A pickup is potentially an excellent vehicle for mobile. Center of the roof permanent mount is the ideal.
A SIRIO 5000 Performer on a Breedlove Mount fairly describes state-of-the-art in performance. Not as tall as a quarter-wave whip, and with lower wind resistance.
The pair of
systems (12V power & coaxial cable + antenna) are what matter most.
No noise & lowest resistance.
www.k0bg.com
Is the Mobile Install Bible. 11-Meter shares nearly every concern an Amateur Radio installation needs.
Location & Mount for the antenna is the make-or-break decision.
Every other location and mount-type degrades potential to the point best and worst are so far apart that it’s difficult to believe both are Citizen Band.
Can what you have be made to work? Sure, just like an old diesel engine tractor can run on five of six cylinders.
Not well.
As a truck driver covering 10,000-miles every month I can tell you that pickup owners — usually — do a terrible radio system installation job. The ones with whom I speak fade out almost immediately. They’ve no clue what’s being missed.
They hear almost nothing of what’s on-air that moment or day.
Citizen Band while traveling is at the heart of its true purpose. To alert, DEFINE, and attempt solutions to problems with one’s fellows.
In this it is unmatched.
Yesterday I was northbound on IH35W thru Fort Worth and noted the mile marker location (plus probably age),
clock time, LE/EMT presence of a serious accident in the opposing direction still south of downtown.
The next 15-miles north was giving Road, Direction, Incident, Time and Solution to the southbound hands had their radios turned up.
The time of day meant traffic was already jammed just north of downtown at the IH-30 + US-287 split headed south, and that ongoing road re-construction (the past decade) now north of the IH-820 Loop has its normal miles-long backup as well.
The wreck meant the delay to get south of IH-20 towards Austin was going to cost far more than an hour to get thru the city.
The several alternatives normally used were compromised thereby . . except one.
One needs a radio system whereby he can
Hear, and Get Heard. (You have the antenna system or you don’t). For me to reach out, to field questions, and to
define alternatives it was necessary to have 2-3 exchanges
passing each other in opposite directions at 60-mph in a major US metro.
Each of these was with several drivers.
The cities are noisy.
Skip (with Satans boys jamming AM-19 with drivel) is noisy. Traffic has to be watched closely. Etc.
You have ONE chance to get it right.
Those other truck drivers risk life & limb, risk paycheck reductions, risk reputation, career and vehicle integrity
when they make the wrong decisions.
I’ve been on the other end: big trucks blown over in Wyoming, tornado blown trees across an Alabama highway, flooding in Arkansas, major multi-vehicle pile-ups in nearly every state (drivers getting worse for years now), . . .
. . right down to just
barely hearing a man in a broken truck whose telephone had gone dead
and with health problems in 100F heat back off the highway, unseen, the past night into morning.
Unheard.
My experience to recommend you
upgrade the pickup with a proper damned antenna
The little Uniden is one I own. It’s a good starter radio. Get the rest right before worrying again about what components you plug into those systems.
SWR is a test to be sure that things aren’t so bad one can key up without frying the radio. The step of tuning antenna to its mount & location.
You can bandaid what you have . . or man up and have the real thing. (You’d have been of no help yesterday even with what you have “improved” by a few bonds . . but my system in your truck and antenna above would have you better than what I can achieve in a big truck).
— Read, study, make a list and get the tools & supply to make your pickup
worthy of being called a work vehicle.
Good luck.
.
