Uniden pro 510x Static

lwlevens could have bought a Uniden 520 xl that has rf gain. That would have helped a lot.

 

Maybe in your world. Not always in mine.

 

The amount of static someone listens to is directly proportional to the amount of common mode current that is occurring and the lack of effort they put into installing the antenna system and mitigating that problem.
No1PC: A Collection of Mobile Installation DC and RF Tips

 

OK I guess, common mode in a passive feed line.

I learn something new every day ....

By the way the article you posted has a flaw, here it is -

Ground implies Earth.

Got that? ...

"What happens with RF voltages and currents if not properly contained, terminated, matched, efficiently directed to a radiator and balanced with a decent counterpoise is anyone's guess."

If the author knows what he is talking about, which he is close to it in the following passage excluding the flaw, then he knows one fact that many of you should learn about antenna systems and how they work.

There is no earth ground attached to the vehicle hence there is no way to have a counterpoise.

The passage is good to explain to some of you how this works, your vehicle is a giant capacitor like a magnet mount.

Mobiles Have No Ground!
Ground implies Earth. Supported by 2, 3, 4, or more rubber tires, no vehicle has any contact with ground. A vehicle chassis and frame act as coupling for ground-effect.

At best... at least on VHF and UHF, perhaps low-VHF if the vehicle is big enough, you have a less than ideal counterpoise for a classic vertical antenna.

Few vehicles are large enough to be an adequate counterpoise for any frequency below 28 MHz, and even that is dubious with mid-size and compact cars.

The best we have at 28 MHz and below is a rolling coupling device to obtain ground-effect. When you see how current motor vehicles are put together, that capability is highly questionable - a vehicle body is seldom a contiguous piece of metal with electrical conductivity from roof to axles.

To get RF counterpoise currents to a counterpoise and begin to establish ground-effect coupling requires very low-impedance conductivity from the antenna feedpoint to the lowest components of the vehicle - the frame, axles, lower body pan.

You are simply NOT going to get a good RF ground with a clip-on/clamp-on window or door mount alone... NOT POSSIBLE. You need a LOT of FAT CONDUCTORS!

Imagine every surface of your car/truck is an isolated sheet of poorly conductive sheet metal - NOT electrically connected to anything next to it.

From that expectation... figure out how to get as much conductivity from the base/feedpoint of your antenna to everything under your vehicle. THAT is how you begin to establish ground-effect coupling so that your mobile antenna has some form of, admittedly compromised (high-impedance) counterpoise.

No mobile will ever be perfect for HF operation, but with a little bit of work you can get it to be better than a horribly poor and inefficient RF termination.

 

When I roll through a city I often have to turn the squelch up, and when I roll out of it I can turn the squelch down. Big deal.

 

I got a little bit of noise when I stop at some traffic lights in Wilkes Barre PA.
This is me listening while I'm rolling around Wilkes-Barre running errands.
Pretty quiet most of the time though.
I'm sure if this was an installation in a tractor-trailer my noise level would be much greater.

 

It seems like while moving any noise seems to be greatest.
When parked the noise seems to mostly disappear.
On a rainy day the noise seems to disappear completely regardless of whether I'm driving or parked.

 

What you said is basically the same scenario for me and this Peterbilt. It doesn’t matter which radio I run in this truck, the electronic stop lites raise the noise level while rolling through town. I am using a hustler antenna. Unfortunately, last year the boss let some guy install a wireless Internet antenna on a lite post by our shop. So now every time I roll into the yard to get a load, I have to turn the RF gain down due to the high noise level. Static is just the nature of AM radio, especially in the HF bands.

 

I will post this alone so some of you get to look into it, from my above post

One reason for static is that there is more than one type of static charge that is created while moving.

Standing still, this type of static doesn't get generated.

The water or wetness that happens literally grounds the vehicle so that static goes to the earth ground.