DIY Field Antennas

[SarDragon]

Not all lighters are created equal, plus good wiring practice says you should wire directly to the battery with an appropriate size of wire if at all possible.

Besides, plugs make it harder to hook it up as a base station, especially if they did not break the wire with a set of Powerpoles. You found that out at Comm Camp

My other problem with using lighter plugs for the radio is that it takes up a power port that we need for the laptop, GPS, AA battery and cellphone chargers.

I have a 2001 'Burb, so that's my limited knowledge base. Get a hold of schematics for your vehicle and see if there are unused ports on your interior junction boxes. I found two in mine that have enough capacity, and I no longer need to worry about getting through the firewall; Chevy already did it for me.

Specific places to look for are heavy duty trailer or camper, cop options, and upscale accessories. You might not have any of this stuff, but there are still places to plug in the harnesses.

[JoeTomasone]

What in the world did you get anyway? I'm not too worried about vehicular HF antennas...you get a lot better performance out of a simple dipole and that only takes 10 minutes to set up.

I bought a 2006 Jeep Commander.   The major sticking points are:

1. The spots on the rear hatch door where I would normally put the trunk-lip mounts (Diamond K400C) have bends to them. 

2. The luggage rack bars are 4"-5" wide - too wide for any luggage rack mount that I can find.

3. The luggage rack track is a U-shape with lip - can't seem to figure out anything good there.


So for the moment, I am making do with a mag mount for VHF/UHF, but really want to get the ATAS mounted on there someday - and the K400 is about the only mount that will handle it (so sayeth Yaesu; all hail Yaesu).   

It may be for the best in the long run since the job I think I landed today will have me travelling, and I hated taking the other Jeep to the airport and unscrewing/lowering the two antennas to get in the parking garage.     

[floridacyclist]

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My other problem with using lighter plugs for the radio is that it takes up a power port that we need for the laptop, GPS, AA battery and cellphone chargers.

I have a 2001 'Burb, so that's my limited knowledge base. Get a hold of schematics for your vehicle and see if there are unused ports on your interior junction boxes. I found two in mine that have enough capacity, and I no longer need to worry about getting through the firewall; Chevy already did it for me.

Unfortunately, this is a corporate van that we are talking about...we can't do much of anything involing new wires etc. When we run missions, I have to undo the battery and hook on a set of wires with powerpoles so that I can hook my radio up since half the time the comm officer isn't available to open up the comm shack and install the radio for us. He is concerned that if we put the radio in the van and Wing takes the van, we'll loose the radio.

It's easier to just use my own truck; at least it has a radio and 4WD

[arajca]

IIRC, every corporate vehicle is supposed to have a vhf radio installed. Contact your wg DC and see if a radio can be assigned to the vehicle. Worst he can do is say no.

[floridacyclist]

I did. He said no. Apparently that is considered the squadron's responsibility.

[JoeTomasone]

I did. He said no. Apparently that is considered the squadron's responsibility.

Vans aren't in the Table of Allowances as far as I can see - so I'm not sure how that's being dealt with since the vans are obviously considered reassignable Wing assets that a Squadron presumably wouldn't feel they should spend money on.   I'm going to see what clarification I can get for my own edification; I'll pass along the results.

[gistek]

My husband and I are both Hams and our 2 meter mobile is glove box mounted, similar to the photo in an earlier post. Since neither of us are physically able to install wiring in a vehicle, we decided to have Best Buy run the power cable. They did a very good job and, if/when we sell the van they will uninstall the connector for free.

One concern I have for glovebox mounting is the heat. Many radios become quite warm, especially when running high power. Our mount requires the glove box be open when the radio is being used.

We use a 2m mag mount duckey with the coax run through the back window for our mobile antenna.

[Hawk200]

Unfortunately, this is a corporate van that we are talking about...we can't do much of anything involing new wires etc. When we run missions, I have to undo the battery and hook on a set of wires with powerpoles so that I can hook my radio up since half the time the comm officer isn't available to open up the comm shack and install the radio for us. He is concerned that if we put the radio in the van and Wing takes the van, we'll loose the radio.

Sounds like good reason to get an adapter for the "power port" (cigarette lighter to us older folk), and a magnetic mount.

It's easier to just use my own truck; at least it has a radio and 4WD

Then again, you're probably better off with that. Fewer worries about getting stuck.

[arajca]

I did. He said no. Apparently that is considered the squadron's responsibility.

Vans aren't in the Table of Allowances as far as I can see - so I'm not sure how that's being dealt with since the vans are obviously considered reassignable Wing assets that a Squadron presumably wouldn't feel they should spend money on.   I'm going to see what clarification I can get for my own edification; I'll pass along the results.

I was reviewing the TA and found that each corporate vehicle is supposed to have a mobile vhf radio. You can find it in the "Command and Control Communications" section, pg 17, line B1.