Noob mistake

[WL74]

Ok you guys are going to laugh your @ss's off.... I just got my SWR meter today and tried tuning my mobile radio antenna upstairs (no ground) and thought that was why I had extremely high SWR (3.5). Well it turns out that was a false reading because ... I HOOKED IT IN WRONG! I put the Ant on the TX and the TX on the Ant Well I tested it again THE RIGHT WAY and I got about a 1.6 when it leveled. So all in all not too bad for it not being grounded.

[Circuit Breaker]

Do you mean the antenna is not grounded or has no ground plane? Grounding the antenna won't affect the antenna anyway. It only provides a DC connection for static bleed off and some lightning protection. A ground plane is simply one half of the antenna system with the radiator being the other half. You say you're doing this on a mobile antenna upstairs...please describe this installation.

[WL74]

Do you mean the antenna is not grounded or has no ground plane? Grounding the antenna won't affect the antenna anyway. It only provides a DC connection for static bleed off and some lightning protection. A ground plane is simply one half of the antenna system with the radiator being the other half. You say you're doing this on a mobile antenna upstairs...please describe this installation.

Well I wanted to test the SWR of this crappy antenna upstairs with it laying on a table and I hooked it into my Cobra 38 HH. I found out that it gave a good SWR only because the batteries were low ... I charged the batteries and it was reading 2.5 on both 26.965 and 27.405 so I threw that $15 POS out I just ordered a 27" direct replacement whip antenna for the hand held. I am not going to worry about getting anything else for this radio except for the ear bud due to the nature of its operations (security). I will wait until I get a truck and a Galaxy 979 to really get into it - and I will let the professionals install that lol

['Doc]

Any antenna has to be set up properly to get any kind of useful information about it by testing. That includes getting a meaningful SWR reading. As it was tested, there is no way that SWR reading will ever be good, the 'other half' of it was missing. I hate to say it, but that new antenna will probably behave the same way if tested the same way.
- 'Doc

[WL74]

Any antenna has to be set up properly to get any kind of useful information about it by testing. That includes getting a meaningful SWR reading. As it was tested, there is no way that SWR reading will ever be good, the 'other half' of it was missing. I hate to say it, but that new antenna will probably behave the same way if tested the same way.
- 'Doc

So in order for the reading to be good I would have had to put it on the roof of my car from the get go correct?

[Circuit Breaker]

So in order for the reading to be good I would have had to put it on the roof of my car from the get go correct?

That is correct. The whip of any mobile CB antenna is only HALF of the system. The other half is the vehicle itself - which provides what is called a "ground plane." Without it, the system isn't going to work properly.

[WL74]

So in order for the reading to be good I would have had to put it on the roof of my car from the get go correct?

That is correct. The whip of any mobile CB antenna is only HALF of the system. The other half is the vehicle itself - which provides what is called a "ground plane." Without it, the system isn't going to work properly.

Thanks a bunch!