Anyone install a CB radio?

[B.Hallowell]

Alright I'm gonna finish ordering all the stuff for this project this week. I'm gonna be poking around the car a bit and pulling it apart to see if I can get to find another, maybe better spot. It probably won't get done for about another month or so being that my work load right now is crazy but come middle/end of May and the warm weather I should find a day or two to get this done. And I PROMISE I'll put up pictures.

If anyone comes up with anymore ideas or suggestions let me know!

[B.Hallowell]

So I've been thinking about my antenna problem and my friend and I thought about getting something like a firestik and putting it in the roof... I have a CF roof and the Firestik is a no ground... I think this could work and be an AWESOME solution and quite stealth. Just take out the reading light panel in the front and shove it in... Anyone take off the headliner or have pics?

[JohnGarziglia]

Antennas have "vertical" radiation and "horizontal" radiation patterns depending upon orientation. I do not think that a horizontally-oriented antenna inside your roof will be effective. The transmissions to be received will be almost all "vertical" radiation but if you try it and it works, please let us know.

[B.Hallowell]

Originally Posted by JohnGarziglia

Antennas have "vertical" radiation and "horizontal" radiation patterns depending upon orientation. I do not think that a horizontally-oriented antenna inside your roof will be effective. The transmissions to be received will be almost all "vertical" radiation but if you try it and it works, please let us know.

My friend is gonna try it on his e46 M3. He has a CF CSL trunk and is going to try routing it through there... I'll let you know how that goes.

[ersin]

Firestik makes regular "grounded" antennae and special "no-ground" antennae. Having said that, a "grounded" antenna (properly installed) will outperform a "no-ground" antenna. But, for occasional use it'll do. The no-ground antennae are made for vehicles that don't have metal. The coupe, even with the CF roof, has metal and you'd likely be better off putting an antenna on the trunk lid.

And if you are thinking of laying the antenna on its side between the roof and liner then I don't believe this will be very effective. It is certainly stealth, but like JohnGarziglia says, everybody uses a vertical antenna with CB and the polarization would be wrong laying the antenna flat. (However, it might pick up the B field and work. Don't worry about what that is, but it would be pretty cool if it worked.) Try to test to see how much worse your solution is vs. a vertical antenna. Maybe you could borrow a mag mount from a friend to do a temporary vertical antenna.

If you decide to do this then report back. I'd be interested to see how it does. My guess is: not too well. But, good luck.


Cheers.

[B.Hallowell]

UPDATE:

So I got everything and enough time to try this. The glovebox was too small to really help do anything for mounting the CB so upon taking apart the trunk I found a switched power cable on the driver side rear seat side bolster.

and a little closer...

So as you can see I vampire tapped that. Now since atleast the e36 BMW has used brown as ground and red with a white stripe as switched. The cable I tapped was a red with a white stripe and heres my ground which is right above where I tapped.

I ran all these through this brace here...

and down into this little pit. Now this pit is in the bottom of the trunk but holds a CB nicely. It's all the way back to the rear seats in the trunk on the driver side.

That other black cable is for a external mounted speaker. Since the CB is in the trunk I won't be able to hear from it so I ran the cables up the same way where I tapped for power/ground and down the side of the car. I put the speaker under the driver seat and secured with velcro. like so.

the only portion of the cable you can see is where it comes from under the seat to the side trim to run the length of the car. To get it under the carpeting would be possible but a huge pain in the ass. The speaker is fine even fully lowered and only has a problem when the seat is tilted completely forward and moved ALL the way forward. A very unlikely combo but the velcro helps that before the speaker would get crushed or something to help detach it and release the stress on it. I tested this like 8 times.

The antenna I went with a firestik firefly and trunk lip mount kit. The trunk lip didn't quite work. If you look at your trunk there is what looks to be a weird strip of what you'd think to be metal running the circumference of the trunk lid in your paint color (AW for me) but it's actually some compound. Pretty stiff on touch but upon screwing the bases on from the mount it got compromised. it also helped the trunk lip mount slip off the lip of the trunk. when that would happen opening or closing the trunk the little screws that secured the mount on would rub against the rear window glass and scratch that. I wasn't a fan of this option. I called it quits there. I got a quick disconnect to be able to take the antenna off real quick for storage so I could still use the trunk and that didn't hit the glass or anything when the trunk went up so that was perfect.

I'm gonna probably try the through glass antenna. I hear they're garbage but I might run two to help with that. I'm figuring I already have everything wired so I might as well get something out of it. Just wanted to share my experiences. Anyone who might have some helpful info let me know!

[ersin]

The flange of the antenna trunk lip mount needs to be longer, right? Try looking at HAM antenna lip mounts with a 3/8 - 24 thread. The brands are Comet and Diamond. I wish I could tell you which one would fit the M3 trunk but I went with a hidden antenna for the HAM radio. And no, they don't make a hidden antenna that works with CB.


Cheers.

[bmwbobiv]

Bit late to the party...but did anyone find a mount that would work for an E46 M3? Would rather have a bracket that fastens inside the trunk channel as compared to one that clamps to the trunk lid.....