How Much Do Cb Shops Charge To Get Your Radio Dialed In?

How much do cb shops charge to get your radio dialed in?

Honestly, I wouldn't be all that worried about it right away. The majority of your radios will give you plenty of range to get traffic alerts and such. The biggest factor right off the bat is having good antennas and get them dialed in properly (owners manual should explain it) my Uniden did it with a push of a button and many newer radios do as well.

If you're that concerned with doing it, research a good reputable shop that actually does an upgrade and doesn't just snatch a filter or resistor off the board and tell you they peaked the radio. It will sound louder and does increase the power some but it spreads it across more channels so in reality it actually loses power. It will probably run $75-$100 to have it tuned up properly.

To Peak and Tune a radio can be $15 to $25. To set the SWR's (match) the antennas wil be around $10 to $15.

If you have a Cascadia then a special mount is needed for the mirror and that's around $35.

I'm thinking maybe why I want hearing much chatter is I was driving over night. Turned it on this afternoon and hear plenty loud and clear.

Oh yeah, it depends on where you're at, time of day, what city etc. Play around with the squelch and the gain to tune in to the conversations close to you. I got lucky the other night and had a buddy to talk to for about 100 miles and we were a couple miles away from each other. We are both veterans from around the same time period so it made for good conversation and the miles went by a lot quicker.

Now I'm in the middle of a desert

How much do cb shops charge to get your radio dialed in?

Radio has been a hobby of mine since I was a kid hauling a barbie doll in my tonka truck for the girl next door....

There are 3 parts to a CB radio set up. The radio. The antenna and feedline, and the truck which is half of the antenna system. Every truck is different and every antenna is different. A good CB shop technician knows this and will match you up with the proper antenna for your truck. Yeah, you can through anything on there and it will work or you could get lucky. But if you want maximum performance and efficiency, more is needed. I noticed the 2014 and the 2015 Freightliner cascadias use an internal hidden antenna which some appear to double as the trucks AM radio antenna. These antennas are junk. Can talk maybe a quarter mile, but work on receive ok. So if you are Northbound at 65 mph and a Southbound driver sees you as he approaches or is passing you and asks you how the weather is behind you, you may have 15 seconds to talk to him.

The previous quotes on prices are close and good but each shop is different. If a technician needed to pull coax through the truck this would be some labor and more to pay. If there is no power at the power leads then the technician needs to trouble shoot and see if its a blown fuse or cut lines and fix that problem. The final matching of the antenna SWR(standing wave ratio) involves trimming the antenna to get the optimum performance and this assumes the antenna likes the truck and is close to begin with. A good technician will use a quality analyzer such as the MFJ 259B which will read several properties of the antenna system such as impedance, inductance, and SWR. This way you will be talkin LOUD AND PROUD as you motor down the road. There are other things you can do such as using a matching device to protect the radio or an antenna tuner as they are called. This is more money.

Ya All keep it between the ditches out there and drive safe. This here is iron mike and we're gone...bye bye.

Honestly, I wouldn't be all that worried about it right away. The majority of your radios will give you plenty of range to get traffic alerts and such. The biggest factor right off the bat is having good antennas and get them dialed in properly (owners manual should explain it) my Uniden did it with a push of a button and many newer radios do as well.

If you're that concerned with doing it, research a good reputable shop that actually does an upgrade and doesn't just snatch a filter or resistor off the board and tell you they peaked the radio. It will sound louder and does increase the power some but it spreads it across more channels so in reality it actually loses power. It will probably run $75-$100 to have it tuned up properly.

Dint listen to this fellow, he obviously has no clue about CB radios. Out of the box, a CB generally produces 4 watts of output (1 or 2 mIles of range). Peaked and tuned, you'll put out upwards of 35 watts (7-10 miles of range). 50 to 100 bucks for the package. P.S. don't run your antenna like a Lance as some of the morons do. You want to have it pointed forward just enough so's to have the whip stand straight up as you drive into the wind.

Honestly, I wouldn't be all that worried about it right away. The majority of your radios will give you plenty of range to get traffic alerts and such. The biggest factor right off the bat is having good antennas and get them dialed in properly (owners manual should explain it) my Uniden did it with a push of a button and many newer radios do as well.

If you're that concerned with doing it, research a good reputable shop that actually does an upgrade and doesn't just snatch a filter or resistor off the board and tell you they peaked the radio. It will sound louder and does increase the power some but it spreads it across more channels so in reality it actually loses power. It will probably run $75-$100 to have it tuned up properly.

Dint listen to this fellow, he obviously has no clue about CB radios. Out of the box, a CB generally produces 4 watts of output (1 or 2 mIles of range). Peaked and tuned, you'll put out upwards of 35 watts (7-10 miles of range). 50 to 100 bucks for the package. P.S. don't run your antenna like a Lance as some of the morons do. You want to have it pointed forward just enough so's to have the whip stand straight up as you drive into the wind.

Who are you saying to not listen to? I assume dint was suposed to be dont?

Hahaha, it wasn't you he quoted Iron Mike. :-)