Mount Antenna on a ATV & Snowmobile

[JeepZJ]

During the Summer and Fall we use the ATV for tending to the chores on our land, gathering firewood, exploring back-roads, hunting and transportation into town. During the Winter and Spring we use the snowmobile to bring in supplies and transportation to town. We would like to mount Antennas on both of these for our portable MURS radios. The terrain here is very heavily wooded with lots of hills.

Not sure if simply mounting them to their luggage racks that are connected to the frames will work???

I was thinking of antennas along the line of the spring loaded MURS-16S MURS16-B & MURS16S-B: 1/4 wave antennas

What would you do to install a reliable antenna system on these vehicles?

 

[davedaver1]

If you have a typical ATV rack, you might be able to use a mirror mount (as truckers use to mount antennas to the tubular old-style truck mirrors) like so:

RoadPro RP-315ST 3 Way Mirror Mount with Super Heavy Stud 0

for the antennas you linked.

 

[JeepZJ]

I am mainly concerned with the ATV and snowmobile bodies being all plastic. I know trucks and cars that don't have steel bodies have issues when using CB antennas. Wasn't sure if VHF had the same problem. I didn't want to go to the expense of purchasing an antenna, mount and cable if it wouldn't work on these type of vehicles.

 

[W0JJK]

Here is a no ground VHF antenna I have used on Tractors, Combines and Semi's which don't have much ground plain.

PCTEL Maxrad MHB5802 No Ground Plane Antenna, 144-174 | TESSCO

I used mirror mounts on most of my installs too.

 

[DEPUTY11]

on the FD's the antenna is mounted on the back passenger side of the roll bar, you can barley see it sticking up in the middle of the pic.

 

[JeepZJ]

on the FD's the antenna is mounted on the back passenger side of the roll bar, you can barley see it sticking up in the middle of the pic.

What antenna are you using?

 

[NCFire11]

The frame is grounded so mount the antenna on the frame somewhere. I would personally mount it on the rear behind the seat. As for the scanner i would try to get some form of waterproofing if necessary with an external speaker.

 

[DEPUTY11]

I don't know what it is. I'll snap a pic when I get a chance, I do know it's VHF.