Porkchop
Member
This is going to be complicated, I know, but try to hang in here with me on this one.
Ok. I've got a dump truck with fiberglass doors but a metal cab. I've been running a tri-mag setup on the roof with a Wilson 5000 Trucker antenna but it's got to leave here. It's ruining the paint on my truck, which I bought brand new in 04 and it's about to drive me crazy looking at those scratches.
So, you can't just plop a mirror mount on a Sterling. You'll get a high SWR cause there is no ground plane or counterpoise, whichever one it is. So...following the advice from Wilson and FireStik's sites, I added ground cables. My cab to frame ground is a huge braided strap, about 2 inches wide. All connections are soldered, nothing crimped or nothing like that.
The best SWR that I can get is a 2.5 across the band. I've tried my Wilson 5000 Trucker and I have a Predator 10K double coil antenna, both give the same results. I ground the antenna bracket itself to the lowest bolt on the mirror bracket, ran a ground inside the door, grounded that to the cab. Then ran a ground from the cab to the frame. No ground is over about 8 inches or so...so I know it's not a problem of the signal trying to radiate off the ground line.
Anybody have any idea what's going on or how to get the ground proper? I can reach out the window and grab the antenna and the mount and the SWR will fall to around 1.1 or so.
Ok. I've got a dump truck with fiberglass doors but a metal cab. I've been running a tri-mag setup on the roof with a Wilson 5000 Trucker antenna but it's got to leave here. It's ruining the paint on my truck, which I bought brand new in 04 and it's about to drive me crazy looking at those scratches.
So, you can't just plop a mirror mount on a Sterling. You'll get a high SWR cause there is no ground plane or counterpoise, whichever one it is. So...following the advice from Wilson and FireStik's sites, I added ground cables. My cab to frame ground is a huge braided strap, about 2 inches wide. All connections are soldered, nothing crimped or nothing like that.
The best SWR that I can get is a 2.5 across the band. I've tried my Wilson 5000 Trucker and I have a Predator 10K double coil antenna, both give the same results. I ground the antenna bracket itself to the lowest bolt on the mirror bracket, ran a ground inside the door, grounded that to the cab. Then ran a ground from the cab to the frame. No ground is over about 8 inches or so...so I know it's not a problem of the signal trying to radiate off the ground line.
Anybody have any idea what's going on or how to get the ground proper? I can reach out the window and grab the antenna and the mount and the SWR will fall to around 1.1 or so.