Top vs base-loaded antennas

Holy ####! How well would that work mounted on the bar above the back window. I don't like the mirror mount for several reasons one of them being going thru the trees. I do some off roading with the big truck at times during mulch season and I've had bad luck breaking antennas off from mirrors. In the middle behind the cab seems to work best for me.
How durable are those? I bet they work quite well huh?

 

I'd have to agree it's tough to beat a wilson whip for durability.

 

It depends a lot on what kind of trailer you're pulling-if it's something pretty low, it'll probably work well. I used to pull a dump trailer and flatbed with a daycab with the antenna on the back bar. The receive to the rear was terrible with the dump, and better with the flatbed. This was with a Wilson SW-2000 (which is the one with the long shaft/short whip). I switched to a top loaded 5' Everhardt for a while, and the receive to the rear was noticeably better, which I credit to the antenna design/application. To me, if you want to run a something big like a Predator in an application where you're going to be hitting stuff, the only way to do it is on a fold-over mount on the driver's mirror so you can just reach out the window and get it out of the way.

 

As long as that bar on the back of the Cab has a good ground, then the Predator will work just fine there. (I would suggest figuring out a way to run a couple of ground straps off that bar to the frame tho.)

As for the stingers on the SW Dual Coil Predator 10K, they are very similar to what Wilson uses. They do have a larger ball on top, and are just a tad thicker, but still vary flexible...

 

Yeah I've been thinking of grounding that bar better no matter what I use for an antenna. I assume it's bolted to some sort of framing behind the rear panel skin and my setup gets a really good swr but it still makes me wonder if it's enough. I was at least going to run a strap from the passenger side bolt to the big bracket the stack is attached to and that in turn is bolted to the frame at the bottom. I think that would be plenty of ground and only requires about a 14 inch strap to reach the nearest big bolt.
Actually I think that would tie that bar to the entire frame of the truck and that would be some heavy duty grounding.
Mounted where it is I know I'm better off with the top load pulling vans in the winter and a walking floor in the summer. I clear the top of the walking floor by 6-8 inches with my current top load. A center load would definitely have a problem to the rear as much as i would like to have the steel whip and extra foot. Most of that power is in the center loaded coil and would be too low for rear projection.
Think I'll stick with what I have.