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?

[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?

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

[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

[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.

Or you can get fancy... Stealth Telecom ST-940B