Antenna for Cascadia?

Does the 7' SS need to be angled 45°, or will 25° or so be alright once at speed for the antenna to be vertical?

 

25 degrees should be fine. Just try it and see. Being perfectly straight (vertical) isn't that critical on a mobile antenna while flying down the highway. After all, its just cb radio that's designed for short range communication.

 

On a taller antenna i would go at a min of of 25 deg UNLESS you drive below 40mph all the time..@ highways speeds a 6' + antenna will bend a nice bit but your speeds,strength of the winds will decide that hourly so i would do a trial & error process..
No matter what brand of antenna keep in mind its gonna be most stressfull near the base so for that,grab some semi flexable indoor water pipe a hair bigger in diameter of the antenna..It will help stabilize the antenna by eliminateing alot of the wet noodle effect that areodynamics can cause,2'-3' should do the trick..

 

You'll achieve your best match at 45°. The idea is to minimize reflection from the window Pillar.

 

Put some kind of brace on it. I slip seated and used this for years. Never broke anything. It is a piece of Lexan. Worked great! A permanent mount could be made to look a lot better than this, but this worked well for me.

 

You are correct. (Russ always said no more than 18-20 degree angle. Mine was nearly straight up, but the brace kept it away from the cab.) There is a long thread on here I started a long time ago, "Cascadia Antenna Solutions", with more pictures of my set up. It wasn't pretty, but it worked well. You could push the antenna right out against the mirror and not change the SWR, but the closer you let it get to the cab, the higher the SWR was. (I used a non-conductive object to move the antenna back and forth to see this change, not my hand!) The brace kept the antenna away from the cab and stabilized it where it wouldn't flop around. I ran it for years, never did break an antenna.

 

It's pretty sad when the mirror mount is the only RF ground on a truck today.

 

And it wasn't very good. Running the 7ft Skip Shooter helped to over come that to where it worked pretty decent.

 

Yes sir, whatever it takes to work. I remember back in the late seventies when I worked for my cousin. One day when I showed up to work, he installed a 102 inch white fibre glass antenna on the drivers mirror. I'm sure it caught about every driver traveling the opposite directions eye. But surprisingly it worked great with the Johnson 123A cb radio in the truck. I think I may have mentioned this in another thread, but I'm not sure. Sorry if this is a repeat.
My cousin is 83 now, and the the next time I see him, I will ask him if he remembers that antenna. I'm sure he will smile and say, oh yeah. Lol.

 

A 102" fibreglass ant!!! Interesting!!