CB Radios & Antennas for your Jeep

CB radios go hand-in-hand with offroading and Jeeps. Sure, they're a great way to call for help when needed, but they have limits. In fact, these days, cell phones offer a much better way to call for help.

CB radios, though, allow you to keep in touch with other drivers on the trail. Just listening to them is fun & entertaining. Being able to call for a tow-rope while you're bumper-deep in mud is easily worth the $150 investment the cb and antenna will usually run you when new.

CB radios have evolved, and while nicer-looking and smaller, they still do basically the same job as always - they allow you to communicate, line-of-site, with others so equipped. In fact, so useful are they, that you cannot attend a jeep Jamboree event without having a cb radio installed in your Jeep.

And lets not forget the antenna - the CB would be nothing without the antenna. The antenna makes it possible to transmit and receive signals. Antenna placement, design, construction and length all play a role in determining whether you can hear and will be heard.

CB antennas vary in contruction and length. Be sure to work with a professional when you install one, though. Mounting them is very easy, but you should tune them to ensure no possibility for damage to your transmitter and to gain every advantage for sending & recieving. A properly tuned antenna will help your system work like a charm at greater distances.

Most tuning involves a small meter called an SWR meter - it measures resistance in the antenna circuit. A low, balanced set of numbers (recieve & transmit) is desirable. the placement of your antenna, contruction, etc. will all play a role when tuning the antenna. The actual tuning involves, usually, a simple snip of the tip of the antenna to shorten it's length.

Again, unless you know what you're doing, leave this to a pro - if they foul things up, they can replace the antenna.

Also keep in mind where you drive. Big antennas will give you a broader range, but do you park in a garage? And don't think you're going to pull that "cool" trick and just tie the end of the antenna off to the front bumper, either. Might be fine for driving around town, but it's a recipe for destruction in tight trails where things drag along your Jeep - not to mention it'll destroy the tuning you did, since you've now changed it's relationship to the Jeep. A well tuned 3' antenna will work as well, or better than, an untuned 8' whip antenna.

Mounting options

Many people struggle when they hit this point. Now that you've got the CB you want, where do you mount it?

In a CJ/YJ/TJ, where space can be limited, you might not have a lot of options.

Rest easy, though, as pretty much every idea for mounting a CB radio in these rigs has been explored and refined.

Many folks simply zip-tie the bracket to the "roll bar" between the seats (overhead), run the wires and call it a day. Some folks will make a custom bracket to hang the radio from the windshield header, too. Still others will screw the mounting bracket to the transmission hump or centre console.

Just make sure, no matter the option you choose, that you carefully run the wires, tie them out of the way, and consider the fact you drive a convertible, too. Many radios die each year as a reuslt of rain or water hitting them and shorting them out - not a huge danger to you, but crappy none the less.

With Cherokees and Grand Cherokees, your mounitng options are much broader.

With an actual dash, mounting the radio there with screws or velcro becomes a viable option - just make sure to use LOTS of velcro - no sense that fancy radio taking a header when the truck gets bounced around offroad.

Another option is to simply sandwich the radio between the seat cushion and centre console - works very well and you can still hear everything just fine.

Again, mounting the radio to the side of the centre console is viable, but please note that Cherokees, in particular, suffer from a lack of space in the passenger spaces. If you mount the radio on either side of the centre console, expect either your knees, or those of your passenger, to be bruised in a short time.

Constructing an overhead console works well in Cherokees - using the sun-visor mounting points up front, and the interior light at the rear you can easily and safely mount a Cobra 19 model radio on an aluminum framework. The framework will use the screws up front and tabs, which slide under the interior lights plastic frame, to hold it securely.

It holds up very well to offroading and never presents a problem. (Used mine for over 2 years of very active offroading and it never budged) You will need longer wires to get it set up, and some patience to tuck those wires under the passenger side A-pillar trim and under the headliner, but the install works like a charm.

Keep in mind these ideas are the common ones - but they're also the ones which have proven, over time, to work safely. Spend some time inside your rig looking around. A CJ would allow you to flush-mount the CB in the metal dash panel and run a remote speaker. This makes for a nice, clean, solidly mounted set-up. In the Cherokee, replacing the radio, in the dash, is a viable option if you own a smaller sized CB radio and are OK with no tunes.

One last thing to note - all cb radios produce the same power output - the size tends to determine what extra options the unit has - many Jeepers prefer a no-frills model that's small, easy to mount and cheap to purchase.