CB radio wiring, do a need an inline fuse?

[cjhillman]

Basically as the title says. I just bought a cig lighter adapter from halfords as my ebay CB just came with the bear wires. I also picked up a cheap inline fuse holder from the clearance section. Reading online it says to add a 10 amp fuse inline If you want but my holder only goes up to 5 amp. I'm just thinking should I bother and just wired up the cig lighter adapter? I'm going to wire this up on my day off tomorrow but thought I'd ask here first..




P.S.

It does work according to the advert. It lights up anyway. I don't have an aerial but can anyone tell me what I would need to look for when buying an aerial? I'm guessing I have to match the output to the unit?

[squonk]

TBH I wouldn't want to pull 10A through a cigarette adaptor. They are a bit cheap and nasty. You may find that it already has a fuse in the adaptor anyway. Even so, I'd put an in line fuse in it just for safety but I'd also wire it to a decent voltage source.

For a mobile CB aerial power is not an issue. Just buy one that fits the vehicle and correctly tune it using an SWR meter, it will be fine. The good old DV27 aerial was the weapon of choice for many back in the day. There are a multitude of different base fittings available for it from gutter mounts to wing mounts. Usually SWR's easily.

When you SWR it go and find a wide open space. Reflections from buildings and other vehicles can make a big difference.

[brachunky]

Good advice from Squonk. There will be aerials advertised that fit in a variety of locations on the car but imho, a good ground plane is important and can affect how good the signal is received & transmitted. Don't look great but the best place is bang in the centre of the roof unless you have a cabriolet of coarse! A bit of info below:

www.thunderpole.co.uk/cb-radio-guide-groundplane.html

[cjhillman]

Cheers for the advice. If you think its best to not put a fuse on the cig lighter I'll leave it off. I don't want to hard wire this yet as I might take it out. Thanks about the SWR meter. I wasnt sure if I didnt to buy an aerial that matched in general. I'll see what I can get then see if anyone I know has one (weirdly my misses works in broadcast so she might ).

I have seen an interesting aerial online but it might not be worth it. It seems to be a wing mounted CB and FM/AM aerial. tempted by it as the Capri has no aerial at the moment and my Escort one is rusted solid.

What do we think?

[squonk]

In your top post second picture, that is an SWR meter sitting on top of the rig. I'm guessing that pic was from the advert though.

On my old Capri 3.0S (wish I still had that one!!) I used a DV27 with a gutter mount. Not ideal and I had to remove some paint fron the gutter to get a decent ground plain but it worked fine. I didn't want to drill any holes as I'd just restored it from a crashed car. Still got it somewhere I think (the aerial, not the car). If you don't want to drill holes you could try useing a mag mount aerial, something decent like a Moonraker if you can find one. As brachunky said, best option is slap bang in the middle of the roof and fitted trough a drilled hole with a good earth connection. I used to have a Firestick mounted on a Bedford CF roof that way and it got tremendous range. Was a totally illegal aerial though!!!

The combined ones like you have shown are a bit hit and miss. They can sometimes be very difficult to SWR but if you can get it cheap enough it would be worth playing with it to see how it goes.

PS: however you wire the CB in put a fuse in line with it.

[cjhillman]

Thanks for the responses!

I went down to the Capri today and dug the CB out. Embarrassingly it has an inline fuse already on the positive wire which solves that one. I havent seen it in weeks and thought it was just the two wires.

I've crimped the cig lighter wires on for the moment to check it works which I'm happy to say it does. And theres also a noise when you click in the mic button











The SWR in the first post was from the ebay listing. I did notice you can get them on Amazon prime so I might have to be naughty and borrow one for a few days then send it back haha unless it becomes useful.

I was looking for a discreet antenna hence that multi use one but like you say it could be hit or miss I guess. I might offer something for it as the one on my Escort is a bit buggered. The capri doesnt have an aerial on the wing so a mag mount would be good. Its only for a bit of a laugh so I don't want to put too much £££ into this.

[cjhillman]

Just browsing facebook market place for SWR's and Antennas . I might not be able to get this in time but would this kind of thing work?



With something like this mini Antenna ? I saw one today at a car show that wasnt too big and I thought it would make life a lot easier. Also saw my Mechanic there who said he may have one in his garage so we'll see on that.