRP antenna may be tuned as good as it can be from the factory but the lack of a good ground plane in the bike design prevents getting the SWR down into the proper range.

The Firestik NGP antenna has a screw on the end. You remove the cover, adjust the screw in or out, lock it in place with jamb nut on there, and replace the cover. Firestik website has a good discussion of it. http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/Setting_SWR.htm.

I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to get the tuning optimized, but I haven't played with it very much yet. I'm on here right now to get some info about which way to turn the screw to get the best SWR readings.

[Snowbelt Spyder]

Sorry for not being clear. That was the essence of my question-whether the antenna had the capability to be adjusted or if you had to try and cut it. I was too lazy to go to Firestik and read up about that specific antenna.

[pegasus1300]

did you also get the folding mount from firestick? Also is there a reason for having so much extra co ax?

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

Sorry for not being clear. That was the essence of my question-whether the antenna had the capability to be adjusted or if you had to try and cut it. I was too lazy to go to Firestik and read up about that specific antenna.
I had to pull the cap off before I knew for sure if it had the adjusting screw.

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

did you also get the folding mount from firestick?
No. As I describe above I modified the existing antenna mounting block to accept the Firestik.

Also is there a reason for having so much extra co ax?
The No Ground Plane antenna uses the coax to replace the usual ground plane. The coax is not connected to ground at the antenna end. It also is a special coax according to Firestik. The technology of radio waves and transmitting dictates that the coax be 17'. It has to do with the wavelength of the CB frequencies. I'm not very well versed in the subject, but Firestik says cutting off even 1/4" can irreparably harm the antenna system performance. If additional coax is needed it must be added in 9' increments.

I should have mentioned I bought the antenna as a replacement Firestik NGP antenna and the NGP coax from CB World in Oregon. That way I did not have to buy a useless, to me, mount. I had to solder on my own ring terminal to the coax center conductor. The one in the package was way too big for the connecting screw on the mounting block.

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

I really don't know for sure what my current situation is. I called Firestik. It turns out the NGP coax doesn't like being close to metal, and I have some it bowtie coiled next to the gas tank. The result is the SWR is about 3 when it it uniform from channel 1 to 40. I can get it 2 and below for channels 1 to 20 but it's over 3 for 40. That's not a problem for me as I use the CB with GW riders mostly and they use channel 1.

But here's the real kicker. I've been using a Midland handheld CB for testing. When I transmit with the handheld I get a squeal during receive on the Spyder. No one I've talked to so far has a clue why that is. Interestingly, on the road here to Spyderfest I had the CB on 19 to see what happens when truckers transmit. Guess what? Clear as bell with no squeal. The next step is to get with another bike CB and see if I get a squeal from them.

The mystery continues.

[gmcgarrity]

I have an J&M CB with their antenna that i just installed.
Would be interesting to test.
I ride with a GW and had good success.

if you want to test your unit let me know.

We are camping at the fair grounds.

ride safe
Geo

[bluestratos]

I was getting a feed back squeal after I install my amplifier (stock CanAm CB). To get around this I modified the push to talk button to disconnect the amp during transmit. As soon as I push the button it disconnects the blue wire that turns on the amp on. I accomplished this by adding a brass strip inside the handlebar casing at the push to talk button, when pushed the brass strip breaks the circuit and voila. This also mutes my radio when I talk so I do not need to turn it down as I did before but if I have it too loud it still makes hearing the incoming speech so I have to turn it down when using the CB anyways.

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

I really should have updated this earlier, but will do so now since this thread was referenced in another thread today.

I still haven't had opportunity to do a real shake down run with the Firestik NGP antenna. But I can tell you this. On the way to Spyderfest I had the CB on monitoring channel 19. I never had a squeal occur during receive, which did happen once in awhile. Truckers don't use CB anywhere near like they did years ago. But I'm sure some of the trucks were quite close when they were transmitting. I have used the transmit a few times and all was well with that.

All in all, at this point the NGP seems to be working quite well with the BRP CB. But the other night here at home I was doing a little bit of testing and did have some squeal when receiving a signal from my Midland handheld.

A possible cause of my earlier squeal MAYBE was my helmet headset lower cord. Coming home from Spyder fest I lost the left channel sound, but I could get it back by making a 180° bend in the cord at the connector. I wonder if the cable had a near break, or short, in it when I had the earlier squeal problem. The test the other evening was with a new lower cord, the test that went well with the exception of an occasional mild squeal.

So a really good test with a group of GW riders remains to be done. After that I'll have a much better idea of how it all works out.

[jthspace]

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=132117&stc=1

The coax length has to be a part of the frequency range, for CB the frequency is approx 11 metres so the coax should be half wave or full wave, so 17 ft equates to 5.182 metres, being half wave. Then you tune the antenna length after using an SWR meter to see what needs adjusting. As you have no real groundplane, they have used a fixed coax length to compensate.

An SWR over 3 will almost certainly blow your output transistor in the amp as the signal will feed back down the coax and straight into the output. Nasty.

Can you line under the bodywork where the antenna is mounted with tin foil and ground it? That will help making a groundplane to reflect the signal and may improve matters. As you probably know, the signal radiates along the whole length of the antenna, not the tip. It needs a groundplane to reflect a "ghost" signal. Therefore, a quarter wave antenna (about 2.5 metres) will have a radio wave leaving the antenna as a 2.5 metre wave and the groundplane will have a similar "ghost" or reflected image making the transmitter look like a half wave in total is leaving. This keeps the output amp happy and efficient. Bundling up 5 metres of coax will not help but is the only way to achieve what you want given the installation on a plastic body.

This is a common problem on boats, even though water is a fabulous groundplane, it is difficult to get it set up properly with a fibreglass hull. I have seen fibreglass cars having their whole roof lined with foil and the antenna mounted mid roof just to try and receive a commercial radio signal in MW.

Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs / telling you the bleeding obvious.

BTW I am licenced from ELF to EHF (2200 metres to 1mm) but nowadays I have a small handy that covers 2 meter amateur, 70 cm amateur as well as UK and US PMR bands all at 5 watts output. 5 watts gives 3 to 5 km range, so probably better for group rides? Certainly easier to install an antenna as a tuned antenna will be no bigger than 8 inches (helical wound). It cost USD 70 for two radios on eBay. I have checked these with a frequency analyser and they are extremely clean with little bleed.

Jeff G6BBN

http://www.thunderpole.co.uk/cb-radio-guide.html

[coonsie]

So a really good test with a group of GW riders remains to be done. After that I'll have a much better idea of how it all works out.

Inquiring minds want to know how your test with a group of GW riders went? I get constant complaints about my Spyder CB...receive and transmit range is abysmal...I would say you might get 500 feet, and then they still say it's scratchy sounding, and sometimes unintelligible.

Phil

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

Inquiring minds want to know how your test with a group of GW riders went? I get constant complaints about my Spyder CB...receive and transmit range is abysmal...I would say you might get 500 feet, and then they still say it's scratchy sounding, and sometimes unintelligible.

Phil
It's been working great. No complaints from either me or the others. I don't know what the max distance for transmission is, but it hasn't been a problem in the group rides I've been in.

If you decide to try the NGP antenna there are three things you need to be aware of. You must use the full length of the cable, which is about 17'. To shorten it you must put it into a figure 8 coil, not a circular coil. And keep it away from metal as much as possible. The guy at Firestik said it doesn't like to be near metal and that may be why I have a high SWR at the high channels. That doesn't bother me as the only channel I really use is #1 and I've got a good SWR there.

[MercerLake]

I really should have updated this earlier, but will do so now since this thread was referenced in another thread today.

I still haven't had opportunity to do a real shake down run with the Firestik NGP antenna. But I can tell you this. On the way to Spyderfest I had the CB on monitoring channel 19. I never had a squeal occur during receive, which did happen once in awhile. Truckers don't use CB anywhere near like they did years ago. But I'm sure some of the trucks were quite close when they were transmitting. I have used the transmit a few times and all was well with that.

All in all, at this point the NGP seems to be working quite well with the BRP CB. But the other night here at home I was doing a little bit of testing and did have some squeal when receiving a signal from my Midland handheld.

A possible cause of my earlier squeal MAYBE was my helmet headset lower cord. Coming home from Spyder fest I lost the left channel sound, but I could get it back by making a 180° bend in the cord at the connector. I wonder if the cable had a near break, or short, in it when I had the earlier squeal problem. The test the other evening was with a new lower cord, the test that went well with the exception of an occasional mild squeal.
So a really good test with a group of GW riders remains to be done. After that I'll have a much better idea of how it all works out.


If I understand that you are using a HandHeld Transceiver to "test" the installation on your SPYDER. If you are close enough to hear the audio from your installed radio it is likely that the Hand held microphone is hearing the audio from the SPYDER also and
retransmitting the audio and this is the source of your squeal through audio feedback. Move away and have some one listen to the installed radio, to see if your squeal disappears. Hope this helps. Some great info regards the coaxial cable length and it's effect on the SWR by some other posters. Being in the shop or garage also will effect the SWR measurement due to the building wiring, or door mechanism.

[ceyer69]

Inquiring minds want to know how your test with a group of GW riders went? I get constant complaints about my Spyder CB...receive and transmit range is abysmal...I would say you might get 500 feet, and then they still say it's scratchy sounding, and sometimes unintelligible.

Phil


I had the same issues with riding with wingers. I upgraded my antenna to the J&M antenna setup for the Spyder purchased from Sierra Electronics. I also added extra furnace metal foil tape around the area of the braided ground wire to add to the ground plane. It was a definite improvement over the factory setup.

[Texascanuk]

Thanks for the great write up. My 2012 RT had an operative CB for a year or so and I upgraded it to the J&M antenna back then. It had about a 1 mile range which was better than the bluetooth Scala Rider headsets that were line-of-sight only. At some point though it developed the squeal when the mic is keyed and I haven't been able to solve it.

-changed helmet headsets from EdSets to BRP = $90 (on sale)
-changed the CB Radio with the exchange program at RadioSound = $150
-Upgraded the CB antenna and cable to Firestick NGP set = $60 installed today - no change, will lower SWR though.

now I'm stuck and resorting to looking at the wiring. I'm weak in that area, Here's two tips I can follow:
Someone in this thread mentioned the amplified mic being disconnected by the PTT button and this solved it. I need to look at that. Someone else soldered a resistor in that same circuit and solved it...

Back in 2014 the instrument cluster had to be changed due to internal condensation. Someone mentioned that the "CAN-BUS" had something to do with it. This is beyond my expertise...

I'm going to look at a possible short in the plug that the driver headset cord plugs into. Does anyone have a wiring diagram as to which pins correspond to which wires at the harness end. Second thought, I can just check the pins against all the wires at the harness end and see if there is continuity between any of them. I can accomplish that fine.

so I'm still trying to solve the squealing spyder....

[Texascanuk]

I finally had luck with the CB squeal. I'd read a bit about other riders changing headsets from J&M or EdSets to the BRP. I did that in June and it seemed to work Ok. Then when we went riding the squeal was back. I was going to change the BRP headset in the drivers helmet to the passenger plug but when I unplugged the passenger headset cord the squeal went away. WOW (it's an EdSet passenger cord, but see below). So I headed down to the baseball fields to check the SWR's. Last week I installed the Firestick NGP antenna and NGP coax cable.

Previous SWR's with the J&M antenna was Ch 1=2.9, Ch 40 = 2.7

Firestick SWR's Ch 1=1.6, Ch 10=1.3, Ch 20= 1.0, Ch 30=1.3, Ch 40=1.7 This translates to an increase in efficiency from 80% to 95%-100% by changing to the NGP antenna. http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/SWRLOSS.htm
I don't know why the SWR gets better in the midpoint of the channel set??

So then to confirm the EdSet passenger cord interference I plug it back in and no squeal?? What the heck, I'm confused, but the CB works now

Here's how I ran the 17 feet of CB coax to keep it away from metal.
137303
It goes across the back and loops in the space between the two chrome mounts of the tail lights. It crosses 2X then goes up to the antenna. On the right side it came from the CB and looped upward and over the top of the right saddlebag past the radio. The radio didn't seem to interfere with it, I was afraid it might.

More to come if the squeal rears it's ugly head again.

[Texascanuk]

A quick trip to another spyder owner proved that the CB transmits great now and he wants me to help him install the Firestick antenna and cable.

My problem now, I don't hear anything when it is in RX - receive status

I thought it must be something easy that I'm missing.
the speaker volume on the CB is turned all the way up/ or 3/4 doesn't matter
The radio volume is receiving
We swapped bikes and both our headsets receive on his bike when mine transmits
The passenger headset port is the same as the driver port

Squelch is all the way down or one notch up
Mic volume is 2/3
VOX is 1/2
External speakers are off
Question: if I turn on the external speakers and leave the headset plugged in, the RX mutes the headset but the external speakers play radio. Will the CB receive and broadcast through the external speakers if the headset is not plugged in?

[Basil faulty]

I have an J&M CB with their antenna that i just installed.
Would be interesting to test.
I ride with a GW and had good success.

if you want to test your unit let me know.

We are camping at the fair grounds.

ride safe
Geo
Are you using the j&m 2003 cb? If so what do you use for a mount? We're you able to find a way to pull the audio from the spyder and input it into the j&m unit?

[Texascanuk]

I ended up removing the No Ground Plane antenna and antenna cable and went back to the original cable and the J&M antenna. I had a local spyder rider compare his 2014 with a J&M antenna to our 2012 with the NGP antenna and the J&M antenna setup worked alot better. The NGP setup was giving a range of about 1/2 mile before losing reception clarity completely into garble whereas the J&M setup performed up to and past 1.6 miles to 1.8 miles. At this point the spyder was still being received well without distortion or much fading but the bike I was on using the J&M CB2003 was losing clarity.

This is about the range that one can expect out of an average CB so I'm happy with it. I went and checked the SWR's again after installing the J&M antenna and have SWR at Ch1= 2.7, Ch19= 2.2, Ch40= 1.7. I think we'll just use our systems on the upper half of the channels when we aren't riding with a group who typically use the lower half of the channels.

[Texascanuk]

The squeal is back when attempting to transmit. The driver has an EDSET headset and the passenger a BRP headset. When we switch their cords and plug the passenger into the front outlet and the driver to the back outlet the squeal goes away. So I went and bought another BRP headset for the passenger and it cured the transmit squeal. Hopefully this it finally solved

Observation. On a previous outing we were riding with two BMW 1600's one with the midland CB and the other with the J&M CB2003 but both with 1.5 or 2 ft antennas. They could only transmit short distances and had to use me as a link-man when the group got spread out. I'm using a 3 ft Firestick II with the J&M CB2003 on my Yamaha FJR. The Spyder is getting similar range to me., about 1.6 miles.

[davehirst]

Inquiring minds want to know how your test with a group of GW riders went? I get constant complaints about my Spyder CB...receive and transmit range is abysmal...I would say you might get 500 feet, and then they still say it's scratchy sounding, and sometimes unintelligible.

Phil
I had the same problem. Installed a ground wire from the case of the CB to ground. Problem solved.

[UtahPete]

This whole discussion is very helpful in understanding the issues with 'real' CB on a bike. Thanks.

[MercerLake]

You mentioned using a handheld to test your installation on the :spyder2: and getting a "Squeal". The squeal is likely due to audio feedback from the Trike speakers to the microphone of the handheld. To eliminate this get some physical separation between the handheld and the trike , about 20' should do it, and point the microphone/speaker of the hand held away from the trike. Testing and tuning should be done outside of a building. The FIRESTICK does use the shield of the coax as a ground plane and tuning, it will be affected by adjacent metal. There are other antennas available that are true dipoles that do not depend on the coaxial shield for a ground plane or tuning. Biggest problem with CB frequencies is that they require longer elements due to long wavelength. Short antennas for the frequency involved are poor radiators which reduces range. VHF or UHF systems require much shorter elements, so GMRS/FRS radios work well on bikes/trikes. Newer BLUETOOTH systems are even better for clarity and noise reduction. It's only money! :joke:

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

You mentioned using a handheld to test your installation on the :spyder2: and getting a "Squeal". The squeal is likely due to audio feedback from the Trike speakers to the microphone of the handheld. To eliminate this get some physical separation between the handheld and the trike , about 20' should do it, and point the microphone/speaker of the hand held away from the trike. Testing and tuning should be done outside of a building. The FIRESTICK does use the shield of the coax as a ground plane and tuning, it will be affected by adjacent metal. There are other antennas available that are true dipoles that do not depend on the coaxial shield for a ground plane or tuning. Biggest problem with CB frequencies is that they require longer elements due to long wavelength. Short antennas for the frequency involved are poor radiators which reduces range. VHF or UHF systems require much shorter elements, so GMRS/FRS radios work well on bikes/trikes. Newer BLUETOOTH systems are even better for clarity and noise reduction. It's only money! :joke:
I decided the squeal problem was being caused by a short, or at the very least, leakage between the mic input wire and one of the speaker wires in the lower cord of the helmet headset thus setting up a feedback loop. All has been good since I got a new lower cord, which I should have done earlier. I did keep the radios far enough apart to avoid feedback between them.

BT has two shortcomings compared to factory CB, transmit range and power supply. The factory CB never needs recharging nor new batteries!

The guys at Firestik did tell me about keeping the cable away from metal as much as possible, after I had it installed, which isn't real hard since there's so little of it on a Spyder! Relocating the antenna cable is one of my winter Spyder projects. The 17' length makes that a trick!