Loud steady clicking on TX

[sunbulls]

A couple trends I saw here some 20 years back...always brought me chuckles:

1. Removing the headliner and making a copper wire “spiderweb” inside the roof a car.

2. Running ground wires off all the equipment in the car and into a five gallon bucket of rock salt with a section of copper pipe in it.

There’s nothing wrong with making a copper wire spider web inside the roof of any vehicle that has a “fiberglass top” such as a Jeep. Although many professionals use copper tape or metal sheets, this has been the tried and proven method used by many communications installers, especially for those VHF /UHF commercial users such as the police that desire an antenna on a particular vehicle that has a fiberglass roof or trunk. I assume you were talking about those that would apply the same method on a metal roof. That would be silly. I just wanted to clarify the difference.

 

[2NC995]

Yeah, I’m talking about metal roofs. There was a local guy that did it in a fiberglass camper top here, and all the local vans and station wagons copied the idea to their metal roofs. It still cracks me up.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

That's a great idea for my golf cart. It has a molded plastic polyethylene roof. But then does that mean that I have to mount it in the center of the roof?

 

[543_Dallas]

That's a great idea for my golf cart. It has a molded plastic polyethylene roof. But then does that mean that I have to mount it in the center of the roof?

It doesn't have to be centered. As small as that roof is it might tune better if the antenna is in the rear and the radials are as long as possible. I'd do some testing before drilling any holes.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

It doesn't have to be centered. As small as that roof is it might tune better if the antenna is in the rear and the radials are as long as possible. I'd do some testing before drilling any holes.

I have also seen antennas made for no ground plane like a fiberglass boat. I'm not sure what that is all about. Maybe a gimmick?

 

[543_Dallas]

I have also seen antennas made for no ground plane like a fiberglass boat. I'm not sure what that is all about. Maybe a gimmick?

Never used one. Sounds like a loaded end fed dummy load.

 

[TM86]

I have also seen antennas made for no ground plane like a fiberglass boat. I'm not sure what that is all about. Maybe a gimmick?

I think those use the coax shield as the counterpoise.

 

[nomadradio]

Best I can tell, the no-ground antennas are wound differently from the quarter-wave 'whip' antennas. The loading inside makes it a half-wave long antenna. The coax is an odd quarter-wave in length, to make it act as a step-up transformer. The clue here is that the coax ground is not connected at the antenna feedpoint, only the center conductor.

Pretty sure that's what's going on in the Firststik no-ground. Other 'marine' CB antennas may be set up differently.

73