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Hey Kenny

 

I'm just going to follow yall's lead.

 

turning my computer in at 1 today... fuck yes!!!! lol

 

Lol.

That always works.

I also remembered that the rear bumper that I have on order has two antenna mounts on the driver side swing out... but I don't think I want to run cable for it all the way back there and will just stick with the hood mount or roof mount depending on height... will measure later when I get home... plan as I like those better.

 

Because I saw something about "firestik" antennas. I want to do a little show and tell if that's alright. There will be a bit of science in here, but only just the edge.

Citizens Band (CB):

• 27mhz
• 11M wavelength
• A quarter wave antenna is around 102" or about 9 feet

Family Radio Service(FRS)/General Mobile Radio Service(GMRS):

• 462mhz
• 70CM wavelength
• A quarter wave antenna is roughly 7" or less than one foot.

The Most Popular Ham Radio Band (2M)

• 144mhz
• 2M wavelength
• A quarter wave antenna is around 19" or under 2 feet.

Quarter Wave CB Antenna


Quarter Wave 2M Ham Antenna


Quarter Wave FRS/GMRS Antenna


When we look at a Firestick, whether it's a 2 foot firestik, or a 5 foot firestik, what you have is an inductive coil that electrically lengthens a physically short antenna. This always qualifies as a compromise. Either the antenna has narrower bandwidth, which could mean channels 5-30 tune welll, but you can't get the SWR down on 1-4 and 31-40. Or the take off angle is higher, leading to more of your RF heading toward space than other trucks. Finally, physically short antennas usually have loss when compared to their quarter wave cousins.

Because FRS/GMRS is such a short wave length, there's very little reason to run a firestick like antenna for those bands. Instead what you'll see is longer antennas that are either an end fed half wave dipole, or a 5/8 wave, or in some cases co-linear arrays of quarter wave antennas stacked on top of each other. All of these improve performance over the standard quarter wave antenna, usually with the compromise being the robustness of the antenna, cost, or both.

 

If you mount it on the Prinsu rack, buy the right angle bracket, and put the 1/4 wave NMO antenna I linked on top of it. It will work fantastic, is low profile, and has the bonus of being a whopping $9 antenna so keeping two or three spares in the truck is trivial.

When you go out to the wild unknown, you can always turn around and install the higher gain antenna on the rack as you know you won't be in any parking garages. Just be sure to keep one or two of the quarter wave spares in the truck in case a tree decides to ruin your antennas day.

Mounting a lower gain antenna higher will ALWAYS beat a higher gain antenna mounted below the roof line.

 

So with the tiny tiny antenna for the FRS/GMRS on the roof... what kind of output are you getting out of that thing?

Yea, it may be just as easier to mount it on the Prinsu or get the Mag Mount from Midland that they sell and just slap it on the roof between two cross bars unless that would affect signal a lot.

So the $9 antenna that you linked is for GMRS radios? I would assume?

My thinking of mounting it on the roof is for better overall reach, even with putting a shorter antenna on it. Will mostly be used on the trails anyways, so won't need a huge reach with it unless I may be trying to talk from camp to someone on the trail or vice versa, but will have trees and everything else in the way anyways. If I say go west where there is more open area and way less trees, then just throw one of the higher gain antennas on top for way better reach.

Looks like it is back to the roof...

Ha.

 

Hope you feel better soon Cap. I suggest massive amounts of alcohol to ease any pain. In-laws can be painful when you're sick.

 

Line of sight. Which is all you're going to get regardless. UHF frequencies don't skip off the ionosphere. And "Size" of the antenna is first and foremost a result of the Frequency the antenna is designed for. That was why I shared three quarter wave antennas in a single photo above. All of those are functionally the same, but for different frequencies. The smaller wave lengths work better while mobile, because your vehicle has to act as the ground plane for the antenna. an 11M wave length needs approximately 9 feet of ground in every direction from the base of the antenna.

A GMRS antenna needs about 7" of ground in every direction from the base of the antenna.

Hypothetically if you took a Pizza tin, drilled a 3/4" hole in it, mounted an NMO mount through the hole, and put that quarter wave antenna on top, then strapped that to your Prinsu rack cross bars, OR just suspended it from fishing line in a tree, it would work identically. The higher that setup is, the further it can transmit and receive as a function of Radio Line of Sight.

I suspect the bars will have an effect on transmission. How much of an effect I don't think I could say.

The quarter wave Laird antenna I linked covers the GMRS band. It's model number should include (450...)

Higher is better... Always...

Think about it this way... if you put your face on the hood and look to the rear how clear of a view do you have of what's behind you?
Now if you've got your head laying on the roof rack looking to the rear, what's the view look like?

 

Thanks. We're all very close, so it's not so much about being a pain rather than being in pain. Plus, with the drugs I'm taking, it's going to cut into our drinking time.

 

Sub'd for the review to this bad boy!

 

FTFY


(oh wait, dammit, that was me.........sorry)

 

When you know the Sudafed is kicking in...

https://youtu.be/ERC3pPD6Rh8

 

Well, I know who I am asking when the time comes for to get into this tech!!!

 

Yea, the issue I may have on the prinsu, is that I have a plano case on the driver side of it and a rotopax on the passenger side of the rack, so the antenna would go in the middle of the rack, but still not sure what kind of output or input it would get with that. I am going to measure and see if the middle range midland antenna would possible work with my garage or not, if not, then will see from there.

I essentially have two options I can go with... hood mount with the long antenna or roof mount with a short antenna and option to throw on a long antenna if needed.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

In other news.......Repeated tests have concluded that drugs have less affect on my body than normal human beings.

 

It may be for me Kenny. Need to find out if the wife is off, and if so, so am I!

 

I still make gifs, but no one watches it anymore.

https://gfycat.com/HighlevelThinClingfish

 

I have the underhood lights, was your question generic, or did you need the man himself?

 

Shit posting gifs is EZ clap. Hard part is being able to be near a PC with all the stuff that you need.