No ground antenna on cascadia?

That's what I've been running on my 2016 cascadia for a couple of years is a 5.5 Francis and I guess it likes it, no problems..

 

I tried about three different lengths of Francis, 4, 4.5, 5.5 as well as the big coil antennas and Wilsons, and different length SkipShooters. A couple of those would have worked just fine on 27.185, but I used 26.735 a lot. The 7ft SkipShooter covered that without any problem. I did brace my antenna. I posted pictures in the thread I referenced earlier. If you look at them, keep in mind I slip-seated every week so my antenna setup looks temporary..... because it is.

 

Love to find a way to steady up my ant more but that set up to me doesnt look truck pretty..
Thought briefly about some sorta plastic bar from door and stuff along those lines but gave up and just let my 102" flex as the wind wants...Well the upper 5 ft of it anyways..

 

I was driving a Walmart truck, pretty was not in my vocabulary! I just wanted it to work well, and it did.

 

I used a NGP antenna on a Cascadia until I quit the company, I got just about what was advertised, about 80% of the performance of a good antenna with a good ground plane.

 

Well for me im selfish and want both..Gotta work well and look good..

 

There's a thread on here about NGP antennas. It seems like someone said they got out around 2 miles, if I remember correctly.

 

Until you get the antenna system working properly, I wouldn't spend a bunch of money on a radio. That can come later. It doesn't matter how much power or how flashy the radio is, if the antenna system is poor, your not going to talk or hear very far. By antenna system, I mean antenna, coax, mount, and RF ground.

 

What setup do you recommend for RF ground?