Freightliner Cascadia maximum distance transmitting

Anyone use grounding plates anymore?

 

26 miles mobile to mobile in my Cascadia. Me at mm105 in Illinois on I-80. Other driver at mm79.

Also did 11 miles mobile to mobile in the mountains northeast of Birmingham, AL. Me at mm133 on I-20, other driver at mm144.

Both contacts made with a 7 foot Firestik and a ground plane element below. (Basically a vertical dipole.)

 

Updated.

 

Also, remember that your range is only that of the guy you're talking to. Only getting 5 miles on someone may simply indicate that they have no range. I'd wager that 75% of the drivers out here that do still have/use radios are not set up correctly.

 

And range is determined by a number of variables, from quality of antenna to setup of antenna to amount of ambient terrestrial/man made noise to receiver tune to transmitter power.

 

I like to get my checks from people I know if possible. See you put a brace on your mirror. A little close up shot of that would be nice.

 

Take a dremel tool with a cut-off wheel and etch the inside of that bracket and it will stay put. That's how I fixed mine. I used a tic-tac-toe pattern, took about 10 minutes.

 

OK I don't want to seem dumb on this but what is the problem with the POS cascadia (I don't like them by the way).

Is it the cabs is all fiberglass?

Or is it that the door and top of the cab is all fiberglass?

Or what?

 

None of my setup is Wilson though. All supposedly better materials.