Comet SBB-5NMO for Jeep

[donmontalvo]

I’m on my third Jeep. I got my Technician license in 2022, but until I retired in Oct 24, I’ve just monitored, since I was too busy.

Now that I’m retired, and spending Winters in Quartzsite, AZ, I’m finally starting to talk on 2M...no real reason to get on 70cm.

When I noticed people had issues hearing me, and I didn’t hear much on the local Repeaters, I visited HRO in Phoenix (love that place!).

They’re so knowledgeable. They explained basically what you did, that Jeeps are a PITA, and to switch to a ground independent antenna.

Boy what a difference! I learned a lot on this thread, but I’m a believer in "perfect is the enemy of the good".

I might circle back to look into improving things, but I’m very happy now.

Gonna bounce over to the CB Forum section, since I installed a Cobra 75 All Road and need to get an antenna for it.

Ugh, so much to do as a retiree...

73
KC3UNA

 

[prcguy]

I’m on my third Jeep. I got my Technician license in 2022, but until I retired in Oct 24, I’ve just monitored, since I was too busy.

Now that I’m retired, and spending Winters in Quartzsite, AZ, I’m finally starting to talk on 2M...no real reason to get on 70cm.

When I noticed people had issues hearing me, and I didn’t hear much on the local Repeaters, I visited HRO in Phoenix (love that place!).

They’re so knowledgeable. They explained basically what you did, that Jeeps are a PITA, and to switch to a ground independent antenna.

Boy what a difference! I learned a lot on this thread, but I’m a believer in "perfect is the enemy of the good".

I might circle back to look into improving things, but I’m very happy now.

Gonna bounce over to the CB Forum section, since I installed a Cobra 75 All Road and need to get an antenna for it.

Ugh, so much to do as a retiree...

73
KC3UNA

View attachment 194932

I'm glad it worked out for you but if you were to do it again, better advice is to use the top of the hood mount I recommended in post #15. This setup allows you to use any 2m/70cm or most CB antennas and the performance is really good with substantial ground plane of the hood. I spent months extensively testing all the possible mounting locations working with many folks on the various Jeep forums and this is the best spot and requires some of the least effort to make use of. Its probably easier to mount than what you have and it has plenty of ground plane for any VHF/UHF antenna. I did however take off the plastic curved cowl section next to where you mounted your antenna and lined it with conductive tape then grounded to the mounting bolts to expand the ground plane a bit more.

The trunk lip mount I used was a black chrome version by Laird but there are several other commercial cop antenna mfrs that make good quality mounts. As I mentioned before about a foot below the mount is a factory hole in the firewall to pull coax through to the radio.
The main antenna I use is a Larsen NMO2/70B which is one of the better performing 2m/70cm mobile antennas and I run a second multiband antenna on the other mount on the passenger side connected to either a Harris XG-100M or Motorola APX8500. I've also got an NMO mount on the upper bed wall centered in the rear window (mine is a JT pickup) but only use that for 900MHz or receive only due to poor ground plane there. Finally there is an HF/CB mount on the upper inner bed wall just behind the drivers rear wheel well. For HF/CB that works really well using the truck bed walls and floor as a ground plane. Basically my truck turned into an antenna test bed for the Jeep forums.

Your JL series has less to offer for HF as I believe the entire upper cab and roof is fiberglass like my JT except bigger. For HF on a JT I would consider a ball mount on the rear quarter panel and maybe test first with a large mag mount and right angle adapter for the whip to make sure it tunes up ok before committing to that spot.

The pictures below show the mount without antenna and the grounding I did inside the plastic cowl piece. Wow, my truck was pretty clean back then.