CB

2006gold

950+ Posts
Jun 11, 2013
792
528
DFW, TX
Name
Gary
Want to add a CB to the Prowler. Honda wants a ridiculous amount for the for the radio. antenna, and installation. Anyone have suggestions for alternatives.
 
J & M has a nice unit. Are your helmets Bluetooth or cabled?. If blue Tooth go to motorcycledave.com and get a Sena SH 10 which will allow you to use a Midland portable unit with your helmets. If you are cabled go to Sierra Electronics and talk to them about alternatives. [FONT=&quot]www.sierra-mc.com[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
 
J & M has a nice unit. Are your helmets Bluetooth or cabled?. If blue Tooth go to motorcycledave.com and get a Sena SH 10 which will allow you to use a Midland portable unit with your helmets. If you are cabled go to Sierra Electronics and talk to them about alternatives. www.sierra-mc.com

Would love to put a J&M on my wife's Spyder but they don't show any mounts that work with one.
 
YUP, that J & M 2003 head unit is pretty universal (had one on my Stratoliner) but the mount limitation is a factor. I don't think it mounts well to a GL1800. I know there are options out there but I've always preferred the HONDA unit.

HONDA Direct Line use to sell the OEM unit for right at $600 and the antenna for around $125. They aren't all that hard to install Gary. I know you could do it easily... Here is their link.. :xszpv: :xszpv:http://www.hondadirectline.com/index.htm
 
Search for motorcycle salvage yards! Call and ask for OEM CB, antenna, harness and the 3 noise filters.

What ever you decide to do, make sure you get the antenna properly tuned to the CB you install.
 
The cheapest way is buy a CB Handheld ($39 ) use a Ram mount and a Speaker Mike clips to your shirt. When you ride by yourself just remove it.
 
Have installed the J&M 2003 CB on about 30 different

motorcycles and they are great .. Have one on the Stallion

that I got from ED, and it works perfectly ... As far as a

mount you can make your own or give tech support at

Sierra Electronics and they can give you all the support

you need to make your own mount ... Most of their

mounts are capable of being used with a bunch of different

bikes ..

Recommend either the 3' Firestik Firefly or the 2' K40 flex

whip, both have tune tip for setting your SWR without having

to cut wire, etc ....
 
The cheapest way is buy a CB Handheld ($39 ) use a Ram mount and a Speaker Mike clips to your shirt. When you ride by yourself just remove it.

May end up doing that. Already have the hand held CB's and head phone/ mic combo's.
 
The cheapest way is buy a CB Handheld ($39 ) use a Ram mount and a Speaker Mike clips to your shirt. When you ride by yourself just remove it.

Thought of that myself. Already have the radios and earphone/mic combo and may go that route. The Wing Ding starts the end of this month in Grapevine and there should be some options there.
 
Pitfalls of using a handheld CB

I have been faced with the same problem of being too tight to spend $600 for a $30 CB. Having spent some 60 years as a radio technician, I figured I could solve this pretty easily. I bought a handheld for around $30, wired it and the bike for 12V power, modified the audio circuits to handle the audio and I was all set. Wrong..........The receive audio was so garbled you could understand nothing, the transmit audio was unreadable. But I checked everything and it was perfect. Oh, you have to check it with the motor running???? :blush:

I had forgotten all about the monumental need for filters........ I won't go into details here but thru trial and error I built enough filters to get around the engine, alternator and spark plug noise to make it all work. The whole point here is to insure that you have the filters and the knowledge to install them before you accept this as a way around spending the big bucks.:xzqxz:
 
Here's a dumb question. We just bought our 2003 GL1800 Champion trike. How do we know if the cb is on it. The controls are on the left handlebar. Just cannot get any sign of it working.

I can't help passed this question. Does it have one antenna or two? If only one then it most likely doesn't have a CB. If two you probably do but it still doesn't mean the converter bothered to hook it back up but your chances are much better that it is. Now you just need the owners manual. May be able to get a online version if you don't have one or hit eBay to see if you can find one or if very lucky someone her will have one that'd give you that they forgot to send along with a bike/trike they sold.
 
I have been faced with the same problem of being too tight to spend $600 for a $30 CB. Having spent some 60 years as a radio technician, I figured I could solve this pretty easily. I bought a handheld for around $30, wired it and the bike for 12V power, modified the audio circuits to handle the audio and I was all set. Wrong..........The receive audio was so garbled you could understand nothing, the transmit audio was unreadable. But I checked everything and it was perfect. Oh, you have to check it with the motor running???? :blush:

I had forgotten all about the monumental need for filters........ I won't go into details here but thru trial and error I built enough filters to get around the engine, alternator and spark plug noise to make it all work. The whole point here is to insure that you have the filters and the knowledge to install them before you accept this as a way around spending the big bucks.:xzqxz:

That sounds like a lot of work. Other problems are the adjustments others have to make when receiving a signal from an aftermarket CB. This is mainly true in group rides. If they are all Hondaline CB's, a listener can pretty much leave his cb volume setting in one position. However, with aftermarket ones, the listener is often adjusting is volume up/down trying to catch all the various conversations among the other group riders.

It's also my understanding that more things come into play. For example, once a Hondaline CB is plugged in, all other audio goes through it. So one might have a working cb, but then they can have radio, XM, CD, or problems with communication between the helmets on-board.
 
Used CBs at Honda dealers

One option to a CB is check with your Honda dealers as some of them have a practice to pull the CD unit from a trade in and resell it as an extra option when buying a used bike.

I speak from experience as the CB unit I put in my 08 GL 1800 I bought off the back Shelf at a Honda dealer paid 125 bucks for a unit that came out of an 04 GL 1800 and then I didn't go cheap with the antenna I bought the OEM $125 antenna had approximately $250 invested I also did an SWR meter check of the antenna to fine-tune it to the CB ,works great.
 
It's also my understanding that more things come into play. For example, once a Hondaline CB is plugged in, all other audio goes through it. So one might have a working cb, but then they can have radio, XM, CD, or problems with communication between the helmets on-board.

I believe you will find that is not exactly the case!

The OEM CB is "designed" to allow an incoming signal to override the other audio(s). It also overrides other audio signal when transmitting.

I do not think all other audio goes though the OEM CB.

As an example, communications between helmets goes though the intercom system whether or not the Wing has an OEM CB.
 
A guy I ride with bought a Cobra CB. Wires right in to system and has activation button on handlebar. $195.00 total. Sounds better than any of the OEM The only extra was the mount for the handlebars
 
A guy I ride with bought a Cobra CB. Wires right in to system and has activation button on handlebar. $195.00 total. Sounds better than any of the OEM The only extra was the mount for the handlebars

Is it a handheld with a mount or something special from Cobra for the bike?
 
Is it a handheld with a mount or something special from Cobra for the bike?

Yeah, I'm curious too. Might be something I could use in addition to a Bluetooth type. But I need more details on this unit referred to above. Cobra what?
 
The way it works is that it is a hand held that is wired to the bike with a control on the handlebar just like, or similar to the OEM. The range is about 2 miles from what he says. When we are on rides and he keys his mike he sounds better than anyone in the group.
 
Sounds similar to mine.I'm working on some improvements starting with going to the Cobra radio.Heres what I started with.Ptt switch on right bar.Headset not shown but works with it.20160917_190631 (Copy).jpg
 
I changed radios and setup.As several of you know it was giving me fits in Maggie Valley.I cut the helmet speakers out and soldered a headphone jack in.Now I can plug it in the jack in my Scala and no need to squeeze a second set of speakers in the helmet which was a pain and just install the mic which is nothing to do.Changed the connector to the whip on the bike and will try to use that for the antenna.You can see the mic and speaker jack laying on the radio.I don't have a good way to test at the moment but I will report back with how it goes.20171030_190030 (Copy).jpeg
 

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