2011 Peterbilt 386

He's a slippery as a greasy pork chop.

 

I'd start with the 5" inch. the longer the antenna is above the load, the better they perform I think.

 

Throw the Wilson antennas in the trash or sell them, especially if you bought them in the last couple years because they were bought out by Barjan and junk compared to the old ones.
Save your money and buy 1 Predator 10K Bad to the Bone and be done with it.
I'm running a Stryker 955 with 1 of the Predator antennas on a 386 and by far the best antenna I have ever bought.
Make sure to buy the heavy duty stud from them for the antenna as well. Also make sure you run new good quality coax. A 386 is easy to run coax.
For the ant mount I run the heavy duty K40 mount with the stud hole facing forward so the coil is ahead of the cab and above the cab.
Do not lean the antenna forward at all just straight up.
You will have to trim the antenna quite a bit I'd do a 1" at a time till I started getting close with a external swr meter then started cutting a 1/4" at a time till I hit 1:1 on all channels.
Also the nice thing about these antennas are they are completely rebuild able and you can buy different length bottom shafts to help get the coil above the cab of what ever truck you in.

 

Check DC ohms from mirror bracket to frame. Let us know what you find.

 

Whatever it takes to get the loading coil above the cab. Looks like a 10" shaft should do it.
If you pull a large dry box, or a reefer, you may have better results running duals, as opposed to a single antenna.
If you do run a single, you have to run your own 50ohm coax. Dual antenna coax is 75ohm.
If the factory setup is used for am/fm stereo, and cb, run your own coax straight to the cb regardless..
Ive run wilson 2k's for years, pre and post barjan. Never had any problems with build quality or otherwise. Getting the coil over the roofline, or any metal in the signal path, is key to their performance..

 

If you do end up buying a predator make sure you get a dual coil. The single coil will be way to tall. It is the best antenna out there imho.

 

I agree. (more thorough answer than mine was)

 

You don't need the double coil on a 386.
I'm running a single coil Bad To The Bone on a 386 and go into alot of refineries with over head pipe racks and what not and have no issues with the height of a single coil.

 

My Predator Bad To The Bone on my 386 Pete.

 

Maybe the 386's are lower, on my 379 I was over 14' with a single coil. Kyle sent me an extra small coil to add on and it was perfect.