Hello All,
This holiday season I used a portable antenna which may be of use to
others.
I have resisted putting a hole in my car, so have not put my hustler
mobile antenna (which is normally on the pickup) onto the car. When I
realized I would be away from home so much this holiday season and
would be wanting to operate portable, I decided on the following:
I located a piece of stainless steel sheet metal about a foot square.
You could use non-stainless, and paint it later. In the center of this
plate, I mounted a ball mount, on a right angle bracket, using screws
with heads countersunk into the plate. The hustler simply mounts on
the ball mount, with coax fastened to the ball and the plate. A bit of
tape along the edges of the plate finishes the job. This plate can be
mounted on the top center of the car (don't even need to fasten it
down if it is not windy, but a bit of duct tape will hold nicely). The
capacitance to the car roof is all that is needed for a nice match. I
made no connection to the car at all, but ran the coax into the house
where I stayed, and had a good time with contacts on 40 and 20 with
my OHR Classic. I do not know if the foot square plate would provide
enough capacity for a match on 80, but I expect it would be pretty
good, as well.
This antenna may not be as good as a high dipole, but I believe it
worked better than most mobile installations....
Regards, Ken K5ID Hot Springs Village, AR
[
QRP-L Archive |
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000
]