another cb question

[ditch]

so i just wired up my cb that I bought off ebay....a uniden pro500 and ive got it connected to an aerial, and the two wires are wired up correctly. now the unit switches on and the numbers are displayed on the screen, but the thing won't make any noise, even when I twiddle with the squelch and everything.

so i went out an bought an external speaker from jaycar for like $15 just to see if when I hooked that up and talked, the noise would come out that speaker, but that doesnt work either.

my aerial is on my bumber bar. now ive mounted the mount underneath the bullbar, so that the screw pin sticks up through a hole, and the aerial screws onto it from there. now if you get what i mean, it means that the aerial is between a piece of metal before it actually touches the aerial base...would that effect the radio at all? I just dont know what the hell is wrong with the radio and its pissing me off, and if i bought some dodgey shit off ebay i will kill the guy i bought it off. someone please do you have any ideas of what the problem may be?!?! thanks

[phippsy]

Some arials need to be earthed through the base. If there's no earth where it's mounted then that may be part of the reason, unless you have an elevated feed antennae which isn't as picky on where it's mounted.

[Flat_Matt]

Hey Buddy,

Same thing happened when I got my car, Radio woudnt work..

Try and use elimination, Do you have another aerial/cable, I tryed another cable on mine, still wouldnt work so I tryed another aerial, worked awesome

So I checked the aerial and the wire was snapped, I repaired it and it works fine now, So check the aerial and cable, It might not be the radio...

[ditch]

Hey sorry just saw this post. Would the aerial not working really stop the radio from making any noise at all? Wouldn't it means that its getting no signal....so it'd make static all the time??? I still haven't fixed it by the way.

[festy]

Do you have the mic plugged in? A lot of CBs won't receive without the mic plugged in.

Does the TX light come on when you key the mic? If not, you might have the shield wire broken in the mic cable or something.

Turn the squelch right down. If the CB has an RF Gain, turn it right up. you should hear static. If not, plug your external speaker in.

If you can hear some static, unscrew the antenna cable from the back of the radio. If the static gets louder with the antenna unplugged, you probably have a short in your antenna/cable somewhere.

With wiring up your antenna, it's fine to pass the base through metal. There's normaly 2 metal parts to the base - a plate and a threaded stud. The plate at the bottom can touch metal to make a ground contact, but the threaded rod that the antenna screws onto must not.