I leave mine on all the time, i dont get any service tho. lol. ive tried. Ive been flyign for like 15 years Haha.

 

continuously?

 

Took a couple snapshots for ya this mornin.. here they are....

 

Well not every day, but at least 5-10 times a year, round trips.

 

cool what antenna and mount is that?

 

Looks like a 4/5ft firestick antenna, as for the mount, looks like a basic fender/hood mount.

 

true... but a magnet mount does not ground 'at' the antenna, which is why I said " no electrical connection between the antenna ground and the vehicle, other than through the ground for the CB radio itself..."
If you have a problem with it, I suggest you...

"antenna ground plane" and make sure you understand all of the theory and practice.

Though the antenna 'ground' is common to the coax shield, through the radio and to the chassis ground (which hopefully the body of the vehicle is connected to) there are losses (inductive and resistive) incurred by not grounding directly at the antenna, thus reducing the efficiency of a magnet mounted antenna when compared to a mechanical mount.

Even brackets spaced off the body such as:



are not the "best" way- you get signal loss from the exposed 'bolt' through the insulator to the antenna because it's not encompassed by a shielding conductor, and the ground plane is not the same as the antenna mounting surface.... But they do work to most people's satisfaction.

I work in an industry where VSWR must be as low as possible and a magnet mounted antenna would almost always undoubtedly fail.

 

 

Is that a 6ft, 91 toyota?

 

looks 5' to me.

 

This is my antenna http://www.walcottcb.com/firestik-fl...nna-p-897.html

And this is my mount http://www.walcottcb.com/firestik-mk...ath=28_353_430

I got them both from this website and had great customer service and delivery from them. (I am NOT affiliated with them in any way)

I talk to my buddy up to at least 5 miles in bad terrain - no joke. This mount works well enough for me.

 

Is it legal to say "up to" and "at least" in the same sentence when referring to the same thing? That's mean you can only talk to your buddy when your buddy is at least and up to 5 miles away (meaning exactly 5 miles away).
I get what you mean though- talk to them at 5 miles, maybe more.

All I said was that it's not the best way, but offers acceptable performance for most people.

 

Haha.. I have better grammar than that... I actually was going to type something else and didn't backspace far enough

And I would definitely agree.. there are BETTER ways.. but this one ain't too bad.

 

how long of coax cable should i get to go from that hood mount?

 

length of cable is not of particular importance with a single antenna.

 

what would you reccomend?

 

The kit I posted that I bought from Walcott CB online comes with more than enough coax cable. I zip tied mine up real nice and pinned the extra up under the dash.

I was gonna trim it but I was told that you shouldn't do that with pre-cut coax... dunno if it's true or not. I don't know why it would matter since I had to solder the termination on to the end anways.

http://www.walcottcb.com/firestik-mk...ath=28_353_430

 

I'd recommend an antenna as close to the center of the vehicle as possible, in elevation and both lateral directions possible. If you can't or don't want that, then be prepared for 'directional' response.

 

for length of coax, get 18' ft, may sound like a lot but that is the best length for most antennas. and the excess coax DONT roll into a nice little coil, it becomes a signal choke and you will loose a lot of output power. although it is convenient it is downgrading your system.

here is a little more info on coax, towards the bottom of the page is a tidbit about lenght. hope this helps:
http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/coaxtalk.htm

-WYO

 

Sweet... good info Wyorunner! The kit I posted does come with 18' of coax but I'm glad you mentioned not bundling up the excess amount. I have it done that way right now but will run it around some more so it's not bundled.