Van Side mounted whips - SWR always suck?

[n0eq]

Anybody have good luck mounting a ball mount
and hamstick, 102" whip or just about anything
else on the SIDE of a van/SUV?

I've got a ball and spring mounted on the side of
my Astro van. I've tried several antennas on
various bands, 10m quarter, 11m stainless,
6m quarter, 20m hamstick, others. Every one of
them has really sucky SWR, like 2.5:1 at best,
with reactance of maybe 10 or more.

Is that just something that's always going to
happen because of the odd counterpoise on
the side (the vehicle body) or is there a trick?


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

http://www.n0eq.com

[WZ7U]

In my experience, thats what you get. Never have gotten a good match with that sort of mounting arrangement. Ever.


BTW, whats that coming out of yer ears? :mrgreen:

[K8WPJ]

In my experience, thats what you get. Never have gotten a good match with that sort of mounting arrangement. Ever.


BTW, whats that coming out of yer ears? :mrgreen:

That must be something unique to mounting a ball mount and whip on the side of a van... I've used both 102" stainless and fibreglass whips on ball m ounts on older (70's and 80's) sedans before and gotten better than 1.5:1 matches across 10-12m.

[N9FE]

A texas bugcatcher type or screwdriver with the coil as high as you can get it it kill any ham shtick or whatever your running. A hamstick is not even 5 percent efficent. Thats like less than 2 watts erp...

[n0eq]

A texas bugcatcher type or screwdriver with the coil as high as you can get it it kill any ham shtick or whatever your running. A hamstick is not even 5 percent efficent. Thats like less than 2 watts erp...

Yeah, yeah blah blah the anti hamstick schtick.

That's not the point. Even a full quarter wave on any of
several freq's 10-11-6 meters gave sucky SWR.


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)

[WZ7U]

I have a friend into 11 meter and in the 90's he had this van and a ballmount. Dodge van, 80's vintage. He wanted it about 6" from the back about 1/2 way down from the top. He wanted to keep from whacking things with that steel whip so in his mind it would be ok to mount the ball where I would call it low. It wouldnt tune for crap. He even tried a fiberglass whip and some loaded coil thing with an adjustable stinger to try to 'tune' it out. On a whim I fabricated a set of threaded stainless rods of graduating lengths and settled on an 18"er to get his 'swrs back into the antenna'. Of course his antenna worked better, he was whacking stuff with it again. Boy was it heavy too. Not sure how long that one lasted.

Those were the days :mrgreen:

[n0eq]

I have a friend into 11 meter and in the 90's he had this van and a ballmount. Dodge van, 80's vintage. He wanted it about 6" from the back about 1/2 way down from the top. He wanted to keep from whacking things with that steel whip so in his mind it would be ok to mount the ball where I would call it low. It wouldnt tune for crap. He even tried a fiberglass whip and some loaded coil thing with an adjustable stinger to try to 'tune' it out. On a whim I fabricated a set of threaded stainless rods of graduating lengths and settled on an 18"er to get his 'swrs back into the antenna'. Of course his antenna worked better, he was whacking stuff with it again. Boy was it heavy too. Not sure how long that one lasted.


Thanks - Did the threaded rods you mention extend the
length of the antenna at the TIP or at the BASE or
something else? Did you make the length of the
radiating element longer or somehow extend the
mount below the feedpoint?

I keep picturing that trooper SUV in some other thread
(maybe on hamsexy) with the low band ball mount
whip on the side, near the gas cap door.


Lumpy

You Played on Lawrence Welk?
Yes but no blue notes. Just blue hairs.

http://www.LumpyMusic.com

[N9FE]

Dude i'm not anti any antenna. I'm just telling what works. If your out in the sticks you need a antenna that performs. Just like hf an 102 whip was limited the day they were built in the 50's. Your trying to get something out of a product thats inefficiant as h@lll. Thats all i'm saying. I tell people all the time, as i do myself. Save up and buy something worth buying. Otherwise your wasting your time and hard earned money. Not being rude or a know it all and most respect to you...

[WZ7U]

Basically an extension of the whip. The rod threaded into the ball mount and had a threaded socket for the whip.

[WØTKX]

My experience is that the lower ball mount is it screws up more...

Tilt the antenna away from the body at an angle, if the SWR drops, it's a problem.

Some vehicles have less metal behind the panel, and if you can get the ball mount back far enough so it's almost on the corner of the vehicle (and not near structural metal), there is less of an effect. Avoid thicker structural pieces. Have had luck with old vans doing this, especially ones with glass.

My little '85 Toyota 4x4 Van has a hatch style rear door, so I used one of those adjustable angle hatch/trunk lip mounts on it.

Just give up and put the ball mount on the roof like a giant bumper car. I'm seriously considering doing that to the Toyota. :mrgreen:

Or you can get fancy... Stealth Telecom ST-940B (http://www.stealth.ae/plugins/custompages/detinf.php?id=372&id_categories=136)

http://www.smeter.net/antennas/images/stealth-st940b-2.jpg

[n0eq]

Dude i'm not anti any antenna. I'm just telling what works. If your out in the sticks you need a antenna that performs. Just like hf an 102 whip was limited the day they were built in the 50's. Your trying to get something out of a product thats inefficiant as h@lll. Thats all i'm saying. I tell people all the time, as i do myself. Save up and buy something worth buying. Otherwise your wasting your time and hard earned money. Not being rude or a know it all and most respect to you...

What are you basing your "hamsticks don't work" comments on?
Have you tested hamsticks against other options?

100 percent of my ops are w QRP 5w phone, battery powered,
either in the sticks or on my property in the simulated sticks.
I've made contacts all over the world on hamsticks as well
as a lot of other antennas that naysayers insist "don't work"
or are "inefficient".

Now tell me how you think a screwdriver outperforms a hamstick?
Then tell me how you think either of them outperforms
a full 1/4 wave vertical.


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

http://www.n0eq.com

[N9FE]

You'll learn someday. I'm not going to tell you something the world knows. Hamsticks are less the 5 percent efficent. Thats why there 1000's of hams with hamsticks laying in there garage. You have a good day.. Maybe do a little reading and listening. You just might get a signal..

[N9FE]

http://www.inarrl.org/75mshootout.html Start here. Operators that work the world on 160 meters.. MOBILE!!!.. You don't see any hamsticks now do you. Just like a G5RV. Inefficient JUNK

[n0eq]

You'll learn someday. I'm not going to tell you something the world knows. Hamsticks are less the 5 percent efficent. Thats why there 1000's of hams with hamsticks laying in there garage. You have a good day.. Maybe do a little reading and listening. You just might get a signal..

Ok. I get it. You haven't really used a hamstick.
You just follow what others claim who are
following what others claim etc.

But I'll keep in mind that you're not anti any antenna.


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

http://www.n0eq.com

[N9FE]

[attachment=0:238xxbru]img00003.jpg[/attachment:238xxbru] This a Moblie antenna. Now you know what they look like. I'm not going to waste any more time with someone who will NOT learn.. You have a good day. Someday maybe you will get a signal. And you will see exactly what an azz your making out of yourself. By By

[n0eq]

This a Moblie antenna. Now you know what they look like. I'm not going to waste any more time with someone who will NOT learn.. You have a good day. Someday maybe you will get a signal. And you will see exactly what an azz your making out of yourself. By By

I have yet to see you support your claim that
hamsticks are only 5% efficient. So far, all I see
is, rather than address my question on van ball mounts,
you brought up the old grayface argument that
"hamsticks can't work".

Well, that argument doesn't fly with me. I base my opinion
of what works on whether or not I make contacts, not on
what some colostomy bag club claims.

Now if you've got an opinion, on ball mounts, or even
on hamsticks, based on something you have actually
done, I'd like to hear it. But I haven't seen that
from you.

And just for fun, could you let me know just one more
time how you're not anti-hamstick?


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

http://www.n0eq.com

[N9FE]

25 years of Mobile and 3.5 million miles. No i don't have a clue what works and what don't . Not a clue. You have a good day..

[n0eq]

My experience is that the lower ball mount is it screws up more...

Tilt the antenna away from the body at an angle, if the SWR drops, it's a problem.


Thanks -
That seems to be what I'm finding. VERY sensitive SWR
when I move my body or a metal step ladder toward
or away from the vehicle. And, as you suggest, tilting
the antenna away from the vehicle improves the SWR.
That seems predictable, as if I'm turning the antenna
into a sort of horizontal ground plane.

I'm running out of room on the roof of my van.

One more antenna and I think I'll need a
storm chaser decal.

Lumpy

You played on "The Love Boat"?
Yes. White tux, huge sideburns.

http://www.LumpyMusic.com

[WZ7U]

[attachment=0:2wd5qcb7]img00003.jpg[/attachment:2wd5qcb7]
Nice. Very sanitary. It helps not having an exhaust stack in that location. Im jealous :mrgreen:

[N9FE]

[attachment=0:ekunx7ua]img00003.jpg[/attachment:ekunx7ua]
Nice. Very sanitary. It helps not having an exhaust stack in that location. Im jealous :mrgreen: Yes and you should hear the signal that baby barks out !!

[KG4CGC]

I just scanned through the posts here. That said, side mounting on a van creates too much reflected signal off of the van body. This literally feeds back into your antenna.
Roof mounting has clearance issues in certain situations. A nylon cable attached to a winding motor and spool, can be used to pull the antenna down when parking or passing through the drive through after a gig.
It may seem like too much work but you will be happy you took the time to sort it out in the manner I've described.

[N9FE]

http://www.kj9t.com/Real_Tuner/gallery.html Your looking for a real tuner, and how to build one...[attachment=0:8u7fda9u]thmb0009.jpg[/attachment:8u7fda9u] Its a thing of beauty.

[WØTKX]

Hamsticks are not that efficient, and it's worse on the lower bands... but who cares if you can make a contact. Mounting and grounding the antenna system, no mater what it is, is a very big deal for efficiency.

I have a few hamsticks, and have used two 75/80 meter hamsticks as a portable rotatable dipole with some success. They work, and they are cheap.

Years ago, I ran an HW-101 mobile for a while, and used the hustler stuff. Even with a Godzilla car (1962 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 "Holiday" big block) I had to ground strap the trunk, body panels and frame to get it to work well. It worked OK, I made contacts, but after I optimized it by electrically connecting all the metal on that beast... it worked a lot better after that.

A very opinionated but thorough website about mobile hamming is at http://www.k0bg.com

But who gives a smelly nugget if the radio keeps the smoke in and you can be heard. :mrgreen:

OK Lumpy, you haven't responded about gigs in the mountains. How about New Mexico? Maybe that was it, I used to make frequent trips with the ex on our motorcycles to NM. Green Chili Pilgrimages. :mrgreen:

[N9FE]

Even the best mobile antenna built is maybe 12 to 15 percent efficient. Hamsticks are about 2 percent if your lucky. That is fact. But it is a free country. You can belive and do as you wish..

[KG4CGC]

http://www.kj9t.com/Real_Tuner/gallery.html Your looking for a real tuner, and how to build one...[attachment=0:2dcffh9h]thmb0009.jpg[/attachment:2dcffh9h] Its a thing of beauty.

Thanks for that. It will be a good study for me.

[n0eq]

OK Lumpy, you haven't responded about gigs in the mountains. How about New Mexico? Maybe that was it, I used to make frequent trips with the ex on our motorcycles to NM. Green Chili Pilgrimages. :mrgreen:

I must have missed the question.

"gigs in the mountains"?

What?


Lumpy

You played on "The Love Boat"?
Yes. White tux, huge sideburns.

http://www.LumpyMusic.com

[w2amr]

OK Lumpy, you haven't responded about gigs in the mountains. How about New Mexico? Maybe that was it, I used to make frequent trips with the ex on our motorcycles to NM. Green Chili Pilgrimages. :mrgreen:

I must have missed the question.

"gigs in the mountains"?

What?


Lumpy

You played on "The Love Boat"?
Yes. White tux, huge sideburns.

http://www.LumpyMusic.com
Have you tried loading up them bananas?

[N1LAF]

I use the Ironhorse whips, and I have been satisfied with the performance of these whips from 40M and up to 6M. On 15M, I had no problems working Europe, and on 40M I can work from Connecticut down to Alabama, Florida, Minn, Michigan, Western PA, even Luke in VA.

The total length of the antenna is about 8 feet. It does have a coil mid way up the antenna, but I suspect the Q isn't very high. I have a 1.1:1 match at the center of band, and use a LDG tuner away from the center of band.

For 20, 17,15,12, 10, and 6M, no tuner needed.

When In was vacationing in Maine, I used two whips configured as a dipole, and had no problems working back home to southern Connecticut.

http://paulfelgate.com/hamradio/ironhorse/index.html

[n0eq]

I use the Ironhorse whips, and I have been satisfied with the performance of these whips from 40M and up to 6M. On 15M, I had no problems working Europe, and on 40M I can work from Connecticut down to Alabama, Florida, Minn, Michigan, Western PA, even Luke in VA.

The total length of the antenna is about 8 feet. It does have a coil mid way up the antenna, but I suspect the Q isn't very high. I have a 1.1:1 match at the center of band, and use a LDG tuner away from the center of band.

For 20, 17,15,12, 10, and 6M, no tuner needed.

When In was vacationing in Maine, I used two whips configured as a dipole, and had no problems working back home to southern Connecticut.

http://paulfelgate.com/hamradio/ironhorse/index.html

You must be mistaken. N9FE says they can't possibly work
and he's driven a lot of miles.


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

http://www.n0eq.com

[N9FE]

Your not worth my time lumpy

[n0eq]

Your not worth my time lumpy

Well, then stop trying to convince me that
you are some kind of expert in something.

I ask about side mounted antennas on vans.

Then I hear unsupported guesses from you
that hamsticks are either 5%, 2% or 15%
efficient.

Even though the topic of hamsticks wasn't
my original question, I ask you to support
your claims, show some evidence, for any
of your stated percentages. Best you
can come up with is "I've driven a lot
of miles and you don't want to learn".

Well, sir, I've made hundreds of contacts
over multi thousands of miles with hamsticks
and lots of other compromise antennas, all
on 5w phone. So as far as the desire to
learn, my ears are wide open. You present
some knowledge, evidence, facts, anything
except calling me an azz, and I'll have a listen.

In the mean time, I'm not worth your time.
So go away. I have nothing in the world
to prove to you. Go drive another friggin
gazillion miles. And that gray faced argument
about "hamsticks can't work" can go over to
the zed, as far as I'm concerned. Or it can
stay right here. Or you can do anything with
it you like.

Your "I'm a grumpy old man and I'm right because
I say so" doesn't fly a femtometer with me.

Now go polish your withumbrence on the melistrinal.


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)

[N9FE]

Any time your ready to show me or anyone else your big sig from where ever the hell you are you just jump right on 3.913 any frickin evening. I'm there talking nationwide every evening. So just fire up that hamstick and give er. I'll be a waitin. Maybe N7IU jim in bakersfield will relay for you.. ANY TIME... You come show me that big sig .. OK there lumpy...

[n0eq]

Any time your ready to show me or anyone else your big sig from where ever the hell you are you just jump right on 3.913 any frickin evening. I'm there talking nationwide every evening. So just fire up that hamstick and give er. I'll be a waitin. Maybe N7IU jim in bakersfield will relay for you.. ANY TIME... You come show me that big sig .. OK there lumpy...

I thought you didn't have "time for me"?

How about you do what you want to do in the hobby.
I'll do what I want to do in the hobby.

I don't seem to care about what you do nearly as much
as you care about what I do.

Sorry you feel so threatened by my success with my antennas.

I'm not even sure you've ever used a hamstick. And if you did,
apparently you didn't have the results you wanted. But I'm
guessing a big part of your antenna "knowledge" comes from reading
what other grumpy old guys on zed heard other grumpy
old guys say on the zed.

No problem with me. I'm secure in my real world experience
with every antenna I've ever experimented with. No amount
of "I know that can't work" will convince ME in MY situation
with MY equipment that it's not working for ME.

My logbook is half full BECAUSE of my antennas.
Yours is apparently half empty because of the antennas you DON'T use.

Fun hobby, eh..:)


Lumpy

Can you play country music?
Sure. Which country would you like?

www.LumpyMusic.com (http://www.LumpyMusic.com)

[WZ7U]

As long as its not van side mounted :mrgreen:

[WØTKX]

As long as its not van side mounted :mrgreen:

Nooooo, anything but the side mount. :snooty

[kd8dey]

Yo lumpy! Did you get the E-mail about the other site?

As a reformed CBer I learned a long time ago that antennas mounted on the back or the side of a van didn't work too hot.

Proved it to a guy I knew when I lived in Kentucky by sitting side by side to him in his van, Me in my Bonneville with a trunk mounted K40 antenna, and out talking him on my stock radio. He wasn't too happy with that :mrgreen: since he thought he was the (I think the word is Shiznit but I could be mistaken) of CB in that lil Hick town. :mrgreen: All that metal blocking over 1/2 of his antenna and mine pretty much in the clear LOL, Who would have figured.........

On my "Stro" I have a ball mount in the center of the roof left over from 11m that I mounted a SF-2 in, replacing a 5/8 11m firestick, and have been happy with it.

Had the Idea of unscrewing the SF-2 and replacing it with whatever I needed if operating on another band mobile when I had my 897 installed in it.

Used a circular saw blade to reinforce the roof for bigger antennas such as the one that has 4 coils mounted to the top of the shaft, 1 on top and 3 in a triangle pattern sticking from the sides for HF.

Dont recall the make/model, Just that R&L had it on sale for $70.00......

[n0eq]

Yo lumpy! Did you get the E-mail about the other site?

As a reformed CBer I learned a long time ago that antennas
mounted on the back or the side of a van didn't work too hot.


Got the Astro link, thanks. My spam filter almost killed it
but for some reason I checked and then let it through.

I guess I'm seeing the same thing, side mounts on a big
metal grounded box do indeed suck. Maybe I'll turn the
mount so that the antenna is horizontal. Then I'll have
an NVIS ground plane with an earth reflector about
4 feet "behind" the driven element..;-)

I've got one of those military center fed dipoles that
normally mount on Bradleys and Patriots and tanks.
In free space (wooden pole) it's great at 6m. But
mount it on the van, even with the radiating section
ABOVE the van metal by several inches, and it's still
way out of resonance. There just seems to be too
much capacitance between the grounded body
of the van and even this elevated vertical.

In any case, I added an additional two NMOs to
my roof. That freakin' thing looks like a pincushion.
Ten antennas total. One is a GPS puck and one is
the AM/FM broadcast whip on the front fender,
but every thing else is a stick in the air.

So I've not got this groovy, ultra heavy duty, unused,
military side mount. I'm thinkin' of mounting a little
LED on the tip of some antenna and using it for
a "firefly". We used to do that in the 60s with
a 24 ga enameled wire running up a 102" steel
whip. In those days we mounted a little incandescant
light bulb on the end. Illegal for highway use, I'm sure.
But it made for a groovy "beacon" on Van Nuys Blvd
on cruise night.

Thanks everybody for the ideas.


Lumpy

Can you do that FM disc jockey voice?
Yes, but it doesn't translate well in ascii.
www.LumpyMusic.com (http://www.LumpyMusic.com)

[N2NH]

Have you tried loading up them bananas?

Yeh, but that'll only work when Lumpy's happy to see you. :mrgreen:

Honestly, I've never really seen a mobile antenna that works unless it was trunk or roof mounted. Fender mounted isn't bad if you don't mind the signal being skewed to one side (at least from my experience). OTOH, if it's only 30-40" or so, a fender mount doesn't attract much attention either.

I did see a design that looked horizontally polarized a few years back. Went like a "U" around the roof via the back of the van - looked a bit like an open ended square loop. Some people claimed it worked pretty well.

[N8YX]

Weighing in to this here debate:

The reason that the whip antenna isn't working worth a darn is that there is simply too much coupling between it and the van's body; this in the form of capacitance. The reactance value given earlier in the thread is a clear indicator.

Does the van have a trailer hitch or similar mount structure available? If so...make up a mounting bracket which will allow 12-18" separation between the van body and whip.

When I had a full-sized truck ('90 Bronco) available I used a set of Hustler "Super" resonators, 54" foldover mast and a bumper mount as my main HF antenna. It had a spider which would allow three resonators to be installed at one time and I usually opted for 80-40-20 or 40-20-10. Another clamp-style mount with a 3/8"-24 receptacle was fastened to the truck's spare-tire carrier arm and it was equipped with either a 6M 5/8w or 10/11M center-loaded 1/4w whip, depending on which radios were installed in the truck at the moment.

I later got hold of some WARC-band resonators and occasionally used the setup on 12 and 17. Running 100w to the Hustler produced a lot of contacts.

[W6WBJ]

Lumpy, I have a van, too, but I don't know the answer to your question. I've often asked myself the same thing. I'm thinking that my next mobile antenna setup will be a screwdriver-type, mounted on the top of the van, with a foldover spring-loaded mount of some kind so I could pull the antenna down at a low angle while driving. I know that's a less-than-perfect solution, though. My van is an older one with a fibreglass pop-top. Is there any necessity on HF for the mobile antenna in such an installation to be mounted on a steel part of the body?

[n0eq]

Lumpy, I have a van, too, but I don't know the answer to your question. I've often asked myself the same thing. I'm thinking that my next mobile antenna setup will be a screwdriver-type, mounted on the top of the van, with a foldover spring-loaded mount of some kind so I could pull the antenna down at a low angle while driving. I know that's a less-than-perfect solution, though. My van is an older one with a fibreglass pop-top. Is there any necessity on HF for the mobile antenna in such an installation to be mounted on a steel part of the body?

My screwdriver works great dead center of the van roof.
Lots of counterpoise metal up there.

I experimented some more with my side mount whip.
Considering the ground (car body) is a few inches
from the driven element, I assumed it was seeing
a lot of cap reactance. So I tried balancing that
with some inductance from an MFJ tuner. I just
wasn't able to kill enough those Henries.

So next I approached the situation as if the whip
and car body were something like a J pole.

Sure enough that got pretty good success. I shorted
the whip to the body at the level of the roof, about
3' above the base of the whip. THAT allowed me to
tune it up on several bands. But looks stoopider 'an hell.

So for now, I've simply got a big stick in the sky doin' nutin.
It's holding a hamstick just for something to do.

But I just scored a 50' rohn push up mast.
I've got some 'sperimentin' to do.. ;)


Craig 'Lumpy' Lemke

www.n0eq.com (http://www.n0eq.com)

[kb2crk]

i tried a temporary set up with 2 ham sticks on a trailer hitch mount and could not get the 75 m stick to tune with an external tuner. 20m would tune but did not perform well. the same antennas mounted on the trunk lid of my car work very well and tune easily with the internal tuner in the radio. the steel of the van does have an effect.

[VO1GXG]

Unless the majority of the antenna is sticking past the roof of the van, you will get poor matching because the body of the car is interfering with the antenna.

For a van i always suggest mounting the ball mount on the front passenger side fender as its the only clear place to do it.

My mobile is mounted on the bumper but was originally on the truck lid and there was a major change in the antenna match because the antenna was in the clear but is has a foot of the truck about an inch away from it.


http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt271/VO1GXG/Car_Medium_-1.jpg

[w2amr]

Unless the majority of the antenna is sticking past the roof of the van, you will get poor matching because the body of the car is interfering with the antenna.

For a van i always suggest mounting the ball mount on the front passenger side fender as its the only clear place to do it.

My mobile is mounted on the bumper but was originally on the truck lid and there was a major change in the antenna match because the antenna was in the clear but is has a foot of the truck about an inch away from it.


http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt271/VO1GXG/Car_Medium_-1.jpg
You lost a hub cap.

[VO1GXG]

Unless the majority of the antenna is sticking past the roof of the van, you will get poor matching because the body of the car is interfering with the antenna.

For a van i always suggest mounting the ball mount on the front passenger side fender as its the only clear place to do it.

My mobile is mounted on the bumper but was originally on the truck lid and there was a major change in the antenna match because the antenna was in the clear but is has a foot of the truck about an inch away from it.


http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt271/VO1GXG/Car_Medium_-1.jpg
You lost a hub cap.

Missing two hub caps from the back ( they are hanging in my garage) and the grille but that's only cosmetics

[KG4CGC]

So then, did ya ever try the nylon cable wind down idea?

[w2amr]

Unless the majority of the antenna is sticking past the roof of the van, you will get poor matching because the body of the car is interfering with the antenna.

For a van i always suggest mounting the ball mount on the front passenger side fender as its the only clear place to do it.

My mobile is mounted on the bumper but was originally on the truck lid and there was a major change in the antenna match because the antenna was in the clear but is has a foot of the truck about an inch away from it.


http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt271/VO1GXG/Car_Medium_-1.jpg
You lost a hub cap.

Missing two hub caps from the back ( they are hanging in my garage) and the grille but that's only cosmetics
Yup, don't hurt the running of it any.

[VO1GXG]

Unless the majority of the antenna is sticking past the roof of the van, you will get poor matching because the body of the car is interfering with the antenna.

For a van i always suggest mounting the ball mount on the front passenger side fender as its the only clear place to do it.

My mobile is mounted on the bumper but was originally on the truck lid and there was a major change in the antenna match because the antenna was in the clear but is has a foot of the truck about an inch away from it.


http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt271/VO1GXG/Car_Medium_-1.jpg
You lost a hub cap.

Missing two hub caps from the back ( they are hanging in my garage) and the grille but that's only cosmetics
Yup, don't hurt the running of it any.


Well...it don't run no more but it was fine when i took the snap ;)