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I don't know what the reception range is suppose to be on our Harley's but you can't expect to much out of them because of the height and length of the antenna, the low power of the receiver. The CB's are designed primarily to talk to other bikes while group riding.
All of my Goldwings CB radios would out perform 5 times over what the Harley setup will. I have at times been able to talk and received up to 5 miles with my '06 GL1800 which was my last Goldwing. They have metal antenna's and they are tuned a bit better than the CB's on Harley's.
get the older style whips and take it to the truck stop the local cb guy should be able to tune in the swr. i can usally go about a mile-1 1/4 on a good day.
I've tuned one antenna on an Ultra. I put the meter on it, after buying some adapters and ended up cutting about 6 inches off the whip. Only problem, the guy never let me know if it helped.
Oh, the CB was putting out right at 4 watts on a Bird meter.
As others have mentioned, the CB antenna should be tuned with an SWR meter. A problem with riding into a radio shop/truck stop for tuning is that HD's CB module and CB antenna connection use non-standard fittings, so adapters must be used to connect the CB module and antenna to the SWR meter.
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