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Antenna inside fiberglass truck topper

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aaknitt

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I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried mounting an VHF antenna inside a fiberglass truck topper and if so, what the results were. I already have one antenna on the front fender, and I only have about 6" of clearance between the top of the truck and the garage door, so VHF is a no-go up there. I'm wondering about mounting something inside the topper. Being fiberglass, it should be RF transparent. However, it does have metal around all of the windows and I'm wondering how that will impact things. Also wondering how I could mount it. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Andy
 

b7spectra

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Since VHF has pretty good range, have you thought about a Phantom antenna? It is low profile less then 6" tall. I know when I worked EMS, we mounted a 12"x12" metal sheet on top of the fiberglass roofs and mounted the antennas to it.
 

aaknitt

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Hadn't really considered it, but I need more bandwidth than they provide.
 

12dbsinad

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What band/type of antenna on the fender? If it was me, Trunk lid mount, or "L" bracket off of opposite fender with a VHF quarter wave. About 16" or so tall and would work way better...and if it cleans it off driving in to the garage I myself would duck :)
 

aaknitt

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What band/type of antenna on the fender? If it was me, Trunk lid mount, or "L" bracket off of opposite fender with a VHF quarter wave. About 16" or so tall and would work way better...and if it cleans it off driving in to the garage I myself would duck :)

It's a dual band VHF/UHF on the fender now. The FM broadcast antenna is on the opposite side, so I don't want to do another fender mount there. I'm thinking an "L" bracket on the inside of the topper at the top of the bed may be a decent compromise, but haven't seen it done before. Just wondering if anyone has tried it and how it worked out.

Andy
 

DcotorWu

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Andy, you could make a wire dipole and use heavy duct tape to hold it down to the fiberglass, then run some coax down to the truck. I did that once to a surfboard, taped a 2 meter dipole in the tip of it so I could use the radio while moving my stuff from California to Michigan. Stood the surfboard up in the truck bed and lashed it down to the 4 ft stakes coming out of the stake holes. Worked peachy.

73 Wu
 

aaknitt

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Andy, you could make a wire dipole and use heavy duct tape to hold it down to the fiberglass, then run some coax down to the truck. I did that once to a surfboard, taped a 2 meter dipole in the tip of it so I could use the radio while moving my stuff from California to Michigan. Stood the surfboard up in the truck bed and lashed it down to the 4 ft stakes coming out of the stake holes. Worked peachy.

73 Wu

I was considering doing exactly this, but using copper tape to make the antenna element(s). However, after looking at the topper more closely, the only "vertical" portions of fiberglass are right next to the metal frames of the windows. I think there would be some interaction there. Probably just going to have to try a couple different things and see what works.

Andy
 

LtDoc

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Just for grins, what are the dimensions of those metal window frames? I've seen a 'square-ish' looking antenna that -might- be close to the size of those frames (can't for the life of me remember the name of the thing).
And while there will probably be some interaction with the window frame, it may not be objectionable. I've used a fender mounted antenna like you've described before and it did quite well. Guess that depends on what you expect though...
- 'Doc
 

SCPD

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Give some thought to just putting a mag mount INSIDE the cap, away from the window frames. It's a little thinking outside the box, but the cap isn't going to block any RF, why not just put your antennas vertical, above the bed and inside the cap? You're gonna get a little loss forward, but unless you're wanting to make a repeater 50 miles away, it really should fly all right.
 
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