Tell me about CB's

Mag Mounts I found were terrible, i've got a side mount fitted to the rear door, SWR is perfect.

Or you could place your aerial with magnetfoot as seen on the picture below, i just did put a extra "security-strap" around it.
Offcourse when you change the position of your aerial you have to do some new SWR readings and tuning of it.



Later i did put it on top of the roof for the better result i did get on this position, even it is a soft-top Jimny.
To avoid as much as possible the aerial to get sweaped of by branches i don't tighten too hard the screw that regulates the inclination (angle) of the aerial, so if it is hit, the aerial gets flat on the roof without taking the magnetfoot off.
Until now i only had it knocked off twice on low speed because the branches did already touched the front screen so you did now what was coming up next on top of the roof...
A quick stop to put it all straight up again and off we went again.

I would put the mag mount on the back door, but my mount only allows the aerial out vertical, so it would stick out about 1.5 metres behind my car! I have also already knocked it off the roof on the road, so unless I can sort my SWR problems, the mag mount will be going back to whence it came.

After moving it around the roof, trying various locations, I couldn't get the SWR low enough still. I did find that best readings came from when I was getting irritated I stuck it on the side like so:

While the SWR was then around 2 on channel 40 and about 3 on channel 1, this mounting location is not practical and the SWR is still far too high!

Some questions and remarks :
- Am i right that you're CB is powered through the cigarette-lighter, not ideal, better is directly to battery (with fuse).
- Keep your aerial cable away from wiper motor and bobines.
- To check your aerial-cable : take a multimeter and measure the ground on both sides from you're cable, do the same thing with the centre of your cable (+), if the meter gives a correct reading then the cable is OK.
- To test your SWR-meter : do the readings as normal and write down the results, then you disconnect your SWR-meter and put the cables the wrong way around into the SWR-meter, and SWITCH the knob from FORWARD to REFLECTION.
If you have a lot of difference between the two readings then your SWR-meter is not working properly !

To calibrate the SWR-meter : if you have 40 channels (FM) you should calibrate this on channel 20 (middle channel), if you change then to another channel again you have to calibrate the SWR-meter on that new chosen channel.
This is only needed during the set-up for your inatallation.
You do a reading on channel 1 and a reading on channel 40, the difference between channel 1 and channel 40 should not be too big and channel 40 will be normally a little bit higher then the reading on channel 1.
If the reading on channel 40 is to high you should shorten the length of the aerial, if the reading on channel 1 is to high then the aerial should be made longer.
It sure take's some time to do it properly but if you transmit during a longer period you can blow up the internals from your CB !
If you're not getting it right then go to a CB-shop and ask if they can do the readings and calibrating for you.

Mine is indeed powered through the cigarette lighter. I have checked with a multimeter I couldn't see anything wrong with the readings. I'll have another look later this afternoon, if I'm still struggling I'll find a radio shop around somewhere.

After fiddling around, I have now got the SWR down below 2.5 for the first time, across the channel range. I don't think it is possible to get any lower, as my aerial needs to be longer, and I have run out adjustment (unless there is a way to increase the aerial length??).