what antenna should i get

If I were to put a 108-inch whip on top of my
'96 un-lifted F250 with the standard tires etc, I figured the tip would be reaching over 15 feet high.

That would be enough to hit regulated-height bridges and overpasses with up to a foot-and-a-half of whip even on the Interstates. In the city, I can see that antenna making my truck look like a streetcar hitting wires crossing the street, sparks and all. And the in-cabin noise would put a rock drummer to shame.

Ain't worth it in order to gain a few hundred more feet or whatever that Tall Boy might yield with the extra meat in the sky.

A man's gotta know his limitations, sez Dirty Harry.

 

That is true.

 

I'll take this over a stryker antenna.

 

What's better a 108 in whip or a 7 ft fire stick?

 

Longer is always better at the expense of practicality

 

I've heard that the 108 whip used its length to send signal and the firestick consentrates the signal on the tip. But I dont know if this is true.

 

The 108 should transmit further

 

108 will out transmit a coiled antenna. There are those that come close enough you can’t really tell a difference though. Fiberglass antennas won’t do as well as metal antennas, coils won’t do as well as straight 1/4 wave whips, but in the sense of practicality you need to work with what you got. On the other hand, a center load metal antenna got shut down by an equal length fiberglass skipshooter in my testing on local work, had even performance on DX. Both were on par as far as what the analyzer showed, but the difference in top load and center load were evident. Currently comparing a handful of centerloaded antennas, that is a post for the future.

 

I see the contradiction in the post. It’s local work that it was able to shut down the metal. The recieve however metal had fiberglass beat every time.

It’s also not often someone will run a 6-7’ fiberglass vs a metal coil antenna. I would venture to say the most common would be a 4’ firestik or k40 fiberglass as they’re the most popular in truckstops.

Just my .02