I just got my predator 10k with a 9" shaft. This will be mounted in a puck mount on the roof of a 2017 Ram 1500 quad cab, would the shaft length make a difference? I went with 9"to keep the weight at the bottom and less stress on mount.
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Predator 10k shaft length?
- Thread starter BammBamm
- Start date
DXman
Yes, that's 3100 degrees F. Nine yrs of hard work.
Yes, the shaft will make a difference!
I had to go to the 24" on the top of my F150 - the coil might have to be little higher for your truck, but then maybe not. Don't go by just the swr readings, get a antenna analyzer to tune it good.
Mine came out 52 ohms & 3 reactance.
Oh, one more thing, don't go messing with them coils unless you have the analyzer hooked up to it.........
I had to go to the 24" on the top of my F150 - the coil might have to be little higher for your truck, but then maybe not. Don't go by just the swr readings, get a antenna analyzer to tune it good.
Mine came out 52 ohms & 3 reactance.
Oh, one more thing, don't go messing with them coils unless you have the analyzer hooked up to it.........
It can make a difference depending on the vehicle and where it's mounted...I would go ahead and mount the thing and see how well it tunes...If you just can't get the SWR where you want it, then try the 17" shaft...17" shaft tunes pretty good on almost everything...I would NOT recommend the 22" or 27" shafts on a roof install, unless you just want to be replacing a broken shaft every time you hit a low hanging tree branch.
As for as the mount is concerned, weather you go with the 6" or 17" shaft, there's not going to be much if any difference in stress level on the mount...The thing you want to watch out for is having too high of a antenna on the roof that won't "give" when it hits something...On the Predator 10K's the weak-point is the bottom of the antenna where the stud mount is at...99% of the time when a Predator 10K breaks, it's at the bottom where the mounting stud section is screwed onto the lower shaft. 22" and 27" shafts are just begging to get broke when mounted on the roof!
This just one of my 27" Predator 10K's that snapped after tagging a low hanging tree branch.
As for as the mount is concerned, weather you go with the 6" or 17" shaft, there's not going to be much if any difference in stress level on the mount...The thing you want to watch out for is having too high of a antenna on the roof that won't "give" when it hits something...On the Predator 10K's the weak-point is the bottom of the antenna where the stud mount is at...99% of the time when a Predator 10K breaks, it's at the bottom where the mounting stud section is screwed onto the lower shaft. 22" and 27" shafts are just begging to get broke when mounted on the roof!
This just one of my 27" Predator 10K's that snapped after tagging a low hanging tree branch.
I found that the 17" was about as short as I could go on an extended cab pick-up and still get a good match with the power on. The longer the better but like Jesse said they are more likely to break. The 10k is a fine antenna but I switched to a 6 foot skip shooter and later a 7 foot. I expected them to fail with a 16 pill but they never did.
Same here. I could get the 12" to tune "OK" when mounted in the middle of my suburbans roof, but not so much on the back of the roof...Finally got tired of going over to Kale's to have him re-thread my broken shafts (which made them 26" shafts) and just started using the 17"...