I've seen some folks using their hitch receiver as a mount for their antenna. Wondering what others are using that works effectively for them.
Good Options for Mobile HF antenna on truck
- Thread starter cpohlad
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BushDoctor
Member
Old AM car radio antenna extended to full length mounted on my right front fender fed into a fully inclosed box with 2 coils inter wound fed to a switch one output going to sw radio other to scanner. The coils optional but allows me to hear scanner as well as wwv and other sw stations while scanner is also listening or i can select antenna direct to go either sw or scanner sometimes when wwv isn't strong direct is best but scanner seems not to care as much for local stations
Good 'ol 102" stainless steel CB whip and a tuner do a pretty good job on mobile HF on many of the popular ham bands. Many mobile military units have multi-band HF radios... next time you pass a convoy take notice of the antennas used.
prcguy
Member
The worst place possible to put an HF antenna is on a trailer hitch mount. An HF antenna needs some ground plane right under it and when you pull the antenna feedpoint away from the ground plane as in mounting it to a roll bar or trailer hitch, it raises the impedance and introduces ground loss.
So a good shortened coil loaded HF antenna will have a much lower impedance than 50 ohms, could be down at 10 ohms on 80m or 15 ohms on 40m, etc, with a good ground plane under it. When you mount that same antenna on a trailer hitch it will still be maybe 10 ohms on 80m but with 40 ohms of ground loss. That might actually match well to 50 ohms but the 40 ohms of ground loss is a big dip in performance.
So a good shortened coil loaded HF antenna will have a much lower impedance than 50 ohms, could be down at 10 ohms on 80m or 15 ohms on 40m, etc, with a good ground plane under it. When you mount that same antenna on a trailer hitch it will still be maybe 10 ohms on 80m but with 40 ohms of ground loss. That might actually match well to 50 ohms but the 40 ohms of ground loss is a big dip in performance.
k6cpo
Member
I have a 20 ft flagpole (with a mount for a dual band antenna on the top) that slides into a hitch receiver on my truck, but I use it only for stationary applications. For use when I'm underway, I have a short spring-loaded Larson 2m/70cm antenna on an NMO mount on the cab roof.
I don't do mobile HF.
You can purchase stake pocket antenna mounts.. I've never tried one, but here's a link to one outfit that makes them: http://www.geotool.com/Mtflyer.pdf
KC0YKO
Member
I use a Little Tarheel II mounted on the headache rack behind the cab of my pick-up....works excellent!
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