ok lets talk cb

[moose]

probably something that most don't use on there bike but what the hell its there might as well use it. So my question is has anyone added a liner amp to boost the cb signal that will work on a bike. I remember when driving a truck I had like a 100 watt unit just looking to tweek a little and not be stomped on for the bike

of course this would be hypothetical cause they are not legal

[Redfish Joe]

Most cb linears would cause too high of a drain on the electrical system I would think. 

[Coyote]

I think the bike electrical would be fine for a 100 watt linear (Have you seen the size of amps these audio guys are using?). The issue I see is that unless everyone you ride with does the same, you will still be limited to the same, stock distance. Doesn't do much good for them to hear you and you can't hear them.

The other issue is the crappy antenna system on the bike. It's not a big deal to reflect back half the power when the transmitter is 4 watts. Pretty easy to survive that. But if you did the same at 100W, the amp is going to heat up, a lot. Possibly fail.  I know when I tuned my bikes, everything in and around the bike pulls the antenna tuning. It will shift based on what is in your tour pack, if you have a passenger etc. That's just the nature when you have such a poor ground plane at 27MHz.

[moose]

thanks was curious if anyone is running any and what

[IronMike113]

WOW I can see it Now a Texas Star 350 High Drive on my Scooter,with the galaxy 99,I could actually get out and talk to somebody talk about putting some fire in the wire.......... 

[strokerjlk]

You would be better off opening up the modulation on the radio . Then cranking it up to dead key 2 watt and swing 10-12 watts . Or Whatever you can get of if it .
Find a good radio tech that can get the schematic .
I would be scarred to drive a linear for lack of good ground like Keith said. 

[moose]

I have the schematic somewhere guess I'll get a swr meter and give it a try  have not played with a cb since my truck driving days 40 years ago

[strokerjlk]

I have the schematic somewhere guess I'll get a swr meter and give it a try  have not played with a cb since my truck driving days 40 years ago

Post it up. maybe together we can all figure it out. your gonna need a power meter also.
i haven't turned any up for a few years myself. I can tune the cobra's and Galaxy's .
getting the modulation cranked up is the biggest gain

[strokerjlk]

search around on the net. your looking for something like this
I got mine at 6-8 watts now. but I cant find the notes. i just  played with the VR's until i found what i wanted. never could figure out the modulation diode though.

[moose]

this is what I have

[Durwood]

 

[strokerjlk]

i received the same photo
i cant see it. but I assume that is the VR we are looking for.
is that for modulation or power ?

[strokerjlk]

never mind .i opened the link duh .
modulation

[Coyote]

 I took that picture for someone here a few months ago. Yes, the control I marked was modulation. This info was from their FCC filing.

[Coyote]

Here is the OP

http://harleytechtalk.com/htt/index.php/topic,77505.msg854814.html#msg854814

[strokerjlk]

any more info. i think I only got 70 % modulation adjusting. were is the diode you clip to open modulation WOT

[zukeepr]

You could put bigger finals in it. Maybe run a modulator instead of linear. It don't draw as many amps and don't get near as hot. To bad you can't put an echo board it. Rodknocker,come on beck!!! As stated earlier antenna would be the biggest problem. Swr's would kill that little radio. I have to hear the cry baby's and Rambo's all week. Thats the last thing I wanna hear on my bike.

[Coyote]

any more info. i think I only got 70 % modulation adjusting. were is the diode you clip to open modulation WOT

And how did you measure modulation Percentage?

[strokerjlk]

any more info. i think I only got 70 % modulation adjusting. were is the diode you clip to open modulation WOT

And how did you measure modulation Percentage?

old old I know ,but it is still working

[strokerjlk]

ha ha notice where the power level is set 

[strokerjlk]

You could put bigger finals in it. Maybe run a modulator instead of linear. It don't draw as many amps and don't get near as hot. To bad you can't put an echo board it. Rodknocker,come on beck!!! As stated earlier antenna would be the biggest problem. Swr's would kill that little radio. I have to hear the cry baby's and Rambo's all week. Thats the last thing I wanna hear on my bike.

if you open the modulation up ,you do the same as installing a modulator. unless you have a external potentiometer ,then you could control modulation.
used to do the same thing with the cobra's using the mic gain as the potentiometer . nice little 40 ch radios.
you can turn em down and drive a big linear,or crank em up to swing 20 watts easy. some 25 and 29 early cobras would dead key 2-12 watts and swing  28-30 watts.
the more you crank them up the better the finals need to be. cobras were fine stock. all my Galaxies had to be replaced once you crank them up.
my galaxie will swing 40 watts bare foot on high.they just were not built to push that much power.
use low and drive a linear they are fine. i have my low set at 2/2 mid 2/12 and high level at 2/40.
i can drive a 1K at 2/2 and never heat things up. drive it at 2/12 and it needs to cool here and there.

[IronMike113]

That's a big 10-4 ROGER BEEP........... 

[moose]

ok now who can tweek a harley cb to make it work even with the antenna drawback.

[zukeepr]

Me,me,me....let me grab my tools. Let's see,hammer,screwdriver,butter knife(for the screws holding the lid on),Marlboro, coat hanger for replacement antenna. OK, I think I'm ready.

[moose]

it's in the mail to you along with the check   

[scooterbum46]

Coyote - would you post the link to the FCC filing ( I don't have the module, just ordered today, so don't have the ID to do the search with).  If possible, I'd appreciate it!! Thanks!

[Copyless]

I see the other post were a few weeks ago, but since it is up now, what did you finally get to? Did you stick a SWR meter on it and if you did what did you get it to?

If you truly wanted to throw a small linear in, and was will to change the antenna, you could always throw a NGP antenna back there, and probably paint it black and no one would ever notice. A small kicker, is not going to stress the charging system at all, it's not activated for even minutes at a time usually, I mean you only transmit normally 10-20 seconds?

I have a few connex HP's  that DK 18w's or so and modulate up around 80w's, I also have one of my Galaxy 485's that has upper and lowers and every mod that could ever be done to it, but it is not safe for most people to use it, since it does have several channels that can modulate on most anything that receives. My pride when I did still drive a truck was my competition linear, in the truck under normal conditions it will easily push 600-800w, but it is made for competition, so it can accept around 36v easily and then it can push 1800-2100w., I used to have some fun with it years ago, when BIG radios were in, because it was truly one of the "I talk you listen" radios.

If you got the board to push 8w and got the swr's to 1:1 or even 1.2:1 then I would say that would be all you needed, unless you like to talk on it, then go ahead and get a NGP antenna and the kicker, who knows with that you may get the right sunspot activity period and talk to someone 4 hundred miles away or so, I used to have a little Texas Star 350 that I would talk skip on during high activity periods sometimes maybe 1200 miles, it is really amazing how much solar rays can bounce a signal. I wish I hadn't read this now, I used to really love to get on the CB, haven't done it in several years now, but now you have me wanting to pull out a couple of my toys that are boxed away. Sorry, I was just reminiscing old times, I guess I wrote nothing, just talked to myself.

[moose]

maybe a good side line tweeking cb's on harleys   hell most of the guys I ride with would pay to actually have one work good.  It appears its not brain surgery   let me go find my soldering iron  I'm going in

now what do i do   opps wrong wire

[slypig]

Increasing the transmitter power into an inefficient antenna is not going to help very much and won't help at all in receiving.  With the additional power and the antenna being so close to the bike's ecm (computer)you may also be opening yourself up to the possibility of RF interference causing the ecm to malfunction.  A one hundred watt linear amplifier will draw 15 to 20 amps when transmitting requiring heavy gage wire. As a ham radio operator ( N2CFT) for about 50 years I've seen and experienced many issues with high power mobile radio installations.

Sly

[moose]

thanks for the info still have not decided what to do maybe just tweek the mike a little