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Sterling grain truck antenna

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bsigg

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Will the grain box on this truck block the signal for a 1/4 wave UHF antenna?

Or should I use no ground UHF mirror mount antenna's?

Also does anyone know if there are any stiffeners or anything that will be in the way of drilling the NMO hole dead center of the cab?
 

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KC4YIN

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Drill it in the the center of the cab. You should be fine. NMO mounts are always the best. Gives you a wide range of antennas to choose from.
 

jackj

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There will be stiffeners welded to the roof but I don't know their location. If the headliner is flexible enough, you might try feeling for them.

As for the grain box shielding the antenna, you should be fine. The box will have an affect on the radiation pattern but I can't tell from the picture how much it will affect it. Borrow a mag mount and try it before you drill any holes.
 

KD0IPM

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Won't a mag mount be different because capacitive coupling will be different between nmo grounded to the roof and mag that isn't necessarily grounded?
 

freqs

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Ive worked for a few Waste Hauling comp and I seen 2 ways of mounting antenna's . They have roof mounts and they also did a mirror mounts .The one place we ran UHF radios they were mounted in the roof .At Waste Mng we had dash mounted Nextel's and the did both roof and Mirror mounts .Both worked good on the Roll Off trucks with tall 40 yard boxes much taller that that Grain Box.We used Macks and Sterlings those roofs are pretty stiff they do well holding a NMO Antenna
 
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jackj

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Yes but...

Won't a mag mount be different because capacitive coupling will be different between nmo grounded to the roof and mag that isn't necessarily grounded?

The radiation pattern from a mag mount will be very close to that of a 1/4 wave mounted to the roof. The shielding caused by the grain box should be very close to the same with both types of antenna.
 

bsigg

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Pictures!!!

Here is the picture of the installation.

The antenna in this picture looks like it is really far ahead, but it is an optical illusion.
 

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b7spectra

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You may even want to try a high gain antenna. I use the Antenna Specialist ASPE7495 and it works 10 times better than the standard 1/4 wave.
 

maxkelley

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I did a little Googling... are you sure you meant ASPE7495? Because that is spec'd as just a quarterwave with a fancy base... Unity gain!
 
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