CB Radio

Even though it can have a lot of annoying chatter, a CB radio can be useful for getting road condition reports on the interstate. It can be used to summon help in places out west where a cell phone still won't work, and a CB never has any airtime charge. CB is also very useful on Forest Service roads. The big logging trucks announce their position, and I can announce mine, so we can avoid meeting and having to back up several miles on a twisty rutted one-lane dirt road to pass. If it's me vs. an 18 wheeler, I'll have to be the one backing up!

The EuroVan doesn't have a lot of extra space available for installation, so I used a Cobra 75 WX ST radio, a tiny radio which has all the controls on the microphone. I installed two microphone hangars. The one shown above is on the side of the driver's seat next to the seatbelt, where it rides when I'm using it while driving. This location is very easy to reach, and I can adjust the volume and squelch by feel without taking my eyes off the road. The disadvantage to this location is that it's really easy to accidentally kick when climbing from the front of the van to the back or vice-versa.

This photo shows the CB in its second hangar, at the foot of the console, where it rides when I'm not using it actively. You can see where the cable runs to the connector box. There's a tiny little box mounted out of sight behind the console, just big enough for the power wires, antenna wire, and external speaker jack. I can disconnect the radio at the silver colored plug, and remove it or stow it out of sight, if desired. It was easy to tap into the stereo's power wires from this location, so my CB is switched with the ignition key exactly like the regular radio.

Here's the antenna mount. It's directly above the driver's head, attached to the luggage rack bar using a mirror mount bracket. Note that the EuroVan Camper's luggage rack bars are narrower in diameter than the typical mirror mount bracket is designed to accept, you may have to search to find the right bracket. Mine has one straight piece across the top, and a bent piece on the bottom, where most have two bent pieces.

A CB antenna needs a good ground plane to function properly. However, the luggage rack bars are insulated by their powder coating, both where the antenna bracket attaches to the bar, and where the bar bolts to the van roof. To provide a good connection to ground, I ran four heavy copper wires from the bolts on the antenna bracket to the four bolts that attach the luggage rack bar. I'm not sure if I needed all four wires, but this may provide some redundancy as things corrode with age. When checking the installation out using an SWR meter, the SWR was unmeasurably low (that's very good!) using a four-foot fiberglass antenna. It was considerably worse using a three-foot base-loaded whip, but after cutting the whip down to tune it, I could get it below 2.5 across the whole band. Even though its signal is worse, I usually use the shorter whip, because it has better clearance and less wind noise.

It's easy to unscrew the antenna from its bracket, for access to low-clearance parking garages. The bracket that remains is almost invisible when walking around the van.

I had previously installed a GPS antenna below the fiberglass roof/luggage carrier, and when installing the CB antenna, I ran its cable along essentially the same route. I ran the cable down through the false fiberglass roof, and then I ran it into the van by unscrewing the attachment for the canvas roof, and threading the cable below the the canvas near the rubber plug that covers what used to be a rain gutter. There was some silicone sealant in this area, and I put more in after I ran my cable through. I pulled out the plastic trim pieces, and ran the cable down to the floor behind the plastic just aft of the driver's door (B pillar). Then I removed the driver's seat and ran the cable under the carpeting to the connector box behind the console. The carpeting is glued to the floor, and it wasn't easy getting the cable the last few feet to the console. If I had it to do over, I'd probably run the cable forward along the driver's side footwell, up to the fusebox, and from there across to the console. The Winnebago stereo speaker wires follow this latter route.

After using this installation for a week or two, I realized that there's still one problem. On a noisy road, the tiny speaker in the microphone unit of that radio is hard to hear unless it's fairly close to you and pointed directly at you. I would find myself driving with the radio on my lap, speaker pointed up. I fixed this problem by buying a little extension speaker ($8.00 at a truck stop), and mounting it directly behind the driver's left ear, on the ceiling forward of where the stove's splash screen attaches. This location is completely out of the way, yet acoustically ideal. From here, I ran the wire behind the trim panels up to the connector box behind the console, where it plugs in using a regular earphone style plug. The external speaker shown below makes the radio MUCH easier to hear and understand.