RV antenna no ground,trouble. new poster

[colt45]

Hi all This is my first post here and have learned alot just reading, there seems to be some smart folks on here. I have been CB'ing forever and just now am upgrading my 40 ft rv from a cobra 75wx [put that in my jeep with a K30 magnet] and bought a cobra 29 chrome. I wish I thought on this more cause I should go sideband now so already looking for the right sideband that may can do ham later or at least be a smokin radio.
The trouble is I have 5 different antennas I'm trying to get to work so a 300 watt amp will work but the swr just will not come off 2.5 or 3 to 1, I tried wire radials extra ground wires to steel roof framing and all, nothing works so I gave up and installed a firestick 13.5 inch noground ant. and it works but only for a few miles and it want handle any amp. I,m thinking making a dipole from my many antennas, I tried a dual setup and that did not work. A dipole sideways would look good on the roof at the rear but would this work mobile against others polarity? any suggestions so I can power up and maybe use ham later? I'm getting real interested in more radio time lately and now am starting the collection process already with this brand new cobra 29 chr going to be retired after 2 weeks use Ha. Thanks all. from houston Texas

 

[colt45]

No one has came back with any ideas so I'll post that I had to use a firestick ds14 13.5 inch tall noground plane antenna,on the roof it looks great and good swr but I don't expect much distance even though it's 12 foot high. and it's only rated at 30 watts, so I need to figure something so I can do a base setup in my motorhome,maybe an imax 2000 type that I can use temporary?
Has anyone used this antenna and if so did it work well? link to eagle mobile base ant.
Home
Can someone tell me that these pole base antennas do not need any extra grounding but for lightnening? If not then a 12 foot pole base ant. may work on my rear ladder while mobile, just raise it higher for distance,and does these antennas with a tuner work different band just by tuning?

 

[gamegetter]

greetings sir, i am not one of those smart people that you mentioned, but they are here and I have been learning.

RV's are supposed to be difficult because of the ground problem you mentioned. The no ground plane antenna you mentioned is working because the length of the cable is cut precisely to give it the correct counterpoise or ground plane, but is limited as you mentioned. There are taller no ground antennas, but I would exhaust all other possibilities before I went there especially if I wanted to run an amplifier. As to the eagle antenna link you posted that is a ham radio antenna designed to operate on many different bands and requiring a tuner. I would think you could find a single band antenna for cb-11meters that would work....

What are the 5 other antennas that you have? Maybe someone here can you help you with those or offer another solution. At least by my posting i am bumping it up and hopefully someone will catch it and respond with more technical knowledge. good luck

 

[mackmobile43]

Connect a regular antenna with a mirror mount bracket to your ladder on the rear.

 

[Moleculo]

Sorry, didn't see this thread earlier for whatever reason.

I'm guessing your 40 foot RV is a class A and you can't use a regular mirror mount with it. How did you install your antenna on the roof? Was there some type of mount already there for a CB?

Installing it on the ladder with a mirror mount (like Mack suggested) is a pretty good idea; that's how I did mine. Keep in mind that most of these ladders have some type of coating on them, so you will need to either scrape that off where the mount is located, or run a ground strap to the frame. You will likely need to ground the bottom of the ladder to the frame also.

If you are mounting on the roof, you should be able to make a counterpoise by laying some wire in the roof and then use silicone to glue it down. You could use a horizontal dipole as you mentioned, but the polarity is going to be problematic. Everyone else will have vertical polarity, while yours will be horizontal. This will end up affecting your local communication's signal strength a bit.

Those no-ground antennas do get you on the air, but as you found out, they're not very effective.

 

[hotrod]

well i n ever installed any antennas on an rv but i do know
that alot are fiberglass and that makes it difficult .without
being there to see what ya got to work with id say try all
your antennas first .try to find some metal or steel on rv
ladder rack or maybe on the roof.some rvs had a box on there
roof [ac maybe] and was metal a mag mount might work in that
situation.also if your mirrior arms are metal/steel you could
try a mirrior mount antenna id try a wilson silverload [non flexable one]
at least 4 feet in thenth.these ideas might or might not work but
this is all i can think of.

 

[towerdog]

You might can make your RV more metallic by painting it with conductive paint, its kinda expensive but it might be worth it to you. Its how I was going to do my 4x4 as it has just a fiberglass top for a roof, but then I settled on a 8' whip mounted on the back on the top of the bed on the side of truck.

You might could try to paint the top of it with cold galvanizing paint as well, the stuff sherwin williams sells, Zinc Clad is about 90% or more zinc, zinc makes a fair conductor, about like steel, and the "Zinc Clad"tm is good to paint over to match the rest of the RV.

 

[colt45]

Thanks for these ideas, I bought a 102 whip wanting the best performance if I can make it work. Lot of danged issues with these rv's If I could mount a 102 whip on the side with a side mount about 5 foot below the roof line that would get the tip of antenna about 4 foot above coach and that would work for bridges and stuff but would the antenna laying along side of body with metal framing might mess with the swr or reflection of signal. these 102's work on the back of pickups along side of cab don't they? with a nonmetalic standoff above mount base about 3 foot would keep it from swinging into side of coach unless standoff are no good for antennas! The ladder mount is ok but on my american coach to run coax all the way back is a bitch and caint be done from underneath because of the lockers below. I was going to try and mount this whip on the side mirror but it would scratch it even just doing it for a test and this mrror cost $850 bucks so I don't want it scratched .. WHAT TO DO? The firestick 13 inch on the roof looks great but! I may have to just use the whip when I'm parked and then screw it on but that leaves me nearly naked whil rolling so to speak! signal wise!

 

[colt45]

I'm going to keep my post alive and update for anyone with the same issues, I put the 102 whip from radio shack on the drivers side mirror these are bus type mirrors and I used a stainless steel u bolt to mount my cb antenna mount and without any spring my SWR was 1.2 to 1.4 Danged good I thought I got in my jeep and ran up the street to check distance and modulation and this whip works great but I now need a power mike for sure. I'm going to run with the antenna bent back to a drip rail clip so it want be to high . Now I can add my 300 palidin amp to it and buy my 10/11 meter import rci sideband. I plan to use a antenna switch also to change back to the NGP firestick on the roof with a quick disconnect on the whip. I tried a 4 foot base load antenna on this location and the SWR was way to high I think it was to close to the windshield post and to low below the roof line. Anybody got any opinions or ideas for this setup? I'll post photos when Im finished.
Wayne C