This is an effort to devise a portable or semi-permanent seasonal antenna system for CB, and possibly 10-meters ham using off-the-shelf parts on an RV without an aluminum roof (as ground plane on the old RVs), and without having to erect masts, use tools, drill holes, or use any type of permanent mountings, that should be superior to non-ground plane 3-foot solutions.
I like this setup. It's portable and working ok right now after some destructive testing. Turns out the coax connector was not making contact through the bottom bolt of the hub assembly. The head of the bolt must be tight enough to go past the insulator and make contact with the bottom disk which is connected to the center conductor of the coax. The top disc in the coax loop is the ground or shield. I cut the loop open to try to figure out how they were connect each of the two conductors, when I could have done a simple continuity test on side and discovered how they have two discs or washers inside the loop with a white plastic insulator that separates them, and that the center conductor works up through the bottom disc in contact through the bolt. I love the hardware and the robustness of this, but very poor assembly by the manufacturer. They assembled the top part of the hub with the mount but not tight enough and did not bother to do a continuity check. All it really needed before I cut the loop open was to tighten the main bolt and nut tight enough that the bottom bolt edges touched the bottom disk. The insulator holds the bolt head out just a hair to not make contact if not tight enough, so make sure to tighten the big bolt and big mount nut, and do a quick check on it.
Out of the box, the SWR was off the scale no matter what because the antenna was not even connected to the radio, only the coax.
I am finally getting a 1.2:1 SWR now with the long screw in the whip up through the plastic boot, and one pair of jumper cables clamped to the studs between the upper and lower hub discs, and then both clamps clamped to the aluminum rain gutter to use the camper's aluminum siding as well, which did make a difference compared to no cables. Make sure to install the boot because it does bring the SWR down by using it.
This is a 5 ft trucker antenna with radials for the ground plane, and it works as good as on a truck as long as the SWRs are down. I'm getting great reports from the truckers.
You may be able to add a spring at the bottom to lengthen the antenna in order to use the shorter screw that fits under the cap. I have not tried this. In other words adding some length to the bottom instead of only the top.
So this antenna is a success after fiddling with it a little, and it serves my application of being portable, drilling no holes, or having to have a mast, etc.
I can just unscrew the whip and pull it off the roof and put away the jumper cables. I don't think any sand bags would be necessary unless near hurricane winds because its quite stable and heavy enough to stay put.
Only other thing to suggest would be to replace the hardware with stainless steel where possible because it will rust eventually from the acidic rain.
I think the manufacturer should at least create a longer boot cap for the whip for this system as a professional product that does not have to be hacked up in order to get it to work properly.
If they would correct this adaptation from this whip being normally used on trucks to a more finished product, and also insure that when they assemble something at the factory it's checked to insure proper connection, they would sell many more of these because they were on the right track with these, but fell short just a little bit at the end causing a little confusion, doubt, and headaches for some of the buyers of this good product.
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Works great
It works great on my balcony. For some reason my swr went down when I started moving the support steel legs. This position gave me the best results.
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christian Girard
Une antenne de base cb pratique !
Calificado en Canadá el 31 de julio de 2021
