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Mount Antenna to Thule Rack?

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ejdouglas5

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I have a Kia with no good place to mount an antenna and don't like the MAG mount option. I am putting on a Thule rack for kayack and bike and wanted to know if mounting an antenna to the rack would provide a ground plane or not. Does anyone know? Thanks in advance.
 

krokus

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There are various lip mounts available, which might work out well. The newer models will mount on a cargo hatch.

Comet, Diamond, Larsen & MFJ should have something available.

Which model of Kia do you have?
 

ejdouglas5

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Kia soul

Thanks for your reply. I actually took my car to an installation guy and he looked it up and down. Now he is not a two-way radio installer, but a car audio installer, but they fabricate their own mounts for various antennas. The car is a hatchback. I bought a lip mount but it's far too big for the car, hence my question about mounting to the roof rack. I will look at the mounts you suggest and see if I can make them work. Thanks again.
 

LtDoc

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If that rack is metal, and if it makes a 'metal to metal' connection to the vehicle, then it ought'a make for a good 'ground' for an antenna.
- 'Doc
 

mmckenna

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It would really depend on how well you want it to work. Ideally, you want the antenna mounted in the center of your ground plane. Since I doubt you want your antenna in the center, as it would be awful close to any mounted bicycle, you are likely thinking of mounting it off to one side. That will work if, as LtDoc said, you have a good metal to metal contact. Truth is, most of the racks I've seen are either painted or powered coated, and rely on clamping to hold the parts together. This won't make for an ideal ground plane, but it's better than none. Just do the best you can and you'll have to live with it. Likely it will work just fine.

Ideally, you'd bond all the metal parts together, including the car, but that's going to take a lot of work.

Other option would be a 1/2 wave antenna, but that will likely be hard to come by for CB. You used to be able to find them for boats, but if you could find one, it probably wouldn't be an attractive option.

It would certainly be a fun project to play around with.
 

mmckenna

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Correct, that was the half wave antenna I was talking about. I saw some fairly good looking ones the other day, can't remember the brand. Basically anything designed to work on a fiberglass boat or RV would work. Actually, probably anything would work, it's just CB.
 

LtDoc

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All antennas have a counterpoise (or it's 'other half'), it just may not be what you expect it to be or where you expect it to be. Most of the "no groundplane" antennas use the feed line for a counterpoise. Of course, that depends on what you understand a 'counterpoise' to be...
- 'Doc
 
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