wilson 5000 antenna

[Big Hammer]

Is it possible to ruin the coil on the trucker 5000 by keying up the mic when the antenna is not mounted? I had a problem when my mount broke so I put the antenna inside the truck. Now that I ahve the antenna mounted I get no output and can barely hear anything. I switched to a different radio and the output is up but I still can hardly recieve.
Thanks

[yMidnite]

Is it still grounded? How has it effected your SWR's?

[231]

Is it possible to ruin the coil on the trucker 5000 by keying up the mic when the antenna is not mounted? I had a problem when my mount broke so I put the antenna inside the truck. Now that I ahve the antenna mounted I get no output and can barely hear anything. I switched to a different radio and the output is up but I still can hardly recieve.
Thanks

Welcome to the forum.

The antenna itself is only half of the antenna system...the vehicle is the other half that completes the antenna system. So if you have just the antenna laying in the cab you pretty much have only half the antenna system which the radio is not going to be happy with. It may be better than nothing, but certainly not by much. LOL

Sounds to me like when you replaced the mount something changed. Without getting too involved, the antenna itself is insulated from ground...usually by nylon or plastic bushing(s) that are part of the mount (usually). Did you install those correctly? How they are installed is dependent on which coax connector you have. The screw on type like what the radio has (PL-259) uses one bushing through the middle and on the top to insulate the stud and antenna from ground. Ring connectors use two bushings with the bolt going to the stud.

If all of that is correct, then it could be several things causing the problem. More info' about the installation would be helpful.

Good luck.

[Big Hammer]

Thanks for your replies. I figured it out that my co-ax was bad. Even when I put a different antenna on I still could not xmit very well, so I checked the co-ax and one of the ends had seperated. I put a new co-ax on and I changed the lenght from a 9 footer to a 18 footer. Now I find that I still can't xmit very well and the needle on my Cobra 25 peaks out when I xmit. I am going to check the SWR's with a meter, but is it possible that the tuning I did before could change with the length of the co-ax?

[Big Hammer]

Also I wanted to say that yes the insulators are in place properly. If I can't tune the antenna wouldm putting a ground from the mount to a known groung help?

['Doc]

Can changing the length of the feed line affect an antenna's tuning? Yes, it can. That's typically because that feed line length is being used as part of the input impedance matching 'device'. So, changing that coax to something other than what it was can certainly make a difference.
"Grounding" an antenna should be done through that antenna's mount and mounting place. If additional 'grounds' are needed, it just means the original installation probably isn't as 'good' as it could have been. All kinds of "if's"/"ands"/"buts" with that, but in general, additional 'grounding' isn't a very good option for fixing things or retuning an antenna. It's a very good idea to put a meter on the thing and see what's wrong before 'correcting' it.
- 'Doc

[Big Hammer]

Thank you Doc. That is what I'm going to do put a meter on it. I appreciate your help. Before mount broke (cheap aluminum I guess, made in India) I had SWR readings of 1.5 on Ch.1, !.7 on Ch 20 and 1.6 on Ch. 40. I could xmit a good distance and recieve at greater distances. Set up is Cobra 25LTD Classic (Stock), Wilson 500 Trucker and 18 foot mini-8 coax all powered through ignition on Mack Tri-Axle. Company owned truck. Mount is located on drivers mirror at top. Mount is a heavy duty aluminum mount ( which was made for Mack trucks but does not fit mirror bar. Had to cut old mount and take up space on bottom part of mount.) These readings were I was told very good for stock unit. Again I appreciate any help. I willet you know what the readings were both before and after my friend and I tune the antenna.

[Big Hammer]

Ok bad news. I went out and bought a SWR meter. Hooked the meter up according to directions. When I keyed mic up which is a Astatic 636L both power and SWR Meter pegged out. Tryed it again ( calibrated meter first on FWD then switched to REF) and same result. Changed radios. Same result. Got me baffled. The only thing I changed since I had it tuned was the mount and a new coax. Can't figure this thing out. The mount I bought is a aluminum heavy duty mount made for Mack and Freightliner trucks. It is bigger than my mirror bar so i cut the old mount to take up the space between bottom of mount and the mirror bar. The top half and bottom half of the mount come together but it is tight ie: I can't move the damn thing. The antenna is vertical on the top bar so it clears the dump box. It is approx. 1 ft away from dump box. The mount itself seems to have some kind of coating. ( it is shiny, compared to the other mount I had which was a duller aluminum ). Any ideas? I'm going to sand the surface of the mount where it contacts the bottom part of the antenna stud and sand it where it contacts the mirror bar. The mirror is heated so I would think it is grounded to the body somewhere(company vehicle). I am at a total loss at how much things have changed since the mount broke.

[Big Hammer]

Ok this is really weird. I tried above fixes to no avail. The only thing I didn't change was the stud where the coax and antenna attach to. Guess what! Changed that and presto. Great reception and transmission. Now what I don't understand is how the stud could go bad. It is a heavy duty stud made for a Wilson antenna. GI Joes had it listed as a roof mount. When I had it on my old mirror mount it worked great. It has a big SS top and a large SS bottom which are attached by a SS Screw. The thing I like about it is it took the vibration that a standard stud couldn't. Both the insulators were on when I attached it. Any ideas on how that could go bad? Apparently it wasn't insulated from yhe mount. Could a piece of metal have gotten in the insulator? Any ideas or what to look for would be appreciated.

[Tobin]

Definately , I had coax problems with my antenna. I have a trunk mount antenna and the coax cracked right where it leaves the antenna section. It appears that the coax coating is not the best kinda rubber or whatever....

On another note there is an internal capacitor I believe and it could be damaged or blown. That may be the problem with the high SWR...