Best place to mount a cb radio on tractor?
- Thread starter Shamus M
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RaydaKub
Veteran Member
People still use CB's?????
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Welcome to TBN!
bigtiller
Super Member
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- central Iowa
- Tractor
- John Deere 2720 John Deere 3039R John Deere Z545R
It's tempting to put it on the ceiling but you will bang your head on it sooner or later. I would buy an "all-in-handset" radio and mount the base behind the seat. And a magnetic mount spring loaded antenna is least likely to get busted off.
patrick_g
Elite Member
I'd look at mounting it vertically on the side of the ROPS on the side opposite the side I most often mount and dismount. Many CB radios have the speaker on the bottom. This mounting arrangement aims the speaker at you.
I have a VHF radio in all my farm vehicles (not CB) and the tractor has the radio mounted vertically to a cab structural member just to my left but out of the way for ingress and egress. Then comes the question of hot all the time or just when the key is on. I prefer the key on approach so you can't forget the radio is on and run the tractor battery down over a few days of non use. I have the mike holder attached to the side of the radio mount. This mike location works for me as I don't talk much on this radio. If I used it a lot I would use aircraft style headphones with a noise cancelling boom mike for hands free operation.
CB is OK and works but would not be my first choice. You can buy a Baofeng hand held VHF/UHF radio programmable for FRS and GMRS (or other radio services) on Amazon.com as well as many other suppliers for under $50 They are FM (static free) and no truckers and bozos jamming the channels. They use rechargeable internal battery but you can get an inexpensive accessory to let you power them from a cigarette lighter (or 12 volt dc source.) They have built in mike but can use accessory external mike on a coil cord (handy if you mount the radio to say the ROPS using its supplied pocket clip. They will work fine with a set of ear phones with boom mike. They will cover all the NOAA weather channels and even play FM broadcast stations. If you program them for FMRS channels then no lisc is required. I use mine on the ham bands as well as marine band, NOAA weather, and FMRS. They are interoperable with the FMRS handhelds sold at Wally World.
Patrick AF5CK
I have a VHF radio in all my farm vehicles (not CB) and the tractor has the radio mounted vertically to a cab structural member just to my left but out of the way for ingress and egress. Then comes the question of hot all the time or just when the key is on. I prefer the key on approach so you can't forget the radio is on and run the tractor battery down over a few days of non use. I have the mike holder attached to the side of the radio mount. This mike location works for me as I don't talk much on this radio. If I used it a lot I would use aircraft style headphones with a noise cancelling boom mike for hands free operation.
CB is OK and works but would not be my first choice. You can buy a Baofeng hand held VHF/UHF radio programmable for FRS and GMRS (or other radio services) on Amazon.com as well as many other suppliers for under $50 They are FM (static free) and no truckers and bozos jamming the channels. They use rechargeable internal battery but you can get an inexpensive accessory to let you power them from a cigarette lighter (or 12 volt dc source.) They have built in mike but can use accessory external mike on a coil cord (handy if you mount the radio to say the ROPS using its supplied pocket clip. They will work fine with a set of ear phones with boom mike. They will cover all the NOAA weather channels and even play FM broadcast stations. If you program them for FMRS channels then no lisc is required. I use mine on the ham bands as well as marine band, NOAA weather, and FMRS. They are interoperable with the FMRS handhelds sold at Wally World.
Patrick AF5CK
I really don't think that bozos clogging up the channels have been a problem for some time. People these days have better ways to communicate and/or piss random people off than to mess around on the CB.
Several others and myself had them in our trucks when we were in school, 8-9 years ago. (Yeah, we were pretty cool
) If we stayed away from ch19 and ch7 (local rock quarry) we never heard anyone else.
bullbreaker
Elite Member
Dont know where you'll mount it ,but can tell you too get model with built in swr meter( Cobra 29 LTD Classic-etc)/or seperate swr meter. You want to be able to make sure your swr's are low. Also the more center it is on a vehicle the more the ground plane is balanced and won't be transmitting "directionally". A 9' tall stainless steel whip or a Wilson 5000 magnet mount would be my personal choices.
Boone
Boone
bigtiller
Super Member
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- Feb 1, 2006
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- 6,551
- Location
- central Iowa
- Tractor
- John Deere 2720 John Deere 3039R John Deere Z545R
318's don't have a ROPS. JD didn't offer them on garden tractors until the 2210 came out some where around 2003.
