Antenna Grounding

To the frame , or the negative battery post if it's close by.

 

Isn't grounding to the battery post virtually useless? Although you will get a DC ground, you really just need an RF ground, which you will not get from that. Only the capacitance of a magnet mount can get an RF ground without the DC ground. I wasted quite a bit of time before I learned this trying to ground an antenna before.

 

Ground strap from bracket to door hinge
ground strap across the door hinge 2 cab from door
Ground strap from cab to frame
Just for Giggles why not run a ground strap from frame 2 battery
I was always taught the RF and DC potential must be equal

 

You can't ground too much, the biggest white noise difference noticed on mine was when I strapped the exhaust pipe

 

In my experience, 5 feet of 14 gauge stranded wire from my antenna mount to the negative post didn't make my external SWR meter budge under 3; it was the same without the wire. My ohm meter, OTH, liked it.

 

That 5 feet of wire was acting like an antenna. Since it wasn't resonant, swr was still high.
I try to keep all my ground straps 10 inches or shorter

 

For ground strap to be effective it needs to be as short as possible sometimes getting it as short as possible is nearly impossible... especially in tight spaces as soon as I can get about 15 more feet of strap I'm going too it's needed on a freightliner

 

Learned something.... thank you.