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Trailer Hitch Mount.???
- Thread starter smokinbuick
- Start date
There are a few locals here that do for HF work but to me its a trade off. Personally if I was you I would go something like this:
Buy a hitch bar for it, mount a good quality ball mount with a separate ground strap to the frame, them use a good old fashion 102" whip with an solid peice to make it tune to the freq you wanted.
Buy a hitch bar for it, mount a good quality ball mount with a separate ground strap to the frame, them use a good old fashion 102" whip with an solid peice to make it tune to the freq you wanted.
In my opinion there are better options, I bet a good magnet mount on the center of the roof will work as good as a 8' whip on a hitch mount. But if you need to cover multiple frequency bands it may be a different story
Hello
I don't want to use a magnetic mount as my cars finish is flawless and magnetic mounts scratch horribly (been there with my other car)
Other mounting options would be best
Bad enough I put a trunk lip mount lol
I don't want to use a magnetic mount as my cars finish is flawless and magnetic mounts scratch horribly (been there with my other car)
Other mounting options would be best
Bad enough I put a trunk lip mount lol
you can use a trailer hitch mount but most hitches fit loose in the receiver so you may have a ground issue unless you put a ground strap on it as was mentioned earlier. I ran a 102 inch whip on a 72 malibu in that year when I bought the car and did not want to scratch the paint. it worked good for me. now days with the mid coil antennas they have should work good as long as you get one with a long shaft to get the coil above the trunk so you do not have SWR problems.
I have always been told that in a mobile antenna installation the metal under the antenna matters more than the metal next to it
I think he means that you need to have something under the antenna and a hitch mount doesn't give your antenna much to push off of.
you put a antenna next to metal your SWR will go up from reflect. I do not understand what you are trying to tell the guy.
I was saying that the antenna needs a groundplane to work properly, the metal under the antenna in the roof or the trunk lid is what creates the groundplane. Having a ground strap to some metal "next" to the antenna like the car on a hitch mount or mirror mount on a truck is not the same. An antenna in the center of the vehicle with something to "push" off from like said before will always work best. When you have your antenna mounted low on the vehicle the steel of the vehicle just serves to block your antenna from radiating and it compounds the problem.
If your not willing to drill a hole or use a magnet mount, then stay with your trunk lip antenna.
Or go with binrats advice.
Or go with binrats advice.
got you now, it will work doing it this way but he will hear more from the front of the vehicle than from the rear. as you said he does not have a good ground plane. when you posted at 1st I thought you meant to put the metal on the side of the antenna. thanks for your reply.
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