I have a 2005 Ford F350 and I'm having a very hard time trying to find a location for the antenna that gives me a good SWR I've placed this antenna on a ball mount, center of cab towards the rear. I've also tried mounting on the headache rack which has a very good ground and has in his very thick metal that extends about 2 inches above the top of the cab same thing high swr's I tried different lengths of coax different types of coax, I've also tried different antennas, all with the same result, high swrs. I'm not a dummy when it comes to antenna placement on vehicles I used to install CBs and antennas in vehicles back in the seventies so I have a pretty good understanding about what's the best place to put an antenna on a vehicle which is normally center of vehicle highest point for the life of me I cannot get these swr's down any help would be greatly appreciated
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Frustrated
- Thread starter handymankiley
- Start date
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
You posted this in the scanner section, but it sounds like you are installing a CB antenna?
Can you tell us exactly what kind of antenna it is? What kind of mount? What are you testing with?
Headache racks, while they may be DC grounded, won't provide a good ground plane for an antenna. Center of the cab roof should work well, but it sounds like you tried that and it wasn't. That could be because of the mount type or how it's installed.
Can you tell us exactly what kind of antenna it is? What kind of mount? What are you testing with?
Headache racks, while they may be DC grounded, won't provide a good ground plane for an antenna. Center of the cab roof should work well, but it sounds like you tried that and it wasn't. That could be because of the mount type or how it's installed.
There's also a discussion on a very similar topic here: Help with antenna placement on 2024 F450
I have a ball mount on roof, I have tried the 3' pro stick, the 2' fire stick and 3' fire stick. I have tested SWRs with various meters including a good quality directional watt meter. I switched radios and coax with the same results. Next is a 102" SS whip, ball mounted on drivers side rear quarter panel. I have mounted there before with fair results.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Checking continuity would be my first test. Make sure everything is wired correctly and no shorts.
Really short antennas like that can be problematic. Hard to cram 108" of antenna into 24 or 36 inches.
Really short antennas like that can be problematic. Hard to cram 108" of antenna into 24 or 36 inches.
What VSWRs are you getting? It is not unusual to get low 2s with a 2 to 3 ft Firestik
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