Yeap my biggest problem is grounding..Had ye ole ohm meter a werkin...Outta all the different parts of my mount on one end of my meter and other end on different metal parts of the truck and 99.9% of the time my meter came up all zeros..
I've been trying to tell you all along grounding on these truck's is a huge problem !!! It's yours mine and everyone who drives these well built trks....is there sarcasm in there why yes I think there is .......
Well yesterday i was messing around..#### trk is not grounded at all..Well as far as my lil wires would reach.. Anyways i have had a cpl really good days and feel like a million bucks.. Took some vitimine c and enjoyed some of the nice tems,green grass of va.. Commin at this refreshed and willing to try new stuff....I realize i have been a lil cranky and stubborn as of late but im feelin fresh now... Gonna start this bs from stratch.... Cpl questions.. 1..How the name of god are these guys talkin with their ant so #### long..Lookin at a tanker now with his 10k 27 " shaft and his whip lookin to be at its extended limits.... 2..Im sure i know the answer but is it worth it to run a wore from mount to chassie for some sorta grounding??? 3..Gotta talk to rabbi and apologize for being pig headed and not aleast listening to the man objectively rather than me being a cranky lil stubborn b#@och.... 4...With this dipole idea(gonna try with my tall shaft and with the other mount from bobs cb)..Which would be the better option??? 5...How does one tune a 5 ft ground element for a pole..
Craig I tuned both elements with a road pro mag mount $12.99 on sale on a car roof first. Every body will find fault with it but it brought them close. When I mounted them to the truck I didn't bother with the ground element only the upper (hopefully) driven element. Thought I was going to have to add a longer nail to the skip shooter but it was just enough to get a 1.2 SWR. The radio is happy so I am happy. Exactly how you mount it will have an effect. If you choose to use a Balun between your coax and the antenna as pointed out by Ridgeline and others it may offer an improvement. The key seems to be do not let your antenna be grounded to the truck. I do not use a 45 degree angle likely close to 20 degrees. With the wind load at high way speeds the antenna winds up bowed fairly vertical. The pvc pipe fitting tightly to antenna or another method such as Mikes is important to supporting the base of the antenna. The 7ft skipshooter has outlasted 2 5.5 ft. Francis , 1 5ft Wilson Silverload, A 8ft+ iron horse antenna combined. It is not the perfect solution but it is a solution that works consistently. I would be leery of a 5 ft ground simply because of the likely hood of damage by road debris or added windload on your mount. Keep in mind when you are asking for radio checks unless you are familiar with the other stations set up you can't rely on how far they can hear you. If they have a junk set up they will not be a reliable indicator of the performance of your system.
Counterpoise is 40 inches below antenna base in those pics. Huge problem. Isolating flat metal plate from top of your extension and adding ground element to plate should fix that issue. Counterpoise and feedpoint need to be as close as possible to each other
If your a truck driver being cranky and stubborn and a piss head sometimes comes with the territory often times.... a lot of what was wanted and needed to do was under the limitations of being a company truck... you can only get away with what they'll let ya get away with !!!
You can easily get a break in that stinger if it's too long it will show on your mfj... or more/most likely on a rig-expert
