Kenworth T700 antenna

In my album there is a small picture of a Volvo that I did, and if you use your imagination, it looked similar to the 387 minus the negative half of the dipoles. The Volvo has an all steel body, so dipoles were unnecessary, although placement was the same.

 

Hey I'm John and new to trucking, but have been on the cb radio since the 70's.. I have been issued a 2012 Kenworth t700 , I don't see any bolts on the mirrors to use one of these mounts... Help? thanks

 

The KW T700 does not have a way to put a perch on the mirrors, what other way can you put your own antenna without doing any drilling? With the factory antennas my SWR's are way off and no way to adjust them. Any suggestions.

 

Joseph, I don't know how to put a picture on here or I would showing what I have done to a new T880. Factory setup was totally unacceptable. You said you did not want to do this but it really isn't a problem going to the back. I built an antenna bar/bracket that bolted on to the factory bar on back holding the spring to the air/electric lines. I angled down and to the rear just a little bit. Set the downward angle to give the top of Preditors a 13' 6" height. The coils of the Preditors are just barely to the outside of the sleeper just enough to "see" forward. I ran a separate ground wire from the bracket to the frame since I did not know if the air line holding bar was bolted to was grounded metal or composit. If you are more interested and have questions on the fab, pm me. Out trucking 7 to 10 days at a time so it would not be an immediate answer. You may not want to get as involved as I did but am very serious about radio performance.Currently running small Galaxis with Fatboy 600 and the factory setup stinks.

 

You should be able to do something like I did on the Casacadia. (see link below) I built my bracket although I stole the design idea. A "perch" mount looks like it would work on the mirror. If your antennas are on the the side of the sleeper, run a good coax from your radio to the antenna and get rid of all the factory stuff. Then put as long of an antenna as you can get by with on the factory mount. You will probably have to change out some connections to make it all work. Somebody on here did just that on a Cascadia with good results.

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...-forum/249124-cascadia-antenna-solutions.html

What kind of SWR reading did you get on that antenna set up like that? Your ground wire most likely didn't do anything and may have even hurt your performance. This has been explained on here many times. (do a search using the word "bonding" in the forum search box) It is not an electrical ground that you need. Your antenna needs a rf ground or ground plane to work properly. Running a long ground wire to the frame can cause that wire to act as a "radiator", but it will not create a ground plane or rf ground.

 

Thank you sir.

 

The best antenna for your truck under $30 would be a 9 foot whip. Over $30 my homemade antenna will smoke anything commercially available.

(requires drilling on mirror arm)

 

Hey Mike, you were so right! This setup and long ground caused me a lot f problems. Trashed the whole thing. Made some other mounts that raised the Preditors up 18 inches higher than stock mounts. Went to a Dave Made 5 pill. I love the transmit/receive pattern. Thank you sir for your imput.

 

Post up some pictures when you get the time!

 

So what have you got there, a homebrew mid load antenna, with a 2ft shaft? Why will your antenna "smoke anything commercially available"? I'm curious