2007 JK JEEP ANTENNA MOUNT

[SR385]

Yeah I'm not sure from seeing some mentions if people were running QRO or just 100W rigs.

Also frankly, some people's idea of a clean install is frightening...I've run huge power on 11m before without any issues that others say they have at 200W...never quite sure where the noise level is in some reports...eham.net/reviews/ has an extremely high noise level as an example. Sitting and listening to so many people just on the repeaters with broken mic cables or loose antennas....you get to wonder.

I was going to run flat braid for the feed, I have some here but the straps I had are longer than I wanted. From reading, the feed point is radiating so you want it as short and large gauge as possible to get the energy into the antenna. I was concerned with the way my mounting had to fit that the braid would get more of the parasitic losses being near the ground...or body of the vehicle.

In any case the tinkering for me is half the hobby so it's all good. Will be nice to just have it work decently, but if it doesn't, it's an excuse to run one of those psycho Shakespeare 12' military whips.

 

[SR385]

I figured I'd toss this in here for more info.

Indeed the setup with the SGC-237 tuner feeding a 102" whip is pretty deaf on 40m.

I added a 3' mast to the 102" whip and 40m has come alive. An 11' whip is really freaking tall for driving around in this area so I have to keep the tip tied down now.

Now the tuner is much happier from 40m up to 6m.

Couple tips I figured out with the 857 so far too.

Set IPO to 'on', it disables the pre-amp and in my case eliminated almost all my noise level. I figure at 100W if I need a pre-amp to hear a station I probably won't be able to work them comfortably anyway...so far this works out nicely.

Keep checking NB levels and DNR levels as band conditions change. If you have them engaged and there isn't any noise to reduce, they will make a mess of the signal quality for what you really want to hear. Don't forget you enabled them and test the settings frequently for the best receive audio.

If you set IPO to on, NB and DNR will most certainly need a tweak. You'll likely need much less of either one engaged.

DNF can be changed around depending on band conditions too.

The Heil Traveler headset works very nicely with this radio, but the output is quite hot so pay attention to the mod meter and adjust accordingly. I have to run on FM mic gain of 10 for repeater work with this headset.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

I just changed out the antenna on my vehicle as well. I made a mobile antenna that is self resonant on 15m and use the Yaesu FC-40 for 40m-6m.I had a fiberglass element from an old Wilson Shooting Star that held the quad wire and wound it with a length of tinned braid from RG8 coax cable.The turns are about 1/2 inch apart for the entire 4 foot length.I fitted a male 3/8-24 stud on the bottom and a female 3/8-24 on the top.I used a whip adapter to mount a 54 inch whip on top of an extra 8 inch length od fiberglass rod also wound with braid. This 8 inch length is interchangable so I can experiment with other loading coils wound on it.Overall length is 111 inches and that is mounted on the rear hatch door of my Ford Escape.Total overall height is 13'8" from the ground to the tip.It seems to work fairly well and has the added advantage of presenting a high impedance on 20m in the order of several hundred ohms which will help raise the efficiency on that band by lowering it's requirement for very low ground losses as compared to a very low impedance antenna.The disadvantage of this is that even the base of the antenna has a high RF voltage present.