Red antenna light when keyed?

you have to adjust the whip on the antenna. you should see atleast one maybe 2 set screws on the top of the shaft that holds the whip in place. loosen and adjust the whip accordingly. may have to cut it down to get it set right. probably better off going to a shop and letting them do it.

 

You may have already checked this but be sure the plastic washer on the antenna mounting stud is on the top side of the bracket rather than the bottom. If the part of the mount that the antenna goes in is grounded anyplace you could have the problems with high swr.
Have you checked it with a swr meter to see if there is any difference between the 2 antennas?

 

Check your SWR with an external meter if possible, if the radio has ben "peaked & tuned", the antenna warning light can be falsely tripped.

 

You have to understand that the factory SWR stuff on these radios are not set to be accurate,just to get you close. If some so called cb tech went in and turned the wrong adjustment point then that could be (and i would say is) why the light is coming on no matter what you do. Have a cb shop check your swr and forget about what you see on your radio.

 

Usually this is a ground issue. For example, I just ran a 16 gauge wire from the bumper of my car to the body of my car to fix this problem. The outer shield of the coax has to be grounded to the body/frame of the vehicle (my car is unibody...), and so does the negative on the radio (Thats not a problem on most vehicles though)...

fixed this problem perfectly.

 

You got to watch yourself because a lot of them will be trying to cheat you.

 

True to that....make sure it's a good CB shop that knows what they're doing and isn't trying to hump you over thinking "he's another clueless truck driver on CB radios like the last 95% of them"....

Red warning light usually means high SWR........high SWR can come from bad coax, bad antenna, improperly grounded antenna, or if you key up while sitting next to a building or metal and the waves bounce back off into the antenna....and sometimes, the radio itself....also I concur when you do an SWR check, always use a good external meter, never used the factory built in one (if so equipped) and I don't recommend using one of those cheap $20 meters from Bubba's truck stop either.