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Thread: Unit456 new to CB Junkies

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    Unit456 new to CB Junkies

    Hello to all. I am a newbie. I have a Galaxy DX98vhp (Export) supposably peaked and tuned. I enjoy talking skip but I read the mail more than skip talk. Those far away big radios just won't or don't hear me when the condition are right. I run my unit in my mobile which is an 08 Chevy Trailblazer, (not much metal for a good ground plane I am told). I run a browning mobile antenna center air cooled coil using 18' of LMR-400 coax (SWR's flat) with an Astatic Mike. I would like to setup a 2 x6 amp for skip shooting however, I don't know what I need to get the best operation as far as what I need to do to install this type of setup without damaging my existing equipment. I have a lot of questions in mind. As a newbie I look forward to learning new methods and ideas. I am hoping I to share what little knowledge i may have with others and hope for the same back. I am not an electronic guru but I do pick things up reasonably well. I look forward with an open mind for any advice that would be helpful in getting me in the airways. Thank all that have taken the time to read this post. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
    Happy DXing and 73's
    Unit456 Mobile

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    markus82 (12-03-2015)

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    Welcome Unit456

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    Unit456 (11-26-2015)

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    Unit456...

    Quote Originally Posted by FATKAT View Post
    Welcome Unit456
    Thank you and 73's

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    Post up any and all of your questions in the forum. That way every body can get in on the fun I had a fella offer to sell me amp's this afternoon. I declined at this time due to my lack of knowledge. As I learn more I may jump

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    Unit456 (11-26-2015)

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    I am looking to purchase an amp. What's out there for sale?

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    First off welcome to the forum.
    Now about the amp. With the radio you have you really would need an 8 pill amp to use with the radio you have. A 2x6 won't work. Can't have an amp with a driver section, I.E., the 2 pills that drive the 6 pills, with a high power export radio. You want to run a setup like that, sell the 98vhp and get a uniden 880, or 980, a TNT 600HD or the T800 which is a 2x6. You want a single final radio and low power with an amp with a driver section. If you want to keep your 98vhp look at the TNT T1500HD. To do this you will most likely have to beef up your alternator as well as have a good antenna setup. Not just flat swr either. You'll most likely need an antenna analyzer to get the antenna setup correctly if you haven't done so. SWR or (VSWR), isn't everything when it comes to antennas. There are other factors as well as vswr to take into account. Also before adding an amp, do some reading on bonding of the vehicles body panels and such to frame using flat braid grounding straps. Then you'll need to look into a larger alternator as well as a decent battery backup system. When you start messing with power above 1kw, things can get a bit tricky with some newer vehicles. You need to have all your ducks in a row!! Like I said, look into bonding your vehicle before you start buying amps. And also get ahold of an antenna analyzer and see what your entire antenna system looks like. What is the R and X values as well as the vswr. Also as you bond your vehicles hood, doors, trunk if you have one, exhaust, and so forth and you may have to re tune your antenna but will most likely have a better overall antenna system and setup with what you have now. Your radio will do 200 watts pep, with a good antenna setup and the right conditions you should be able to get your name called. But remember your competing with stations that may be running several KW's of power or very large beam antennas. Hard to compete with that with most mobiles. You need some power for sure at times. But there are times you should be able to get your name called. But IMO, before you buy an amp, look into the other things I mentioned above to get your setup the best it can possibly be before adding any amps. JMHO. And again with that radio, an 8 pill amp is the minimum I would look at as far as amps go. A straight 8 pill. Not a 2x6. You'll blow the 2x6 up real fast keying into it with the radio you have. A straight 8 pill would be a better setup. Hope this helps and have a good day.

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    Need help in hooking up CB and amp in mobile....

    Quote Originally Posted by 222FL View Post
    First off welcome to the forum.
    Now about the amp. With the radio you have you really would need an 8 pill amp to use with the radio you have. A 2x6 won't work. Can't have an amp with a driver section, I.E., the 2 pills that drive the 6 pills, with a high power export radio. You want to run a setup like that, sell the 98vhp and get a uniden 880, or 980, a TNT 600HD or the T800 which is a 2x6. You want a single final radio and low power with an amp with a driver section. If you want to keep your 98vhp look at the TNT T1500HD. To do this you will most likely have to beef up your alternator as well as have a good antenna setup. Not just flat swr either. You'll most likely need an antenna analyzer to get the antenna setup correctly if you haven't done so. SWR or (VSWR), isn't everything when it comes to antennas. There are other factors as well as vswr to take into account. Also before adding an amp, do some reading on bonding of the vehicles body panels and such to frame using flat braid grounding straps. Then you'll need to look into a larger alternator as well as a decent battery backup system. When you start messing with power above 1kw, things can get a bit tricky with some newer vehicles. You need to have all your ducks in a row!! Like I said, look into bonding your vehicle before you start buying amps. And also get ahold of an antenna analyzer and see what your entire antenna system looks like. What is the R and X values as well as the vswr. Also as you bond your vehicles hood, doors, trunk if you have one, exhaust, and so forth and you may have to re tune your antenna but will most likely have a better overall antenna system and setup with what you have now. Your radio will do 200 watts pep, with a good antenna setup and the right conditions you should be able to get your name called. But remember your competing with stations that may be running several KW's of power or very large beam antennas. Hard to compete with that with most mobiles. You need some power for sure at times. But there are times you should be able to get your name called. But IMO, before you buy an amp, look into the other things I mentioned above to get your setup the best it can possibly be before adding any amps. JMHO. And again with that radio, an 8 pill amp is the minimum I would look at as far as amps go. A straight 8 pill. Not a 2x6. You'll blow the 2x6 up real fast keying into it with the radio you have. A straight 8 pill would be a better setup. Hope this helps and have a good day.
    Thank you very much. I presently have an 08 Chevy Trailblazer 4 x4 with a stock 150 amp alternator. Will I have to get a larger alternator for the 6 pill? Or larger if I go 8 pill? Also the battery backup system? What size battery? CCA? How many? I was thinking of adding two batteries at 900CCA using (2) 200 amp isolators inline and using 0 gage cable from the isolator to the batteries and an 8 gage wire connecting to the 150 amp stock alternator. Which in turn I would connect the amp from one battery and the radio from the other battery.
    I have bonded the hood, doors and lift gate. However, I have not bonded the exhaust, never thought of that. And I am not attached from each bond to the chassis. I suppose I need to bond each door, fender, lift gate and the exhaust directly to the chassis separately is my understanding as of now.
    As for the antenna system I am center roof mounted for the lowest swr I could get at the moment with the bonds I have using an antenna analyzer on channels 1, 20 and 40 with 18' of LMR-400 coax.
    Please advise me if I am going in the right direction. I understand that I won't be able to compete with the big stations running beams and high power amps. I not trying to be the biggest out there just trying to get in there where I might have a chance to be heard when the conditions are in my favor. I am sure from my previous post it was understandable that I don't have a clue what I am doing. I am learning as I go. I travel 95% of the time and don't have a place for a base station setup. So until I come off the road and settle in one spot I have to rely on a mobile. I appreciate your advice and guidance in this matter. I will look at the other radios and amps you mentioned. I was hoping to keep what I have but if it makes better sense I will go another route. Please advise as to your thoughts in this matter.
    Thanks,
    73's
    Unit456

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    Unit456 new to CB Junkies

    No worries. With an 8 pill you my have to upgrade your alternator to a larger amperage one. Somewhere near 300 amps total. About 15-20 amps per 100 watts is a good number to go by. So if you are running a kW of power, 200 amps would be needed to have a bit of head room. Then the batteries. Everyone uses different batts, I like the Deka line of batteries that are sold at batteries plus. They are branded under the Duracell name as well as Deka. The 2 batts I used back in the day were each 150AH batts that weighed about 125lbs each. These are used for commercial cell sites for battery back up use. I paid a pretty penny for 2 of them back in the day. Don't have those anymore but do have one 170AH battery left. Here is what it looks like.
    This is a 170AH battery and with 2 like this I was able to use stock alternator in my jeep Cherokee and run an 8 pill setup. Voltage never dropped below 13.8vdc even when on the key for a while! This was back in my AM days and I ran a 1x2 driving an 8 pill.
    With all this said, with your current setup I would look into a straight 8 pill amp. But like I said it takes some amperage to use one properly. You might be able to make it work with a good battery bank and stock alternator, but I doubt it. My jeep Cherokee was an 89 and it didn't have much for electronics. So my 2 150AH batts was enough to hold the voltage with the 8 pill. But it won't be cheap to get 300 amps of good batteries. Not CCA shit either, I mean real Amp Hours. The batt in the pic below will hold a 170amp load for 8hrs without much drop in voltage. At or near the 8hr point you will see a spike in voltage then a decrease as the batteries become drained. They are not cheap batteries.
    As you can see the one battery I have costs about $500 a piece shipped. But these aren't your everyday battery either.
    At any rate. Not sure how attached you are to the Galaxy 98vhp, but with that radio you will have a hard time using it with any amp smaller than an 8 pill IMO, as it just is too much power for anything smaller.
    You may be better off either using the 98vhp in another vehicle or getting rid of it for a different radio. For what it is worth a good 4 pill amp and a single or dual final radio would be your best bet in order to keep the alternator stock and add a couple batts like you plan. With an 8 pill you are talking about a lot more amp draw and I am about 110% pos. That your stock alt. won't handle an 8 pill unless maybe you have one heck of a battery bank kind of like what I showed you. Doesn't have to be the same batts as what I showed you but you want batteries that show the AH rating and not CCA (cold cranking amps), as these batts are only seeing a heavy load at start up. Your alternator takes over after the vehicle is started. Make sense. Hopefully I'm not babbling on.
    Anyway, do some research and you'll understand why I say that a good 4 pill setup might be your best option without having to get larger alternator and such. Look into a 4 pill Dave made or Xforce amp and a good radio to run with it. I use an optima mk3 and a TNT 600hd and get anywhere from 4-500 watts pep out my amp. Granted my amp has Toshiba 2879's which are a bit more rugged than most of the newer transistors of the same type. I have actually seen 6-700 watts out of the amp with some drive. But now I loaf it along at about 400 watts and it gets me out just fine.
    But if you are really intent on getting one, an 8 pill amp that is, look into a larger amp alternator and a good batt bank like what you are planning. JMHO, and what I have learned from past experience. Hope some of this helps. Good luck with whatever you do and keep it clean and mean!!
    Last edited by 222FL; 11-30-2015 at 08:23 PM.

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    Need help in hooking up CB and amp in mobile....

    Quote Originally Posted by 222FL View Post
    No worries. With an 8 pill you my have to upgrade your alternator to a larger amperage one. Somewhere near 300 amps total. About 15-20 amps per 100 watts is a good number to go by. So if you are running a kW of power, 200 amps would be needed to have a bit of head room. Then the batteries. Everyone uses different batts, I like the Deka line of batteries that are sold at batteries plus. They are branded under the Duracell name as well as Deka. The 2 batts I used back in the day were each 150AH batts that weighed about 125lbs each. These are used for commercial cell sites for battery back up use. I paid a pretty penny for 2 of them back in the day. Don't have those anymore but do have one 170AH battery left. Here is what it looks like.
    This is a 170AH battery and with 2 like this I was able to use stock alternator in my jeep Cherokee and run an 8 pill setup. Voltage never dropped below 13.8vdc even when on the key for a while! This was back in my AM days and I ran a 1x2 driving an 8 pill.
    With all this said, with your current setup I would look into a straight 8 pill amp. But like I said it takes some amperage to use one properly. You might be able to make it work with a good battery bank and stock alternator, but I doubt it. My jeep Cherokee was an 89 and it didn't have much for electronics. So my 2 150AH batts was enough to hold the voltage with the 8 pill. But it won't be cheap to get 300 amps of good batteries. Not CCA shit either, I mean real Amp Hours. The batt in the pic below will hold a 170amp load for 8hrs without much drop in voltage. At or near the 8hr point you will see a spike in voltage then a decrease as the batteries become drained. They are not cheap batteries.
    As you can see the one battery I have costs about $500 a piece shipped. But these aren't your everyday battery either.
    At any rate. Not sure how attached you are to the Galaxy 98vhp, but with that radio you will have a hard time using it with any amp smaller than an 8 pill IMO, as it just is too much power for anything smaller.
    You may be better off either using the 98vhp in another vehicle or getting rid of it for a different radio. For what it is worth a good 4 pill amp and a single or dual final radio would be your best bet in order to keep the alternator stock and add a couple batts like you plan. With an 8 pill you are talking about a lot more amp draw and I am about 110% pos. That your stock alt. won't handle an 8 pill unless maybe you have one heck of a battery bank kind of like what I showed you. Doesn't have to be the same batts as what I showed you but you want batteries that show the AH rating and not CCA (cold cranking amps), as these batts are only seeing a heavy load at start up. Your alternator takes over after the vehicle is started. Make sense. Hopefully I'm not babbling on.
    Anyway, do some research and you'll understand why I say that a good 4 pill setup might be your best option without having to get larger alternator and such. Look into a 4 pill Dave made or Xforce amp and a good radio to run with it. I use an optima mk3 and a TNT 600hd and get anywhere from 4-500 watts pep out my amp. Granted my amp has Toshiba 2879's which are a bit more rugged than most of the newer transistors of the same type. I have actually seen 6-700 watts out of the amp with some drive. But now I loaf it along at about 400 watts and it gets me out just fine.
    But if you are really intent on getting one, an 8 pill amp that is, look into a larger amp alternator and a good batt bank like what you are planning. JMHO, and what I have learned from past experience. Hope some of this helps. Good luck with whatever you do and keep it clean and mean!!
    Thank you very much. I appreciate all your assistance. I will indeed research as you have advised. And your suggestion of the 4 pill sounds good and as a starter for me until I learn move of this new hobby I have acquired makes plenty of sense. so I am going to take your advise and move slowly until I get the basics in order before making any irrational decisions. I looked at the 980 and it has some good reports. I will look for a better antenna that has better power handling capabilities as well as take a look at the TNT also.

    I will re-work my ground system and antenna first and see what I can improve there with what I have while making a decision on the radio and amp.

    I will keep in touch and let you know how it goes.

    Thanks, again and 73"s
    Happy Holidays
    Unit456

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    222FL (12-03-2015)

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    welcom Unit456

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    Unit456 (12-03-2015)

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