SWR Goes up in the rain?

[Highland Ranger]

Just did an antenna installation today an got it dialed in pretty good.

about 1.5 on channel 1 and 2.5 on channel 40.

Rained pretty heavy and I went inside.

Came back out and now both numbers are a full point higher each . . . . . is that normal?

 

[W5LZ]

'Ranger,
Yep, pretty normal. It can go in either direction, better or worse, so it sounds fairly 'normal'...
- 'Doc

 

[RoadWarrior]

What kind of antenna was you matching? Base or mobile?
Your SWRs seem high. You should achieve the
same SWR reading on ch 40 as you do on ch 1.
If you are tuning the antenna for ch 20 .
For instance on my base antenna. Mine's tuned best
for ch.35 instead of channel 20. Because i talk more on
the freeband.
Anyhow, my SWR on ch 35 (27.305) is 1:0:1
Dropping 20 channels it's: ch 16 (27.155) at 1:1:1
Going up 20 channels it's: (27.555) at 1:1:1
My mobile antenna is also set for ch 35.
It's 1:1:1 on ch 35 and 1:3:1 on ch 16 and 1:3:1 on freq
27.555
Some antennas just don't seem to achieve a real low
SWR no matter what you do. 1:5:1 SWR is good.
Swrs readings over that you start losing performance.
Normal for SWRS to go up in rain.

 

[Highland Ranger]

It the Firestik cellular lookalike mag mount mobile.

The set screw that adjusts mast height is near useless - almost no change in SWR at either extreme.

Moving the antenna around the roof makes a far bigger difference.

At one point I had it up near the luggage rack which sent the SWR through the roof.

Goal is to have usable unit that won't blow when I key up - I was disappointed that dialing in the SWR wasn't easier.

 

[freecell]

i wouldn't be surprised if one of your other goals wasn't to keep the antenna as small and unobtrusive as possible........

that's your problem. not only is it extremely small when compared to a full size 1/4 wave antenna, it's a magnet mount too. 2 strikes, no balls. wait til you see what happens when it's covered with snow.

 

[DXman]

I set one of those type antenna's up on a pick-up for a guy last year......terrible reading's!
The antenna would only tune to 38 ohms. I suggested to the guy to put his Wilson 5000 w/mag mt. back on, but no dice!
He said as long as he could talk 2 miles then that was good enough, so down the road he went.
--------------
DXman

 

[Highland Ranger]

I actually tried to mount a 4' no ground antenna )Avalanche bed cover is plastic) to the back of the truck with no luck. (I'm not drilling holes in a brand new truck.)

So I had to get something small for the roof - don't want to be killing birds and catching power lines with the thing.

 

[blackjack]

i would suggest a wilson 1000 magmount if that is all you want to do is just talk a little around town. thats all you need and you can run some power through it also and they sound good to. just my 2 cents

 

[Cheech]

If you want a small antenn then the wilson litle will is a good choice and will talk around town no problem!

 

[jessejamesdallas]

I actually tried to mount a 4' no ground antenna )Avalanche bed cover is plastic) to the back of the truck with no luck. (I'm not drilling holes in a brand new truck.)

So I had to get something small for the roof - don't want to be killing birds and catching power lines with the thing.

Highland Ranger. Know what ya mean about not wanting to drill hole's in the roof. But realy you dont want to use a Mag. Mount there either! Bad thing about Magnets, is they will scratch the hell out the roof!

May want to think about maybe mounting to the inside of the bed, neer the top rail. OR, they make a mount that fits inside the tie-down holes, at the top of each corner of the bed. And antenna will mount there. Then you can get a real-CB Antenna, like the Predator 10K!

They also make a mount, that would fit on the front fender of the truck. It mounts on the inside of the front fender, and sticks thru the crack between the hood, and fender. With this, you would just have to drill 2 maybe 4 small holes, under the hood, on the left fender, for the mounting screw's. NO ONE WILL EVER SEE THE HOLES! Then the antenna would not be that noticable, and a good antenna for this type of install would be the Wilson 1000...