{"id":275,"date":"2015-08-15T10:22:21","date_gmt":"2015-08-15T02:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projectkeira.com\/home\/?p=275"},"modified":"2021-09-26T05:09:43","modified_gmt":"2021-09-25T21:09:43","slug":"firestik-ngp-cb-antenna-custom-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/firestik-ngp-cb-antenna-custom-base\/","title":{"rendered":"All Your (CB) Base."},"content":{"rendered":"

If you noticed in the Azusa OHV<\/a><\/strong> photos, I had no antenna \u2013 even if I installed one a week prior; it turned out that the antenna base I made was not strong enough to keep the Firestik NGP CB Antenna<\/a><\/strong> straight. After a few rough trails I removed the Firestik temporarily because it was swaying around too much. After giving it some thought, I came up with an idea on how to reinforce my custom CB antenna mount, and the solution was in the form of JB Weld SteelStik. First I removed my antenna mount and lined the body area underneath with aluminum tape. I then mixed up some SteelStik and started forming a base underneath and around the metal mount.<\/p>\n

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This JB SteelStik can be used for a lot of things.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After allowing the JB putty to cure for about an hour, I removed it from the truck and then used my Dremel and a grinding drum to clean up the edges and smoothen out the shape.<\/p>\n

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Dremel time again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After using the Dremel, I did a quick test fit to ensure that the reinforced mount would still be low enough to clear the cowl piece.<\/p>\n

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Test fitment \u2013 flush on the bottom, still low enough to fit under the cowl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With fitment confirmed I gave it a spray of black paint. I could have just left it as is since the entire thing would be hidden under the cowl anyways, but I figured I\u2019ll do the job complete, Plus the layer of paint will add protection for the metal parts.<\/p>\n

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Final touch \u2013 a coat of black spray paint.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this point I was also thinking about the high SWR readings I had with this particular setup. I was using a standard Firestik II antenna, but I decided to experiment and try their NGP (No Ground Plane) antenna instead. The NGP didn\u2019t use the same CB cable as a regular antenna, so I had to remove the old cable and re-run the new NGP-specific one. Also, instead of the standard PL-259 end, the NGP cable had a ring lug, so the antenna wire was now routed above the mount instead of below\u2026 and yes – I did drill a clearance hole for the old cable, but it turns out that the hole was still needed to clear the bottom of the antenna stud mount.<\/p>\n

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Bolted in, the reinforcements made the antenna mount super sturdy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the new reinforced base, there was no more antenna sway. At the same time, switching to the NGP antenna was a good decision since I was now getting 1.1-1.6 max on the SWR across the CB channels. I also ended up selling my original Firestik II antenna to my brother, so everything worked out just fine.<\/p>\n

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The finished installation, project completed on a rainy day in SoCal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you noticed in the Azusa OHV photos, I had no antenna \u2013 even if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,355,4],"tags":[155,163,63,162,67,165,68],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audiovideoentertainment","category-eol-end-of-line","category-exterior-parts-and-mods","tag-cb","tag-cb-antenna","tag-custom-mod","tag-firestik","tag-jb-weld","tag-ngp","tag-steelstik"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1628,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions\/1628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.projectkeira.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}