My father in law wants me to install an antenna and radio on his motorhome, which is fiberglass. After thinking about it, I'm kind of leaning towards one of those firestick "no ground" setups with the side body mount. Has anyone tried one of those? I never liked the idea myself, but it seems like it's designed specifically for this application. Any thoughts or suggestions?
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motorhome antenna
- Thread starter Gearhead
- Start date
I have installed the "no-ground" antenna on a friend's motorhome because he didn't want to go through all the trouble to build/install a counterpoise. He gets a couple of miles of range on the highway, which is all he wants. On my RV, I installed a regular antenna on the back ladder, grounding the ladder to the frame with wide ground strap. It works a lot better....
Thanks for the replies. This has to be a clean installation, and has to be completed in one day, since I will only have access to it for one day. I wish he would have told me he wanted this done, while he was here visiting for the last 3 weeks. Now I have to get everything together, drive to pennsylvania, and install it.
The ladder would probably be the easiest place to mount it, but it's over 30 feet from the radio, and the ladder is right behind a slide-out, so it would make running the coax a little tricky.
Please explain this counterpoise thing a little more...
The ladder would probably be the easiest place to mount it, but it's over 30 feet from the radio, and the ladder is right behind a slide-out, so it would make running the coax a little tricky.
Please explain this counterpoise thing a little more...
With a regular 1/4 mobile antenna, the car chassis or body acts as the other 1/2 of the antenna. This is achieved by grounding the mount of the antenna or the coax braid at the antenna to the body usually. I achieved this by using a regular mirror mount on the ladder and grounding the ladder to the frame.
I had the same problem. I installed the CB on the floorboard right by the seat and ran the coax and power out through a chassis access point on the floorboard. Then ran the coax underneath the whole chassis using the existing cable chase. Here's a pics; clean and simple:
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BOOTY MONSTER
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kinda makes ya wonder why no one makes a mobile built like a minature base antenna . 3 or 4 ground radials with coils to make the length acceptable and a coil and stinger on top and super glue it down . lol
I think Mole' has about the simplest scheme, just mount the thing on the ladder. The distance away from the radio makes very little difference, just have more coax than needed to reach between the two. Making sure the ladder is grounded to the chassis is a very good idea. I'm not a big fan of using braid for ground straps, I've found a 'solid' metal strap lasts much longer when exposed to weather, etc. But, whatever you happen to have.
I would tend to think that making a solid, or secure mount to fiberglass would be the hardest part of mounting an antenna on the top of a motorhome. If you can do that, then running a few 'radials' shouldn't be a biggy at all (wire, metal foil, metalized tape, whatever else). As long as those radials or counterpoise are longer than the antenna used, they should work reasonably well. About nine or ten feet is a nice round number to aim for (it isn't that critical), and the more the merrier. Spreading those radials out in a sort of regular pattern is nice, but not absolutely required. Gluing them to the roof is a good idea too (ducktape!).
About the only thing that I'd really sort of worry about is mounting the antenna to that ladder in such a way as to not hang you up when using the ladder. Poking an eye or some other tender part of a body.
- 'Doc
I would tend to think that making a solid, or secure mount to fiberglass would be the hardest part of mounting an antenna on the top of a motorhome. If you can do that, then running a few 'radials' shouldn't be a biggy at all (wire, metal foil, metalized tape, whatever else). As long as those radials or counterpoise are longer than the antenna used, they should work reasonably well. About nine or ten feet is a nice round number to aim for (it isn't that critical), and the more the merrier. Spreading those radials out in a sort of regular pattern is nice, but not absolutely required. Gluing them to the roof is a good idea too (ducktape!).
About the only thing that I'd really sort of worry about is mounting the antenna to that ladder in such a way as to not hang you up when using the ladder. Poking an eye or some other tender part of a body.
- 'Doc
Nice install, moleculo. That's pretty much what i had pictured in my head, but in my experience with trying to run a mobile antenna as a base, if everything isn't PERFECT, it just doesn't tune. Had LOTS of trial and error with radials, before getting even close.
I think the ladder will be the best place to mount it, and maybe with some luck (yeah right) it'll tune close enough to not fry the finals. If I have to, I'll try making a ground ring or something and silicone it to the top of the RV, since no one's going to see the top anyway.
I talked to him today, and he says he wants to run "heat" LOL, here we go. 75 year old baptist preacher with fire in the wire.
I think the ladder will be the best place to mount it, and maybe with some luck (yeah right) it'll tune close enough to not fry the finals. If I have to, I'll try making a ground ring or something and silicone it to the top of the RV, since no one's going to see the top anyway.
I talked to him today, and he says he wants to run "heat" LOL, here we go. 75 year old baptist preacher with fire in the wire.
LOL, he was quite the ratchet jaw in the 70s from what I heard, and ran big power until uncle charlie came to town.