SWR meter

How to use an SWR meter

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• SWR
• meter
• CB
• radio

[Jestus13]

What makes it a night watch?

[chrisced007]

@Jestus13 nightwatch illumination allows the driver to see all of the Cb knobs at night clearly. Also one can adjust the brightness with the dimmer switch instead of using a light setting knob. In other words, one can adjust the the brightness better than before.

[Spuzmocker]

I have a cobra 29 and when my external swr meter is connected to my radio and antenna the readings are close to the same, around 2.4; however, when I disconnect my external swr meter and connect the antenna directly to my cb radio, the swr meter built into my radio reads differently than it did before, around 1.3. What does this mean and what should I do?

[chrisced007]

@Spuzmocker Don't rely on your internal CB radio SWR meter. Rely more on the external SWR meter. a 1.3 is good on the meter. I probably wouldn't do anything.

[bpbat21]

Hey chris,

after its calibrated, do you leave the meter hooked up? Does using the meter calibrate your CB? Lastly, if you have more than a 2.0 on the power, what then?

Thanks

[chrisced007]

@bpbat21 You can leave the SWR meter hooked up to the radio but you'll lose about 1 watt of power. So can leave it on if you want to. I prefer to leave mine on. Also if your running over a 2.0 on the SWR meter then you may have an antenna issue. Your antenna could be to short, bad ground, or the radio is acting up.

[07GreyYFZ450]

i have the same antenna but not trucker version. Best antenna I've run out of a dozen or so i have tried.

[adrokk]

"REF" doesn't stand for reference, it means Reflected! It's the amount of power that is being reflected back into your antenna while transmitting.

[Bw321a]

when tuning my antenna do i turn the radio off? or do i leave it on as i tune it?

[theDurangoman]

What is your cb mount?

[Jestus13]

@chrisced007 Thanks man!