Bed Rail CB Antenna Install

It is better to mount it there than against the cab. A better place would be in the middle of the roof but for obvious reasons that's not real practical as your truck is now 9-10 feet tall even with a short CB antenna. My VHF/UHF antenna and HF antenna are both mounted at the rear of the bed with excellent results and flat SWR. With an antenna such as a CB the coils of wire in the mast are adversely affected by surrounding metal they are part of a tuned circuit without them the antenna would have to be 108” long to work properly.

 

How about mounting on the front fender?

 

Yeah that's fine just be sure you have a good mounting there is a lot of leverage on a long antenna.

 

I'm going to make a 90° bracket that fits the 2 bolts in the back corner of the bed. Similar to the mount that BAMF sells but it'll be inside the bed instead of going through the gap in the tailgate.

 

Just a question for curiosity's sake...

Why do most of the bed mounts put the antenna outside the bed behind the tail light rather than just straight up from the 2 bolts in the corner of the bed?

My main issue with going through the gap in the bed is I don't want to see the coax. I'm probably going to drill a small hole in the bed right below my bracket and feed the coax through right there.

 

An antenna works as kind of like a mirror. You need reflection on your antenna (from metal body of your truck) in all directions to be able to talk and receive. I honestly don't see how anyone with an antenna mounted on the rear of the bed in any spot, works well, unless you're just talking to someone IN FRONT of you.(Hence you have nothing behind the truck for the antenna to reflect off of). Regardless of mounts, the best spot is more centered on your truck, like right behind the cab on the side or the roof or even the hood. To answer your question, i guess people figure that if you mount behind the bed, your antenna may have a little reflection off of the tailgate or something. As far as i know, you're only gonna be talking/recieving about 1/4 mile at best having it mounted there, especially with our tacoma's having bedliners. Best advice i can give you is to go to a cb shop and have them set up your antenna and cb with low swr. I run a k40 tunable antenna mounted behind my cab on the side and can talk and receive along way. swr at 1.1 or less.

 

That's where i mounted mine originally. I just used a 90 degree concrete framing bracket. It's steel so it's extremely rigid. It was like $1.50 at Home Depot. Already has a 1/2 inch hole drilled in both sides. All I did was measure out the two holes on inside of the bed and drill them in. Great ground and I was able to get my antenna near perfect tuning. (4ft Firestik) the coax was routed through the top corner of the taillight opening. When the taillight is mounted there is a gap, where it wouldn't pinch the cable.

I have since changed since I have a Bestop. I now use BAMF's mount. and its using the same holes, just on the outside of the tailgate.

This is what I used. I trimmed a bit off the longer side to make it more 2x2. Used an angle grinder to round the corners off the top side so nothing would snag.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Simpson-...=RV-_-RV_search_plp_rr-1-_-NA-_-100375162-_-N

 

Mine is about halfway back in the bed. I used the same bracket as the OP, but I made my own backing plate out of aluminum strip.

Since mine is on the side rail, I had to put in a shim or two (currently just a piece of wood, but I'll be replacing it with something more solid) to make the antenna sit up straight. I'm using a NGP antenna, so I'm not worried about grounding. I still need to adjust my radio setup so I can best set up my SWR readings. I'm hoping to use the method on where where the faceplate gets extended and the unit is mounted under the seat.

 

There is a lot of talk about truck ground planes and plastic beds. First no vehicle is a good ground plane the plastic bed has all most zero effect on the effectiveness of a radio as far as a ground plane is concerned. The mounting of an antenna on the rear is far better than placing it against the cab that will slew your pattern big time both receive and transmit. What is needed is a return path to the radio via the coax shield a good body ground is all it needs it does not have to be grounded to the frame or the bed rails the battery or the sun visor. A ground plane is what it is on a motor vehicle not very good but it’s all you got it is enough. The proximity of the vehicle to the earth does have an effect so a rear mount takes advantage of this by being in the clear however to be an effective ground plane your vehicle would need to cover an area of an 36 foot circle with the antenna dead center on 11 meters that of course is not an option so you do what you can. A CB radio is 4 watts if the 11 meter band is open you can talk to Europe but if it’s not and it usually isn’t don’t expect more than a few miles no matter how good your set up is.

 

My antenna is mounted on the side of the truck behind the cab, not directly behind it, so it is centered as best as possible without being on the roof. And yes, there is a lot of argument in regards to mounting and grounds, but in my experience, if you have an antenna mounted behind your bed, it just doesn't allow much of anything, no matter how tall the antenna. I'm not disagreeing with you, but this isn't 1980 when you could just slap an antenna on your roof and install a cb in your car and talk to anyone miles out. They do have to be grounded well with a tuned antenna and that's hard to do now days with the the type of materials and paint new vehicles are made of, no matter how little of an affect some people may think it has. All i am saying is (from experience) the rear bed mount wasn't my best choice, that's all.

 

That's fine if you are comfortable with that it's all a compromise. As far as the times the vehicles are far better now than they were years ago electrically quieter better bonding of doors, hoods, and body parts. Yes a ground is very important but if you have to add wires to your ground there is something wrong with the install. A tuned antenna is another part of the equation a return loss bridge (swr meter) will let you know how it is preforming it has to be as good as it gets with only 4 watts the less signal being returned through the coax the more is leaving the antenna. Basically what I am saying is don’t stay up at night worrying about ground planes on a vehicle it’s something you can’t fix. In my case I chose to mount my antennas on the rear of the bed because it is something I have done for the last 30 years as a ham radio operator with pretty good results.

 

I originally installed mine behind the cab on the bed rail but like stated above could only talk a short distance. I did use a ngp firestik. Now I run a 2ft firestik in the city and a 4ft when wheeling both of which are mounted on the hood. Great reception and I seem to walk over other people (clarity and distance wise) when out
Just my experience

 

In my 12 yrs of being a comm/radio tech, in no way would you want an antenna mounted up against any object. Especially if it's metal. A vertical antenna is horizontally polarized. So if it's mounted up against something, you are blocking a section of the antenna from receiving. Tx up against an object can cause reflection back down the antenna path which isn't good for your radio during transmission.

 

You are absolutely correct and the reflections from the truck body effects the SWR it is a return loss so when you tune the antenna it is compensating for that effect reducing the effectiveness. If you use a meter better than something that came from came from Radio Shack and even stand next to the antenna when you try to tune it, it will detune the antenna. When you tune an antenna it needs to be in the clear and outside trying to tune an antenna in the garage is going to have an effect also. Anything shorter than 108” on the 11 meter band is a loaded antenna somehow the 4’ stick has to equal 108” or a ¼ wave electrically they do this by wrapping wire around the stick and if the majority of it is below the roof line against the body it is far less than effective. A dummy load is a perfect antenna match but a terrible antenna so you can adjust the antenna for a good match but that does not mean that is a good radiator only that the radio is happy with a 50 ohm match.